No More Tree!

Ross cut down the tree in our front yard! We've notcied the last few years that it didn't flower as well in the spring and have wondered if it was dying. We have a couple of friends who are arborists and both said that it was dead and rotting from the inside out. Ross was worried that it might fall over onto the house in a storm, so decided to cut it down. He did it in sections and had our neighbor hepl for the final three cuts. It sure does look different now without the tree. Once we get the stump ground up, we will plant a new tree in its place. You can watch Ross working on it here and the final cut here!

Water Slide!

The resort we stayed at in Branson last month had a little water park with it and a water slide. Ross rode is a few times, but the girls didn't. He had a fun time on it and you can watch him go down the slide here!

Lucy's Style

I love all the outfits Lucy puts together! She has her own style and I hope she never loses it! We went shopping one day last week and I love this outfit she put together. She wore her favorite watermelon dress, a warm black vest, a choker necklace and regular necklace, bracelets, and a watch, leg warmers and her sandals. She looked so cute!

Belated Easter

Since church was closed on Easter Sunday (sounds kind of funny, doesn't it?!), our church celebrated Easter Sunday in June once things reopened. They had a cross set up outside the building and a flower truck there selling flowers. We let the girls buy a flower and put it on the cross to decorate it. The cross always looks so pretty and full after the last service. We were decorating it at the beginning, so it wasn't quite full yet. I like this tradition that we have!

4th Of July Fun!

We had a fun 4th of July last Saturday that began with a bike parade through our neighborhood! I organized it and we had about 4 families participate. Several decorated their bikes and we had a fun time riding the loop through our hood. Some neighbors were even sitting outside waving at us. Hopefully next year we can get a few more people to participate! You can watch some of our bike parade here!

After lunch we went out to my parents' house to swim and shoot off fireworks. We had a fun time doing that and managed to escape the pop-up storms that circled around us. Ross used my dad's flat top grill and made a super yummy Japanese steakhouse type dinner for us complete with chicken, steak, noodles, fried rice, and vegetables. It was sooo good! You can watch Ross grilling it up here!

Earlier in the week leading up to the 4th, we had some friends over to make 4th of July shirts. We all had a really fun time working on them and it was neat to see everyone's finished product. I had done this with some other friends when Molly was just a baby, so it was fun to do again!

Love, love, love this picture of Molly! It was her first 4th and she was 4 1/2 months old. :) 

Molly's shirt.

Lucy's shirt.

The Money Pit....AKA The Dentist

I took the girls to the dentist last month for their regular checkups. I went in to the appointment feeling good, but came out feeling so bad! Both girls had cavities that need to be filled and Molly will need crowns put on four of her teeth and Lucy will need a crown put on her permanent molar that's coming in! I was so overwhelmed with all of this information and even more overwhelmed at the amount of money it will cost to have everything done! We have dental insurance, but it's not the best, and we can't not fix their teeth!

Molly's teeth are just very close together making it hard to get them good and cleaned, so she has four cavities that are just too bad and need caps on them. These are baby teeth, so hopefully we will have better luck with her permanent teeth when they start to come in. We went last week for her first of four appointments to fix her teeth. She came away with one silver tooth and loves it. ;)

Lucy had one cavity that was filled at the same time Molly was there, and she will go back later this month to have her molar capped. The enamel on her permanent molar is very weak and if we don't cap it, her tooth could just crumble. The dentist said these teeth are formed right after babies are born, and perhaps something happened, like she had a fever, that caused issues with this tooth when it was forming. So she will get a silver cap now and then later when she's done growing we will switch it out for a white cap. I don't think she really cares and will like having the silver tooth in her mouth. I had a silver tooth on one of my baby teeth and remember thinking it was really neat....so I guess I passed that onto my kids. :)