American Girl Doll Camp

Emma and Lindy with the "Cardinals" group.

American Girl Doll Camp has lasted all week and what fun it has been! The best part was seeing Lindy and Paige organize, set up, and get creative with the activities. I tried to stay out of the planning as much as possible (can be hard for me to do!) and just get them started and give them some ideas to get started with.

Paige chose to name their camp Camp Gowonagin after Molly's camp. She made the welcoming sign that hung at the top of the stairs leading to the loft where camp took place. The girls incorporated many of the ideas from their Girl Scout camp experiences.

Twelve dolls attended and we had seven little girls managing their camp group of dolls. Paige divided the dolls into three groups of four and named them the Blue Jays, the Cardinals, and the Robins. The first day each group made a camp flag and decorated it to take to the flag ceremony.

Stations were set up and the groups rotated through crafts, snacks, swimming, camp songs, horseback riding, bike riding, ice and roller skating, nature walks, and gymnastics.

Tonight is the big sleepover. The girls are making smores and then making mini smores for their dolls. We have camp pictures to pass out and all the dolls are sleeping together. More pictures to follow later!

Grace and Paige with the "Robins".

Erin, Rachel, and Julia with the "Blue Jays".

Taken straight from Girl Scout Camp, the girls created "Singing Trees" where the girls gather to learn camp songs each day. 

The girls took their dolls on nature walks each day complete with guide books and magnifying glass!

A makeshift swimming pool, a box covered in dark blue wrapping paper. By day 3 they had rigged a diving board too.

Icecream cones on bugles!

Love this, the girls put all their dolls in a group to play a card game.

Another snack, red M&M's with chocolate made to look like ladybugs.

Can you tell that I have as much fun as the girls?!

Lazy Summer Days

We are deep into our summer and the title says lazy days but that is strictly from a kid point of view because my days have not been lazy enough. Not to worry something is going to be done about that in the near future! We have spent many days hanging at the pool and last week we had a great time with all of our neighbor friends.

What to do to get away from all the GIRLS!

We're missing a few here but what a fun bunch they are!

No Fear

Erin is unlike any of the other Millers. She is always ready to jump right into anything, literally! She had no trouble passing her swim class and moving up to the next level, the girl is a fish. Fear of jumping off the diving board often held some of the others back but not Erin. She loves it and it shows!

16 Years

Happy Anniversary Bill! Thank you for 16 wonderful years.

A Happy Fourth

I am getting ready to start a huge blog post catch up. We have been so busy I have not had time to post pictures for weeks. We had a nice and relaxing July 4th weekend. Kyle and Bill got home from camp that Saturday and we had company for the weekend. Ethan was a bit under the weather so he missed some of the activities which he was pretty disappointed but he hung in there for the parade. Aunt Cyndi brought really cool, huge sparklers with her and the kids had a great time with those. The highlight of the weekend was having our cousins stay with us. It was one huge sleepover everynight!

Our dear family friend, Rachel, joined us at the parade. The heat didn't bother her a bit, she had a great time catching candy. Please pray for Rachel's mama, she is very, very, ill with cancer.

Paige still covers her ears from the fire truck sirens, I have pictures of her like this when she was two!

Alec is so serious about his candy!

I love this picture of Kyle and Lindy.

Ethan missed the Bexley parade so he missed our annual picture, not quite the same without him.

Ahoy! The High Seas Adventure

The only thing missing here is Kyle!

Vacation Bible School is nothing like the kind I attended as a kid. It is amazing to see all the things that the kids do each day. Games, crafts, singing, bible lessons, drama, snacks, and the list goes on. It is one of our kids favorite weeks of the summer. Ethan could not bear to miss it and go to Boy Scout camp. He has been waiting forever to be in the older kid group. They have a different program with service projects and cool things like tye dyeing t-shirts. He did not want to miss and as much fun as Kyle is having at camp, he is sad to miss this week as well. He is old enough to be a leader or work a station. We are hoping for no conflict next summer, hoping my connection with the new Scout Master will make that happen. We had a record year in attendance of 372 kids and 64 of them were Preschoolers which is where I have been all week. I am looking forward to a break this weekend. Have to get ready for my Brownie troops sleep out in my backyard Tuesday night. And the summer keeps on going...

I love Ethan's shirt! I have never gotten a tye dye shirt to turn out so cool!

