Father's Day

Robb is not your typical dad that wants a gift for Father's Day. This year he said instead of a gift he wanted 8 hours of manual labor from all of us. Yipee! I bet you can imagine our excitement. Everyone helped, not super willingly there may have been some threats in there but he got his 8 hours from most of us. We moved this pile of mulch from the driveway to the area that we will landscape by the porch.

We weeded the garden.

The boys plus Kasten helping move mulch. I also mowed. We have a pretty unreliable riding mower that always needs something (jumped, flat tire etc) so I never use it. Caleb mowed with that until if broke for the 2nd time. I push mowed about an acre on the side of the house. It took me about 4 hours and Robb said I could quit at one point but we promised 8 hours.

Caleb and Abby helped install the posts that will someday be the dock. I was impressed that Abby was willing to get this dirty!

Well it might not have been a fun day it was his day so Happy Father's Day to the best Dad and Husband we could ask for. The work was eye opening. Thanks for all that you do for all of us!

Basketball Camp

Bryce loves basketball and can never quite get enough of it! This summer he had decided that he wanted to do an away basketball camp. This made me a little nervous but Robb said I was being silly and signed him up. It was in Columbus and he went with his friend Brady and Brady's older brother. They stayed in the dorms at the college and from Bryce's stories it was a little like Animal House with a bunch of elementary and middle school kids in the dorms. From talking to the coaches that week it sounds like Bryce and Brady were responsible kids and tried really hard. They were first to show up in the gym in the morning and didn't leave until they were locking up. There was a couple stories about people peeing in pop bottles and clogging the toilet that made me wonder how Bryce living in a dorm was going to play out in college. He had a great time. He learned how to order pizza by himself and told me he even showered most days. On the way home all the boys were sound a sleep. I think they had a good time!

Family Party

It is hard to believe that these boys are 11! Before we know it we will have teenagers on our hands. It has already been hard for us to stand back and give them a little more freedom than we are comfortable with at times but they have proved to be trustworthy kids!

We celebrated their birthday with family at the lake house. We had okay weather, it was a little cloudier than we would have liked but overall it was a fun day.

Bryce got his pair of KD basketball shoes that he had been drooling over from Grandma and Grandpa Lutz. Just in time to take them to basketball camp next week.

Caleb got a pair of Under Armour sunglasses from Aunt Ginger and Uncle Aaron.

This present cracks me up but it is what they wanted. They asked Grandma Jody for a magic bullet blender so they can make smoothies by themselves.

Grandma and Grandpa Lutz

Grammy Hansen of course brought buns because the Lutz boys LOVE them! I think this will be the last year that she is taller!

Grandma and Grandpa Mattern

Mitch and Courtney and Weston

Grandma Jody

Lane, Megan and baby Harper

John

Ginger and Brook (the boys weren't going to take a picture)

Happy Birthday boys from mom and dad

Aunt Steph and Draven

We are so lucky to have so many people come to celebrate Bryce and Caleb's birthday with us!

Bryce and Caleb's Friend Party

You know you have the coolest uncle around when he brings over your birthday gift and it is a giant water trampoline! So cool. Best part was he brought it over before your friend party and then he helped blow it up!

If this doesn't look like a blast I don't know what does. You had decided to have your friend party at the lake house because really what is more fun than that. You had some friends from the old neighborhood, friends from your old school and your new school. It looked like you all had a blast. You had wrestling matches on the mat and saw who could do the coolest flip off the trampoline. We had been watching the weather all week because it looked a little sketchy but we were lucky enough to get about 2 hours of water playtime before the storm hit.

Only Emmy would get a personal attendant for her brothers birthday party. It was however the best idea ever! You got to hang out with Alexandrea who you love and I got to concentrate on the party or to be more specific the food to feed 10 boys.

At about 2 hours into the party we spotted lightening and made you get out of the water. It was perfect timing because then you came in to eat and play pool. Little did we know just how bad of a storm we were in for. We have never been at the lakehouse during a storm and the lake gets really rough! The waves were hitting the deck of the neighbors house and crashing like crazy. We had high winds and some hail. The neighbors huge tree lost lots of branches. One fell on this poor chair of ours and almost cut it in half. They had a large limb fall on their shed and the neighborhood in general had trees big and small with limbs down and some were uprooted. Thank goodness we all stayed safe. The lakehouse doesn't have a basement so I was trying to decide how to keep 8 children that weren't ours and 4 that were safe it the sirens went off. Thankfully, it never came to that. All the areas around us lost power but not us. The party went on with pool tournaments, ice cream sundaes and lots of 11 year old boy talk.

