Lazy Days of Summer!

For summer 2009 we decided that we wanted to have a slow, easy-going summer. We did not sign up for lessons, teams, vacations, etc... We wanted to just have time to relax and spend time with one another and our family and friends. So here is a little re-cap of our summer so far!
Daddy has been the pitcher of the Grace men's softball team which has been fun. Gives him a little time to do something that he enjoys and the girls love cheering, "Go Grace!"

When not cheering the girls can be found playing on the rock pile at the ball diamond, fun times!

Molly, Margot and I tried something new this summer. We went strawberry picking. It was a fun experience but a lot of back breaking work for not a whole lot of fruit. We came home with one small bowls worth of berries and this cute photo!

Another favorite summer time hang out is the Farm Park. It is a great little park with all the farm animals there for the kids to pet and feed. Margot likes the idea of the farm park but will not get close enough to touch or feed them. She and her friend Clara make a great pair, Margot holds the feed cone and Clara does all the feeding!

Molly our little animal lover's favorite activity is hanging out with the goats. She does not like the pushy ones and does her best to make sure they all get their fair share!

Riding in the car and singing to Mary Poppins has been another fun summer time activity. We have driven all over Illinois this summer visiting family and Mary Poppins makes the time fly by. Margot loves Supercalifragilisticexpealidocious and Molly loves all the songs that have really high notes to sing. It has been a blast listening to Molly perfect her British accent as we are driving along in the car!

Slip and Slide! Molly loves to ride the slip and slide in the backyard. It was all fun and games until she got hurt. She had a head on collision with a friend and we are now babying her very gray front teeth hoping we do not lose them. At least they are only baby teeth!

Birthday parties with friends are always fun. We had a great time in the park celebrating Allie's 4th birthday. She had a pinata and lots of fun prizes!

Bike rider with an attitude! Molly loves riding up and down the sidewalk on her many little bikes that have crowded poor daddy's car out of the garage. We have been working on no training wheels but we are not quite there yet. Maybe by the end of the summer we will conquer that feat.

I scream you scream we all scream for ice cream! We McNutt's love our ice cream. We have made trips to local ice cream hot spots like Emo's, Granny's and Ice Cream Shack but we also love a good ice cream sandwich in the driveway on a hot summer night.

Swimming is an activity that we can not get enough of. Luckily Nanu and Papa have a pool that they love to share with the kiddos. Margot and Molly have truly become water babies. Molly is now swimming all by herself in the deep end and she loves wearing goggles and spending lots of time exploring under water.

Margot loves to bring her smile along where ever she goes and it sure is contagious!

Molly is a thrill seeker. We took her to the fair and she wanted to ride every ride. She loved the dragon roller coaster!

Margot not a thrill seeker she was content to sit and watch Molly on every ride!

Molly also loved the swings at the fair and rode three times in a row! It made me dizzy just watching her but she loved every second!

Playing at the park is always a huge hit. We have made our rounds to all the local parks. The sprinkler park in Washington is fun even on a cold overcast morning. The chilly weather did not slow them down a bit!

Parachuters at Kroger??? We headed over to the Kroger parking lot in North Peoria to check out the Air National Guard parachuters who were landing as an advertisement for the upcoming Air Show. It was pretty neat!

We also have not let the rainy summer weather rain on our parade. We just head out the the Rainbow Park that is inside. We love it and it is great for running off a little pent up energy and makes for long naps on those rainy afternoons!

That is our summer so far, I am sure we will have many more adventures to come!

A Big One!!!

Today was a big day in the life of little Margot Isabell McNutt, she poo pooed on the potty! We have been working on this for months so to say we were excited would be a huge understatement. I did the proud mommy dance even in the bathroom at the pediatricians office, which is the location she choose for this momentous occasion. Above is Margot after she enjoyed the chocolate candy bar which was the potty prize of choice! Hopefully very soon we will say bye bye diapers hello big girl panties!

I'm so glad I came to bible school!

Bible School at Grace is a very fun week. This year we had 700 children attending and over 300 volunteers making everyting run smoothly. Jeff and I helped with the 2nd and 3rd graders. We learned all about the Armor of God!





Molly as always loved all the singing at Bible School. Her class learned all about Moses. The first day she came home with baby Moses in a littel basket and the last day they had the Ten Commandments as a snack, it was graham crackers with white frosting and black gel for writing. So super cute!

