A Fun Day at the Lake

I can't believe that summer is just about over! I already have my kids all registered for school and school clothes shopping is going to happen this weekend (courtesy of Jeff, bless his heart!). I feel like I need to cram in all the stuff that I have wanted to do all summer but just haven't yet. We have all but lived at the ball park this summer.

So.... we have managed to see 3 movies in the past couple of days and today we went to the lake with some of our neighbors. Molly swam and splashed and played with Leah, Sarah, and Abby.

Caden didn't leave the water all day.

Jens and Sean paddled across the lake and fished the afternoon away.

And these three girlies.....

did what girls love to do best. They paddled out into the middle of the lake and tried to get some sun and dark tans before school starts back up.

Mandie and Jody paddled the little girls around and I sat on the beach with my camera! It was perfect! Couldn't have asked for a better day to spend at the lake.

Molly was beat and fell asleep on the way home. One of my favorite things about Molly is how she loves hair. It's her security blanket. I think she is sweeter than sweet!

Why?

Why Miss Molly? Not only does she have the red up and down her arms, she also has a horrible little red Hitler mustache.

National Little League World Series

Did anyone watch the Little League World Series on TV (CBS Sports Network) this year???

My oldest son Jens plays on an accelerated baseball team called the Diamond Dawgs. They have played so incredibly well this year! It has been so fun to watch their games. They qualified to play in the National Little League World Series in Steamboat Springs, Colorado this past week.

Our boys came in and for some reason in the pool play, they lost 2 games that we should have won. The teams were completely beatable but we made a couple of errors that cost us the games. As a result, we were seeded really low. But our team did not let us down! They got on a winning streak and battled back hard to beat every team we played game after game (including the teams we lost to in pool play). After 13 games, which translates into 26 hours of baseball...... we were finally finished. We ended up taking 3rd place overall and we could not have been prouder of our boys!

This ski jump is right on the side of the mountain next to the ball park. I literally did not even have to leave my seat to take these pictures of the jumpers. The baseball park is in such a pretty setting. I could watch games there everyday!

After the games the kids would go swimming.

The boys all tried at once to attack Jeff and dunk him.

These boys are on an average of 5' 3" to 6 feet tall and try as they might, they could not get Jeff down! It was so funny to watch!

Then Travis got in the pool and they went after him but they couldn't get him down either!

Then after everyone was exhausted from the "stay afloat struggle" they went to relax in the hot tub.

Baseball, baseball, and more baseball!

On Sunday afternoon we finally lost out. Our team (in blue) congratulating the opposing team.

Then we had the awards ceremony and received our medals. The World Series officials said that they have not seen a team who was seeded so low come back to win as far as we did in the last 35 years! I thought that was a real compliment to our kids of how hard they work and how well they play together.

Also, after EVERY SINGLE game, the opposing coach would comment to Jeff (who is our head coach) on how impressed they were of our boys because they had clean language. Everyone else that we played would drop the "F" word when they would strike out or use other profanities. But our boys are not allowed to swear on the team and it's a rule that is enforced. So long story short, I'm proud of the Dawgs for their good example, their clean language, and how hard they played!

After the games on Sunday afternoon, just before we came home, we went tubing down the Yampa River to celebrate and relax!

It was so much fun.

I got flipped over along with 2 of the boys (that's me in the red with the yellow tube trying to get to where the current wasn't so strong so that I could get back on!)

It was such a fun trip!

Loop Hair Bows

I have been wanting to make Molly some of these loop hair bows but I didn't know how. I finally found out how to on the Internet. They are really easy! Here's how!

*You will need some korker ribbon of your choosing. Whatever colors or patterns you like that will match with the clothes you want to wear them with.

*sharp scissors

*clear nail polish, an E6000, a lighter or some other type of instrument to seal your ribbon ends so they won't fray.

*needle and thread

*hot glue gun/hot glue

*alligator prong clip or a barrette

*embellishments for the top

Cut your ribbon into strips of the same length. You will need 2 to 3 different lengths of ribbon. I stacked my bows 2 lengths deep but 3 lengths is really cute too. The length of ribbon size changes how big the circumference of the bow is. So if you want your bow to be about 3 inches in circumference when it's complete, then your first layer of ribbon needs to be 7 inches long. The next layer of ribbon needs to be 6 inches long. And if you did a third layer, it would need to be 5 inches long. You will also want to decrease the amount of layers down too. If you want a bigger bow, cut your ribbon 1 inch longer per layer. Does that make sense? I am a total visual person so I have to see what it looks like to understand. Hopefully this picture will make more sense than my instructions do.

Take your first layer of ribbon all together and fold directly in half with the patterns facing inward.

Put your needle through the center.

Then fan out the layers and put another stitch though so the layers will stay where you want them.

Flip it over so the pattern side is down.

Then take one layer at a time, fold it over and sew it up.

When you are finished with it, you can use either side of the bow because they will look the same.

Then repeat the same procedure for each layer.

After they are all sewn together, hot glue some type of cute embellishment to the top to cover the stitching. Then hot glue it to the alligator prong.

And Wah Lah!

Sam's Cake

Jens' friends are so fun to have around. They are always hanging out at our house.... even when Jens is out of town! We love having them in our home. One of his friends, Sam, is always giving me tips on my cooking/baking. He is always telling me things to throw in a cake to make it more moist or more dense. He tells me what spices to use when I cook to make my food "pop with flavor". He cracks me up! I just remind him that he is only 13 and doesn't know what he is talking about. But he watches Food Network all the time so he thinks that he is an expert.

He made me a cake just to prove it. And I have to admit, he did a really good job! It tasted great! His frosting was even from scratch and he wrote my name in green frosting on top. It was really cute. Thanks for the cake Sam. It was just as good as you said it would be!