The 9th Annual VanHorn Backyard BBQ Bonanza

We had a wonderful Backayard BBQ this year! We had almost 90 people in our backyard and it was great fun! Our theme this year was "moo-litary". We had "camo" table covers and "camo" cows. It was a wonderful theme that Barry thought of... I should ask him for ideas more often. We had beautiful weather and a great turn out. I have posted just a few pictures of the evening. I hope you enjoy them.

The back of our great t-shirts! Wonderfully designed by Lori!

My sweet Molly being so silly! Do you like her dog tags?

Sydney, Hannah and Nannie!

A few of our great BBQ "regulars"!

Molly and Aunt Carmen

Barry and I. We were also celebrating our 11th anniversary that day!

My BBQ CREW!!! I could not do it with out them!

My girlies!

Preschool Days

Gracie started Preschool at Hope Lutheran last Friday. She was so excited to be going to school too. Although if you ask her how "school" is going she will quickly correct you and say "it is not school it is preschool"... she really is too big!
Here are just a few pictures from her first day last week.

Top: Gracie out front of the school
Bottom: Gracie showing her new backpack

A nice, cheesy smile!

"I'm ready!"

My sweet baby... off to school. Oh, excuse me... Preschool!!

My Sunday School Kiddos

I teach the 2 and 3 year olds at church and all of them are promoting up at the end of August to the Preschool class. I told them we would have a class party since they were are leaving me:)
We had lots of fun. We had cookies, juice boxes and even prize sacks for each of them. I gave them all kinds of sugar and then they had to go sit still in church for the next hour:) Here are few pictures of my class!

Anna, Gracie, Evie and Joseph... hugging!

Being super silly... they do that a lot!

Some really nice smiles.

Here they all are enjoying their snacks and prizes.

We had lots of fun. I will miss them but I get three new kiddos in a couple of weeks and that is going to be lots of fun too!

What is that Saying?

.... Necessity is the Mother of all Inventions....
It was time for Molly to move on out of the high chair into a booster seat at the table with the rest of us. She was ready and her high chair is falling apart. I decided to start shopping online for a nice booster seat. This is what I found. It was a nice size, isn't supposed to slip, a nice bright color... it is also $29.99! Yikes!! Not really what I wanted to spend.

So this is what I did....
tied on two seat cushions to a chair for her to sit on at the table. I have to say it worked very well and it was ... FREE!!!
(and since I am the only one who wants to use a seat cushion we had extras laying under the table)

If you give me long enough... I can be real creative:)

The First Day of 2nd Grade...

What can I say really... my baby is in 2nd grade. It shocks me sometimes that she could really be old enough to be moving along so quickly in school. She had a great day and really likes her teacher. I often spend (lots of) moments during the summer praying for whoever Sydney's teacher might be the next year. Only God knows what teacher she needs and that will be suit her. So here are a few pictures of the first day of school... a very rainy first day:)

Sydney finally got to use her fun see-through
umbrella she got for her birthday!

I know her name is not 'Francisco', she is standing under her name:)

Sydney at her desk! She was so ready for me to stop taking pictures by now! I am her mother this is my job!!

Another Milestone

Sydney learned how to ride her bike last week. She was not really looking forward to learning because I think she was scared of falling off. It only took her about two evenings to get it down. Now she just cruises around the cul de sac all on her own. It is a very exciting accomplishment for sure!! We are super proud:)

The first night of learning to ride!


Gracie and Molly going for a bike ride in the trailer with Barry.

I think Gracie was "posing" and Molly was trying
to do the same but it ended up just looking like they
could not hold their heads up:)

There's No Place Like Home...

This was at the the Kansas Welcome center in, I believe, Concordia. The first rest stop just inside Kansas. I was so exited to see this. Even though we had about 8 hours left to drive, it still felt like home.
The rest of the trip I took in the rolling green hills and the fields of beautiful sunflowers and was so glad to be back in Kansas. I love the mountains and seeing Colorado but Kansas is HOME!!

I LOVE KANSAS!!!!

Gracie standing in the middle of the Sunflower:)