Margot was in the twos and this was her first year to actually go to bible school and not just the nursery. Margot learned all about creation. Her favorite was learning about light and dark and she cam home telling us all about how when you shut your eyes it is dark, so precious. She also enjoyed planting a flower for mommy!

A highlight of bible school this year for Molly was being at a table with all her best friends. She is a true girl loving her friends, Riley, Kylynn and Reagan. Everyday they were so excited to see one another, it was too cute!

Margot loved listening to a very special guest tell stories everyday and she even got to play his drum. Each day she would tell us that she played his drum loud! But she was too afraid to talk to him.

Our special guest every year at bible school is Black Buffalo. He is a Native American Indian, who is a missionary to Mexico and South America. He runs childrens homes. He comes each year and tells the kids stories of the Indian tribes that he has ministered to over the years. What an amazing man! We all love Black Buffalo! He has been a tradition at Grace VBS for 30 years.

Black Buffalo taught the kids to sing Jesus Loves me in a Native American language and here is the girls best rendition. It is pretty hilarious especially Margot's quick exit!

Bye Dr. Erickson!

Today was a sad day. We had to say good-bye to our pediatrician Dr. Erickson. He is moving to Chicago and we are very sad to see him go. For those whose kids are relatively healthy you may not relate, but our kiddos catch everything and I saw Dr. Erickson more than we see many of our friends. He has been a great support and a voice of reason in uncertain and scary situations. We have truly appreciated his support especially this year with our run in with DCFS and our hospitalization with pneumonia. We wish him the best on his new adventure but he will be greatly missed by our entire family!

School's Out!

Molly and her friend Riley.
Molly showing off all her "work" from this year.

Molly and her friend Riley sining in their Bo Peep Nursery School end of the year program!

All the cute kiddos showing off their sining!

We loved Bo Peep and are really going to miss Mrs. Wilson and the whole gang. Molly has loved playing with all her friends especially Riley and Matteo. She loved singing and making crafts. Her favorite part of the day was recess, it starts so early!

Soccer!

Molly has started playing soccer with the Peoria Park District. Soccer is her first attempt at a team sport. She had fun at the first practice and was quick to tell us she learned to kick the ball with her heel. It was fun to watch her learning to be a part of her team, of all four year olds, poor coach!

Margot spent her time at the soccer practice picking dandelions. Jeff has assured me that she is way too girlie to play sports. We will have to wait a couple years and find out!Molly has a fun loving coach who has made the season fun. Here she was giving him a high five during their first game. The first game was great most of the kids did not get the point of the game. They had no idea what to do they all just ran up and down the field in a big herd. The coaches had to be out on the field pointing the kids in the right direction. So fun!

Molly, in her bow, taking a break after playing hard during the first game.

Easter Egg Hunt Anyone???

Spring Break 2009 was a collection of egg hunts. The kids, Jeff and I packed up and spent a few days in Rockford visiting friends and family and enjoying the pool at our hotel. We also had three egg hunts. Our girls were a littel timid at the first hunt but by the third they were truly pros at finding all those colorful little gems!

The first egg hunt was at Lena Manor Nursing Home in Lena, IL where great-grandma Wilson lives. She and grandpa had a great time gettimg to see the kids enjoy the egg hunt. The only down side was that the Easter bunny was there too and Margot does not like the bunny. She spent all her time making sure that the bunny stayed far away!

Our second hunt was at the Children's Discovery Museum in Rockford. We met our friends the Hiser's at the museum and enjoyed our second hunt. Margot could not figure out why the eggs were all over the floor. She was hilarious!

In Rockford Molly was able to hunt with the big kids which required a little more speed and precision than our previous hunt but as you can see she was up for the challenge!

Molly was quite the egg hunter by the third time around. She was running everywhere and snatching them up as fast as she could. She also enjoyed checking out her loot and trading with her cousins to make sure she had the best eggs!

Margot needed a little help from Daddy to coordinate the picking up of the eggs and placing them safely in her large paper bag. She would have been quite content to pick up one egg and eat its contents before going on to the next egg.

It was so fun to have all the cousins together for the egg hunt this year. Even our youngest member little Ella Grace enjoyed watching all the action. I think that they were all happy with the money and candy that was contained in all the eggs that they found. My mom had even hidden a few camoflouged eggs which were a challenge even for the big kids, and adults to find.

Molly really enjoyed her chocolate Easter Basket from GG. It was a basket made of chocolate that contained even more yummy chocolate treats. She was overjoyed when we let her have it as a treat after dinner. What's a little more candy after three days of a menu concsisting of purely sugar!

