5th Birthday Fun!

This year, Miley's birthday celebrations spanned a couple days.  On the 21st, we just did a low-key ice cream sundae party with all of her neighbor friends.  It was a great way to spend the day.

That evening she got a wonderful birthday surprise....the Minnesota Clarks 1.0 came home from India!  We got to meet them at the airport, and spend the evening with them.  Unfortunately, the evening turned out to be kind of a bummer when we got stuck in the biggest storm we have had all year and a tree fell on their car a mere 3 hours after they got home.  Fortunately, no one was hurt.  Definitely made for a crazy night!

The next day, on Miley's actual birthday, we just had a barbeque with the fam.  Miley just loves these cousins, and was thrilled to be able to spend her birthday with them.  She also had a special visit from "Cinderella" (aka the sweetest girl from our church who Miley is convinced is the real Cinderella!).

It was definitely a laid back year in terms of the party thing, but that was OK with us.  With the busy-ness of our family getting back, and getting ready to head out on vacation in a few days, it was just what we needed!
Can't believe this girl is 5!  She is starting to act so old, and is getting ready to head off to kindergarten in the fall.  Stop growing up!

Some Summer Fun

Even though summer was a long time coming this year, we are definitely enjoying it now.  It has been a beautiful month so far.  We have had a TON of rain, so on days where there isn't rain, we definitely have to take advantage!

A couple weekends ago, we did just that.  We packed a picnic lunch into our bike trailer and we biked 10 miles to a really neat park.  The bike trails here in Minnesota really are incredible.  They are so beautiful, and you can practically get anywhere you need to on them!
 

We met some friends there, and were able to spend a couple hours just playing and enjoying the beautiful weather!  The kids had such a great time, and so did we.  I truly love days like this where we just get to enjoy being together with our little family!

In other summer fun news, we bit the bullet and bought a trampoline!!  We have a great backyard, but didn't really have anything back there for the kids to play on.  As a result, they would often creep on up to our neighbors houses to see if they were out to play on their swingsets.  While we are great friends and love our neighbors, I just felt like we needed to have something to keep our kids entertained in our yard!  So far they have loved it and have used it every day.  We sure are loving summer!!

Happy Father's Day!!

We had so much fun celebrating Cameron this weekend!  All he wanted for Father's Day was to go golfing, so he got to do that on Saturday afternoon/evening.

On Sunday morning, we let him sleep in for a bit, but then surprised him with breakfast in bed, and presents from the kids (a tie that Miley picked out, and Reese's peanut butter cups from Landon).

After church, we made steak fajitas (although Cameron was the chef...don't know if he trusted my cooking of the steaks???).  Overall, I think he had a good weekend.

We are so lucky to have Cameron.  He is such a caring, devoted father and would do anything for these two kids.  One of the many reasons I knew I wanted to marry Cameron was because I knew he was going to be a great father.  He has done nothing but exceed my expectations.

I am also so blessed to have such a wonderful dad and father-in-law.  Hard-working, ambitious, loving, generous, and caring.  I truly am lucky to have such wonderful men!!

Dance Into the Future

Miley ended her year of dance with a big recital, called "Dance Into the Future."  Really, I cannot believe how big of a production this thing is...and there are 5 separate recitals, and Miley was only in one of them!  So crazy.

Anyway, they had a dress rehearsal on May 21st.  It was so fun to get Miley all dolled up, and see how she would do on a real stage!

All the little duckies lined up in a row watching all the older kids dance!

Miley and her cute friend Violet.  We were so lucky to be able to meet Violet and her mom, Charlotte, through dance this year.  They became great friends of ours!  I love all of these adorable pictures of them together!

A few days after the dress rehearsal, Miley had her actual last day of class.  I am so sad to not be going to dance every week.  Miley has truly loved it and had so much fun with it....it is definitely a highlight of her week.  Her teachers were wonderful.  I am hoping we can get them again at some point!

On June 1st, we dropped Landon off with some friends, and Cameron and I went to watch the recital.  We weren't really allowed to take pictures or video at the actual recital.  I did get a video of her dance at the rehearsal, and may try to upload it here later, but I was disappointed because she did much better at the recital than she did at the rehearsal!  It was so fun to watch her very first recital, and fun to see all of the other dances as well.  

I love, love, love dance, and I hope that it becomes a love of Miley's also.  We are planning on sticking with it for now, and we will see where it takes us!