This is the picture I texted to the parents. Don't worry about us. We have power, ice cream and a pool table.

The craziest part was that Robb and I had decided that we would leave the water trampoline in the water and just tie it to the dock. About half way into the storm we realized that the water trampoline was never going to survive unless we brought it in. The 2 of us were out in the high wind a pouring rain trying to deflate it enough so that we could wrestle it into the garage. I'm sure we were a sight!

The damage.

Checking out all the trees that were down.

Our Emmy

Oh Emmy!

You make me crazy and you make my day! You are such a little spit fire and keep me on my toes! I apologize if you hear me saying I just need space or go ask your dad or mom is done with this day! You give us endless joy and endless challenges! You are such a momma's girl that some days it is smothering and that is when I try to remind myself that you are only going to be this little once. It won't be forever that you stall going to bed by telling me that the sunset is kinda purple and I need to look at it. You will only dig your little toes into my back to warm them up and play with my hair and lick my ear at this age.

Your brother helped you put your swimming suit on. Just a small word of advice I would stick to asking Abby for help not Caleb.

I thought this was too cute not to capture. We had walked down to the mailbox one evening, you barefoot, because you hate shoes. Out of nowhere you start singing and dancing like you are performing on a stage. I have a feeling that some dancing, singing or drama is going to be in your future. I love how you sing what is in your heart or your silly head and don't care what anyone is thinking.

While you being little is a daily challenge to my patience I hope I remember these moments when you weren't grown up!

Stillwater Horse Camp

Abby has been asking about horseback riding since we did it for Girl Scouts so this summer I signed her up for 1/2 day riding camp with her best friend Addison. They took lessons at Still Water Ranch which is right outside of Hickman. 

Abby loved it! They learned how to care for the horses and how to do some simple commands with riding.

On the last day of camp they invited all the parents to come so they kids could put on a show.

She did a great job!

Treats after the show. I think next year she will want to do the full day lessons!

Headed Home

Well Disney was about the coolest vacation ever and the most exhausting vacation ever! Thank you Bob and Susie for the chance to take this once in a lifetime vacation (if Robb has any say in it). We had a wonderful time. We did 4 Parks in 5 days and went to the beach too. The airplane ride home was pretty uneventful as we made our way back to Nebraska.Everyone was exhausted and glad to be home but sad to leave.

Hollywood Studios

The girls had went to Bibbity Bobbity Boutique and the the boys went to Hollywood Studios.

They went on quite a few thrilling rides. Caleb's face in this one is hilarious!

The Beckmans had went early so that AJ could do Jedi training. I think this was AJ's favorite park by far!

Princess Dinner

After a day of getting done up like a princess, this princess was tired! She told me she was going to sleep really still so that she didn't mess up her hair. She did sleep really careful as to not mess up her hair and makeup because tonight was princess dinner night. When we were going to Disney everyone said it was a must to do a princess dinner. I didn't start booking things early enough and it was really hard to get a princess dinner but we finally managed to get one at Akershus Castle in Epcot.

After Emmy had a nap and the rest of us recharged a bit too we were ready to go to the princess dinner. As we were leaving it started to rain. When we got to Epcot it was a down pour. We waited in the car for a long time and then it got to the point that we needed to go to get to our reservation. I put Emerson in the toddler carrier and put a poncho over her and I carried an umbrella, we put ponchos on Abby and Brook and Susie had an umbrella. We started to jog in to the park and it became apparent that we were going to be completely drenched by the time we got there. At one point we had to take our shoes off because we were walking though so much water. Luckily everyone was in a good enough mood that they handled it well, even Emmy. Before we went in we hit up a bathroom where we tried to pull ourselves together so we didn't look like drenched rats. Susie had to wring out her long skirt.

Right when we walked in we got to see Emerson's favorite princess, Belle.

It was so hard to wait for all the princesses to come out. I have a video of when Emmy sees the princesses come out. I ask her what she thinks and she says "It's Increbable". It was the cutest video every.

We have spotted the princess now we just have to wait for her to come to our table.

Princess Aurora

Cinderella

I might be biased but I think Abby could have a career as a Cinderella if she ever wanted to play a princess.

Princess Mulan

Snow White

What a day! Becoming a princess and then meeting so many princesses.

This picture is terrible of me but I had to include to show just how eventful the evening was. Susie and I ended up drenched and we had managed to keep all 3 girls dressed up and hair cute until we got to dinner. Overall an awesome experience but it came with a big price tag. Since we were there we stayed for the Epcot fireworks.They were neat but nothing compared to the Magic Kingdom ones. This was our last night at Disney. It was sad to be leaving the next day but we sure did have a great time and made so many memories.