Margot dug right in to her chocolate basket as well!

Five, Six Pick up Sticks!

What is more fun than picking up sticks on a sunny Spring day. We all went over to visit a good friend today and she offered to pay the girls a quarter to pickup sticks in her yard. We started out just picking up a few little twigs and one thing led to another and we were eventually hauling huge pieces of wood.
Molly loved the challenge. She wanted to carry the biggest stick and throw it into the ravine all on her own. She is really going to be a hard worker!

Margot joined in on the effort as well picking up all the sticks that her little hands could hold.

Here are Molly and Margot helping our friend Terri drag a whole tree down to the ravine!

We love Terri, our Peoria grandma, and were happy to have the chance to help her out with a little yard work this afternoon. The girls each got their quarter and an ice cream treat for all their hard work!

We want spring!

Right now it is pouring rain in little old Peoria, but we have had a couple of warm days this week that have made us anxious for Spring. The girls are loving riding around the neighborhood in their Barbie jeep. Molly is actually a pretty good driver! It is also comical how we never see the neighbors all winter and then the first nice day it is like folks come out of hibernation and we all get to reconnect! How fun.....

Florida Re-Cap!

Finally a recap of our wonderful vacation to Santa Rosa Beach Florida! We had a wonderful time and here is a little glimpse into our adventures on the Emerald Coast.

The beach was a major priority. We did not have true beach weather, usually in the low sixties but it did not stop us from enjoying the sand and the water. Molly loved jumping in the waves. Margot liked digging in the sand and just getting her toes in the surf.
A great day on the beach was one where there were very few waves so the kids were able to safely play in the water. This was one of those days and the girls were living it up!
The pool was objective number two. Both Molly and Margot were little fish when it came to swimming in the heated pool. Another fun part of the pool was feeding the turtles that lived in the pond surrounding the pool. We would bring over some bread and we could feed 6 or 8 turtles. They are probably hungry now that we are gone!
Margot was the crazy swimming girl with her little pink floaties.

We enjoyed many nights out to dinner. One night was Valentines dinner at PF Changs, YUM!

Another sunny day on the beach relaxing and working to make one major sand castle.

Margot running from the waves, how dare they get so close!

A chilly day on the beach. Even the cold couldn't keep us away. It was windy so we went out to fly a kite with Papa.

Molly and Papa working hard to keep the kite in the air. Papa had taken a kite flying lesson last year so he was quite the expert. The only funny part was that when trying to get the kite down he was knocked over by a strong gust of wind. Unfortunately for my dad the girls loved the kite flying but all they talked about was seeing Papa face down in the sand trying to keep a hold of the kite!

Molly and Margot posing for one of many pictures that we took to send home to daddy who had to stay home and do taxes!

Eating at Stinky's fish camp! We love Stinky's. It is a fun restaurant on 30-A which serves wonderful seafood and has a pretty fun name as well.

New nighties. My mom had gotten the girls new nighties and they wore them every night. They were adorable but it did make for lots of laundry.

One rainy night we decided to go bowling. It was not quite as easy as really bowling but still fun. Molly actually beat all of us fair and square. She did have the advantage of the bumpers but watch out she may be the next queen of the pins.

Showing of their I'm a Stinker shirts from Stinky's fish camp!

Our last sunny day spent on the beach. It was a little chilly but we had to take advantage of the suns rays before heading home to chilly Illinois.

Two sisters loving the beach. This year our vacation was very low key and we loved it. We loved heading to the beach and the pol everyday and just having fun in the sun. The girls were a joy and I especially loved watching them on the beach truly enjoying one of God's amazing creations! We are so blessed.

We had lots of family with us on our trip. My parents and my moms two sisters and one of their husbands. We all stayed together in the condo which was great fun especially for the kids. They really like that communal living. One night we celebrated my dad and my uncle Bill's birthdays with a cake and balloons. The girls loved the party!

Margot especially loved chocolate cake. Margot's favorite person on the trip was Uncle Bill. She would follow him all over the place asking a million questions. He was so patient to answer and play with her. He has one huge fan!

Our last day we headed to the Gulfarium on the way to the airport to check out the dolphins. The girls loved standing at the window and watching the dolphins.

Dolphins were definitely a highlight. We loved all the tricks.

All and all we had a wonderful trip. We are so grateful to my parents who graciously invite us to visit them every year. The kids love the time spent with Nanu and Papa and the memories that they will forever have of their time spent together on the the beaches on Florida. We love you Nany and Papa!