Thursday at the river, today's birthday girls

We stayed under the bridge today, the kids explored and went down the rapids.

This picture was from yesterday, Rielee went down first with the other girls behind her.

Next came Harper, her mouth is wide open with a scream, but she made it through without tipping over.

These sweet 11 year olds spent their birthday morning playing badminton and a game of 31, then Daddy picked them up to take them to home to celebrate! 

Early birthday party with cousins

 Wednesday - Look who's almost 11, Friday is their birthday but we had an early party with Jillian, Bridget, Tor, Rielee and Emily.

 The girls came up in the morning and started the day off with a Treasure Hunt, searching for clues I had hidden all around the yard, which led them to the "treasure" box buried in the sandbox.

 Next we met Cathy, Bob and the kids at the river.  It was kind of exciting when Rielee and Tor fell off the small tubes on the bigger rapids.  They made it safely to shore but with a few scrapes. 

 Back home and time for the party, they had fun in the heat playing "pass the water" 

 and "squeeze the water" 

played a messy "find the gummy bears" (no hands) game,

 played water balloon games and ended with a huge water balloon fight.

 They had cupcakes and ice cream and the girls opened lots of nice gifts.

 It's great how these kiddos all get along so well.

It was one successful party and fun day.

Josie sightings

 I visited with Josie while Mom changed her diaper Sunday at Grandma's, then I got to hold her.

She's such a sweet baby.

Yesterday they were out for a walk in the woods and Josie was sound asleep, she'd wake up 

momentarily and look around but conk right back out.

River, pool, badminton

Tuesday was so nice and hot, a perfect day for a trip to the river.

The girls did some floating, although most of the rapids near the bridge are too shallow, they would  walk upstream and float down.

After a couple of hours we had the beach all to ourselves for awhile.  

 They had fun just playing in the sand and trying to build a castle on a rock in the river.

When we got home Rielee called and invited them over to swim, her cousins Isaac and Emily were there also.  They spent 2 more hours in the water then they played badminton.  

We finished the night with a game of Monopoly, which Ava won easily.

Played another game this morning since it was wet out, Papa won that one, with Harper second.  Then we made Papa play Apples to Apples, and he won.

Josie

Josie and Mom were visiting at Grandma's today.  Emmy called when Josie woke up from a nap so I got to see those big blue eyes of hers, and she smiled several times.  What a sweetie!

Auntie Auna was there, too,

and Kendyl and Parker came over.   Kendyl hadn't met Josie yet,  so she held her until she fell asleep again.  She saw lots of smiles, too.

Visiting Josie

We got to see Josie on Friday when she and Mom were visiting at Grandma and Grandpa's house.
She didn't want to wake up but once she did I got to see her get a bit unhappy (scream) while getting her diaper changed and then she rolled over during her tummy time!  So strong and such a cutie!

Little bakers

Friday we went to Charb and Kelly's to say hi, Ava had asked for a cake mix so I brought them a couple.   Later, Harper sent me a picture of the cake they made, with sprinkles on her half.