The Newly Employed

Paige has a job! She is so excited! She has been helping our neighbor for the last couple of months deliver the neighborhood newspaper and she loves doing it. When a route in our neighborhood opened up and she found out, she was all about getting hired. It took a couple of weeks with some phone tag and at one point when the manager didn't call back I thought they had found someone else. As much as I hated for her to be disappointed, such is life and it can be good to learn things like this when you are young. Well, the following week they called and she did get the route. She was so excited to be "hired".

Last week the manager came over and met with us to go over all the information. She told Paige that this is her own business and she is an independent contractor She had to sign her own contract and she has to give two weeks notice when she is ready to give up her route. She has to make a flyer insert to introduce herself to her customers. She is in charge of bagging and delivering 120 papers each Tuesday. Today was our first day delivering and she was beaming. She also had help from some of her friends which made it go alot faster. She is excited about the paycheck as well but I think she is more excited about the actual work. She is feeling very grown up right now!

Cute As a Cupcake

Erin has been ready to change her earrings for weeks. So finally today we had some time to choose her first pair of earrings and learn how to clean them and put them in. She has been waiting to wear her little cupcakes that she bought on her birthday so that is what she picked. She did a great job and is very proud.

Lindy's Big Sis

Lindy has dance this summer, two hours every Tuesday evening. She practices with her competition team, ballet, technique, gymnastics. She loves it. Tonight when I picked her up she had this adorable t-shirt on. All the girls are assigned a big sis from the Junior team and Lindy and Lexi really hit it off this year. Lindy thinks Lexi is an awesome dancer (she is!) and she aspires to be a "dancer like Lexi." Lexi made this cute shirt for Lindy, the back says Lexi's little sis and Lexi has a matching one that says Lindy's big sis on the back.

So very cute! I have to get a picture of them together, they even look alike! I love that Lindy has someone to look up to and I know she will make a great big sis someday.

Heavy Metal

There is some serious metal going on here. Both Lindy and Paige have had their top and bottom expanders since last fall. Paige got her top braces in April. Due to an appliance breakage, Lindy got off schedule and didn't get her braces until today and then got both the top and bottom. This is in addition to still having her expanders. To say she was miserable tonight was an understatement. She was in tears and that was on Motrin. Poor little girl, she was such a trooper with getting them on and then some other adjustments but she hit a serious wall tonight.
Paige although a little sore from some changes they made to her braces left with great news. She will not be getting bottom braces at all! She was SO excited. Her teeth have moved so much she will be getting her bottom expander out in August and replacing it with a retainer. Lindy took that in stride, she knew her mouth was tighter than Paige's and at this point she may even have to have some teeth extracted even with doing all of this metal work.
In the mean time we continue to spend 45 minutes in the bathroom each evening, combined, to get through all the appliance and braces cleaning! I'm hoping to get them out of their's before Ethan gets his or I will be in there all night! But they do look cute!

The Journey Begins

Kyle and Bill safely returned from Germany last Sunday and they left again this morning for Boy Scout camp. Before Kyle left we got the first Germany post together which consists of travel and sleep, or lack of sleep. The first email I received from Bill while they were gone was that out of 50 hours Kyle had slept about six! He has never been one to sleep on planes or in cars and I guess no matter how tired he is he still can't do it! They missed their connecting flight from Frankfurt to Berlin giving them a six hour layover at the end of a nine hour flight. Kyle was able to sleep in the Frankfort airport, the picture above is before he got himself settled and dozed off. The hotel they stayed in was really more like mini apartments. They had a small kitchen, living and dining areas. It was perfect for the three of them. More posts to follow when Kyle returns

from camp. All I can say is that the boy is having an awesome summer. He is a fantastic kid and so deserves to have these adventures. I am so glad that he is having this time with his Dad. I know how important it is to Bill to spend time with his boys. He missed doing these types of activities and trips with his dad and I know how much it means to both Kyle and Bill to be able to share this summer together. 

So tired he slept in his clothes! Bill said he woke up Wednesday and said he slept great and felt like his normal self. On Tuesday they went on a six hour walking tour of Berlin. Bill said Kyle was like a zombie he was so tired but he absorbed all the information! The kid can literally learn history in his sleep!

The mini apartment, hotel. Great location to the subway and very close to Brandenberg Gate and the American Embassy.

The subway system I have read is one of the best. They became experts quickly since this was their main form of transportation. Kyle has a great subway story to share and I promised him I would not tell it until he could write about it.

More posts to follow when Kyle returns from camp. He is having such a great summer and learning so much from all he is doing. I'm so excited for him!