memorial day and some odds and ends

 the other morning before coming for breakfast olive had already turned in to snow white

 tami and ellie stayed the night the other day 

olive and ellie look even more like twins with their hair the same length

and they are definitely two peas in a pod

 uncle kyle stayed the same night

and it was a really nice visit

he left shortly before hazel's birthday party

henry is a big fan of all these birthdays

he loves balloons

and the occasional slice of cake, too

 i loved that olive chose to pair her toms with her fancy dress and bow for church

 she is obsessed with this mermaid barbie hazel got for her birthday

and kept taking barbie selfies with it during church

whatever keeps them quiet, right?

 i thought henry and michael were so cute sitting on the table during our sunday school class

 i love that when one of the girls puts their nightgown on for bed

the others copy

they're so cute

 for memorial day michael hung our flag

and we spent a lot of the day taking down the brown shutters and painting them black

 and painting the garage doors to match the house rather than dark brown

you can see the color the house was originally was a weird red

 yay for black shutters!

 we made a lot of progress

the only part i still want to paint is that top portion that's still dark brown

i'd like to change to maybe a dark gray

and the rock could use staining because it's really faded

but i LOVE the changes we've made

michael was painting around the vent up there white

because it was all brown and looked weird

these may be little things but they make a big difference to me and make me really happy

we'd put off taking the kids to the pool all day

so we could work on the house

and then 10 or so minutes after we got there and all got in the water

it started raining....oops

 i cut henry's hair the other day and i think it's so cute

 the water was pretty warm

and it was less busy than it would have been with warmer weather

so that was good

 when the rain really started coming down

me and the littles went to the van to wait it out

and take pictures of course

 they lasted a while in the rain

and henry kept busy tearing the car apart while eleanor took a little nap

this morning eleanor came downstairs in michael's office shirt

i didn't know he'd dressed her in it for bed last night

and i thought it was the cutest surprise

 a little outdoor play

henry got as wet as possible without actually getting in the pool

 the lettuce and kale are growing really well

it's pretty fun having a little garden