Father's Day 2024.

Happy Father's Day to Kley! Wow, I am so very thankful for you and all you do for our family! You are a caring, fun, dependable dad and I'm so glad our girls have you! Thank you for loving and serving your family well. You are our favorite and we love you very much!

Kley got to play some music at a neighboring town's farmer's market and he loved it!

Happy Father's Day to the best! Also very grateful for my dad and father-in-law too. What a gift to have great dads who love Jesus and their families for us to have as models!

(These are blurry because I didn't realize at the time that my camera had switch to manual instead of automatic, oops.)

Summer softball 2024.

Summer softball is in full swing and all three are enjoying it! Norah bumped up to the 3rd/4th grade team this year. This felt like a big jump because she has an hour practice every weekday (during the six week summer rec program), with five different nighttime games playing surrounding towns. It was so fun and adrenaline pumping to watch her first game last week where they had to wear full uniforms and did kit pitch and three outs and everything! 

They don't really have team names. They all practice together, which is fun to be with all her friends, and then they split into three different teams for the night games, so she's team three for that.

Many hours spent at the ball field this summer and we've had great weather for it so far!

Norah scoring a run! She also got someone out at first base too- way to go!

Norah batting.

Norah playing third base.

Lucy and Ellory are on the Cardinals this year and doing great! It's fun to watch they get better each year. 

Lucy up to bat. She got a hit immediately!

Ellory up to bat and she got a hit immediately too! Awesome job girls!

Fielding.

Way to go, Norah, Lucy, and Ellory- we love you and are always cheering you on! And way to go Kley for coaching Lucy and Ellory's team and coaching Norah's night games!

Summer Celebration and Phil Wickham at Rise Fest!

What a fun summer weekend! It was the most beautiful weather. We went to Rise Fest for the first time, which is an annual Christian music festival about half an hour away from us. We found out Phil Wickham was going to be there and we had to go! He's a favorite of all of us! I had really wanted to get tickets to his spring tour, but initially he wasn't coming anywhere close to us. Then he added more dates to his tour and one of the cities was Des Moines, but it was the Friday night of Tulip Festival so we couldn't go. But, then we found out he was coming to Rise Fest, only a half an hour from us- yay yay! It was SO special. Kley and I have loved his music from close to his beginning back when we were in college. It was amazing and so neat for our girls to experience him live! Praise God!

So fun to do this as a family. It was so special to watch my girls sing along and I prayed these truths would sink down deep into their souls!

What could be better than ice cream and Phil Wickham live?

Lucy, Ellory, and I also went to Summer Celebration- a fun kickoff to summer that a neighboring town does. I wondered how it would go this year, because I really wanted to go but also knew that our time of all the girls thinking it was super fun was nearing a close. How are they getting so big? Norah opted to stay home with Kley and they did a few projects, and Lucy, Ellory, and I went together! They did some inflatables and enjoyed the park and petting zoo. So fun and so glad they still thought it was fun and wanted to go! There were numerous years that events with inflatable were absolutely incredible and I can't believe that time is almost coming to a close! Bittersweet, but so glad to be able to watch them grow up and enter into new stages too. Thankful for a great start to summer!

Kicking off summer with a weekend in Des Moines.

School's out for the summer and we kicked it off with a fun weekend in Des Moines! My parents were gone, which was weird to stay at their house without them, but we packed some fun things in! Thankful for cousin time and lots of playing together!

My youngest sister, Kayla, just bought this cute house!

I was so glad that we could catch Jorie and Murphy's last soccer games! We also got to celebrate Jorie's 6th birthday a tad early!

I don't have pictures of this, but we had a reunion with our old life group from when we lived in Des Moines (about 9.5 years ago now, wow!). It was super fun to see everyone again and catch up! And Lucy pulled one of her teeth out in the middle of the party- she's fearless about pulling teeth and loves to yank them out! We also got to have supper with one of my closest friends, Lauren, growing up. They just had their 3rd sweet baby Jesse. Their older two, Reese and Ray, were doing some cheer stunts in the basement and wanted the adults to join in for these amazing photos. It was a fun weekend and glad we could go!

First day at the pool 2024.

Our local pool opened on Memorial Day and the girls were eager to get there! It was a scorching hot day of 68 degrees and they swam for about 15 minutes before they were shivering and wrapping up in towels. But we prevailed and we can say that were were there opening day! Bring on summer!

All the end of year things- soccer, dance, school play, and piano!

We've had a busy but fun wrap up to the school year- summer is almost here and we are looking forward to it! Our final days of school were filled with fun things like inflatable day, special snacks and fun days, and a field trip that I got to help chaperone for all of them too. So glad I could go along! 

We also had the final soccer game for everyone, Norah got to play Ma in the Pecos Bill play the third graders put on, Norah had her dance recital, and all three got to play in the piano recital. It was a huge week and the girls did so well in all of their things- so thankful for the gift of healthy and growing bodies and minds!

The school play was sad for me because it was the same day as Lucy and Ellory's field trip that I was helping with, so I didn't get to see it, bummer! But she had Kley and all four grandparents there, so that was a special gift. I heard she did great!

Go Norah! Way to be brave and try new things!

Here are Norah's professional dance photos from the year- tap and jazz!

End of the year piano recital- they were nervous but handled it well and played well too! Way to go girls! It's also an answer to prayer because Heidi (in the photo) was able to take Lucy and Ellory on for next year- yay! Lucy and Ellory had a different teacher this year because Heidi didn't have room, but we knew that their teacher, Mel, was moving and could only commit to a year, so it worked out so well that Heidi could take them next year. Mel was great and we loved her, but it will be nice for them to all take from the same teacher too. Lucy and Ellory also didn't have recitals this year, so it was so kind that Heidi let them play at both her Christmas recital and the spring recital so they could get the experience of doing it.

Last soccer game for Norah!

Norah did great at her dance recital! She loved dance this year and was excited to perform! (Lucy and Ellory weren't interested in doing dance this year. Ellory says she wants to next year, Lucy says not really- we will see come fall!)

My parents were able to come see her dance recital and school play too, which was so nice! Kley's parents were able to come to the events of the week also- so thankful for many family and friends that love our girls!

Norah's tap dance.

Norah's jazz dance.

Last soccer game for Lucy and Ellory!