More of Our Life from Summer in Pictures

Well, I have just about caught up on posting for the summer, but I had a bunch of misc pictures that I thought I would go ahead and post as well:

Cheyenne and her newest cousin Moriah











Joshua and Cheyenne being sweet!










Drinking the shakes they earned from the library's summer reading program from Steak and Shake











At a friend's pool













Jodi and Michelle - friends from church who are currently in Spain as missionaries with the Monterroso's. They were home for the summer and we got to get some good time together! :)











Mini pool













Celebrating my neice Jessica's birthday. I can't believe how big she is getting! 11 years old already!

















Israel and Moriah. It was incredible difficult to get a picture of them together! They were both looking in opposite ways and moving like crazy the whole time! This was about the best of the many I took. They're still cute though!















Grandpa Howard and Dominique


















My brother Aaron and I. Do you think we look alike?













My other brother Scott is rather well endowed!
















This was a fun sprinkler I found this year. It is inflatable and has an inflatable ring for each pole that you toss through the sprinkles. The kids had a blast with it!








Dominique and Cheyenne in their matching outfits from Grandma Carol. It is cute to see them getting to be friends and playing together now that they are a bit older. I hope they stay good friends as they grow.









They love to play dress up together too!













Joshua and a couple of cicadas






















Dominique's favorite face to make in pictures these days! What a ham!











"When the cat's away, the mice play!" :-)~















Joshua, Dillon and Gabriel in matching shirts from Grandma Carol. It happened by coincidence that we put these on them the same day!

















A Sunday afternoon snooze with the whole family except Israel........












One of Joshua's favorite pictures of himself!





And now I think I am almost caught up with what I was going to post from our fun-filled and hectic summer!

The Field Museum

Okay, here I am trying to catch you up on our summer's activities! Almost there.....

Here we are at the Field Museum about 3 weeks ago. I hadn't been there since who knows when and it was fun to take the kids now that they are getting old enough to appreciate these kinds of things.



First, Joshua and Dominique with "Sue", the best preserved t-rex in the world. :)












Joshua and Sofia share a love of rocks. :)












Chow time.



















Israel checking out some rodents from the Amazon.



































Joshua thinks there is still a spot in the stroller for him! But, since it was a long day with no nap, it did work out nicely once they started to lose energy. Better than dragging him around while he was whining about how tired he was!











They loved the dinosaurs!

















For some reason, everywhere I go, people keep telling me I have my hands full!
Israel was out cold here....
Funny thing is, when Joshua and Dominique are both sitting in the stroller, you can't notice the difference in their size as much and I have been asked if they are twins!








Checking out the buttons.


















Amazing taxidermy! You really should see this, Scott!






































Did you notice there are far more pictures of me than usual in these last few posts? That's because I got a lot of these pics from the Monterroso's camera. :)









Walking through the museum nursing a baby. Nobody even knew. :)

Lincoln Park Zoo

Well, here is one of our summer outings with the Monterroso's. It will be in pictures only, since Im short on time! Just one comment: Israel is always doing fishy lips and it is SO hard to try to capture it on film, but we finally did!!! I LOVE that picture!
Happy Labor Day, everyone!

More Guests ~ The Maceda Family!

Well, in addition to the Monterroso Family that stayed with us this summer, we had more guests come to visit last week: The Maceda Family - the Peruvian pastor and his family who we met more than eight years ago in Japan. They founded the Peruvian church over there, which Fabio and I took over the leadership of after they had to leave Japan. So, we go way back and they have a very special place in our hearts. They currently live in Milwaukee where they pastor a hispanic church there.



At the forest preserve for lunch. They came with their three daughters: Cathy, Gizeth and Genesis, as well as Gizeth's husband Andrew, and they also have a brand new baby, Priscilla who we got to meet for the first time. A darling!











Ana, Genesis and Israel.






















Baby Priscilla was fussing and didn't want to calm down, so I did the only thing I know how to do: I got my sling out and put her in it! Everyone was amazed when she fell asleep in about ten seconds and stayed that way for over an hour. :)












When my own little one wanted to nurse, I didn't want to disturb sleeping beauty in the sling, so I decided to juggle them both. :) Neither of them minded a bit!















In fact, Gizeth and Andrew were so excited about the sling that they borrowed it the rest of that day and enjoyed a calm sweet sleeping baby the whole trip. Before they left, I gave it to them. Maybe that will give me incentive to make myself another one like I've been meaning to for ages now!















Pastor Edgardo and Israel praising the Lord together!


















Pastor & Dominique

















Cathy with my darlings














I took them over to the church and introduced them to our (associate) pastor, Todd.













Last Friday was hectic, to say the least! Besides the SEVENTEEN people staying in our house, a whole lot of people were in and out to tell the Monterroso family goodbye, as it was their last day in the States as well. Here is a picture of a few of the folks.




And Dominique enjoying baby Priscilla















Genesis playing Hi HO Cherry-O with the kids















Many years ago in Japan, when Genesis was quite a bit younger, I always used to carry her around on my back! So, we had to take a pic this way for old times' sake.









And Joshua's turn to give the sweet little baby a little lovin'. :)











Well, as of last Saturday, we do not have overnight guests in our home, but I can't say as though we have slowed down too much! I hosted a surprise baby shower here on Tuesday, had our group as usual last night, and I am getting ready to start school for real with Joshua next week. So, I have been trying to organize, clean, etc. and maybe one day we will rest. But not today! I still have a lot to post of all the fun stuff we did all summer though, so hopefully I will get around to that. It was definitely a fun-filled summer and we thoroughly enjoyed it ~ but it flew by like a whirlwind! And now I can already smell fall in the air......