smiles.

lilly.

in august lilly had eye surgery,  i was a little nervous about that. i think anytime any of you children have to go under it’s a scary thing. you might be wondering what was wrong with lilly's eyes? well she has/had intermittent exotropia it's nothing serious(it's funny because before having max i thought all these little thing were so very serious) it's just that the muscles in her eyes aren't always working together so, the dr. loosens up the lower muscles attached to her eyes:) but like i said it's not really the surgery that worried me, it was more the putting to sleep:(

lilly before surgery:)

nick and lilly:)

lilly after surgery:(

she did fabulous! her eyes were a little sore and was having double vision for about month.  she needed to ware a patch on one eye for two hours every other day.  now she is great!  everything went perfect:)

the zoo.

every summer for the past few years we try to make it a point to get to the zoo at least once. 



we were waiting for this one little penguin to jump into the water... but it never did.  lilly to was a little disappointed.



nick and the kids took a train ride around the zoo.  max kept trying to climb out the side:)



for each of the kids first visit to the zoo we have gotten them a stuffed animal, lilly got a tortoise, max got a hippopotamus and for grey's first visit he got an alligator!

we were able to feed the giraffe, it was awesome.  i don't thing i was ever that close to one before.  the lilly and max love it:) 

lilly feeding the giraffe.



i couldn't believe how long it's tongue was!  that's only half of it in this picture!  you can see max was a little stunned by the size too:)



it kept licking my arm trying to get it's food, max thought that was really funny!

max was telling him to go down by lilly.

to be honest the kids were a little crabby, i couldn't really understand that... their bellies were full, they had enough sleep the night before and on the way there, the weather was a little rainy but nothing that should have affected their moods... i just kept saying to nick "what's with these kids, here we are at what should be a wonderful place for kids... what's with these kids?" despite that, nick and i enjoyed our family time at the zoo:)

hugs:)

normally every day when nick gets home from work max will run to the door and say hi to welcome him home... and then just go back to what he was doing.  but on this day he must have really missed his daddy because he would let him go:)  they were the biggest, longest, tightest hugs i have ever seen a child give:)

lilly and grey even wanted to get in on the hugging action after they saw how happy it made their daddy.

so cute.



grey and me:)



lots of hugs and smiles in the this house:)

wordless wednesday.

4th of july.

wow! the forth of july feels like a really long time ago.  we had wonderful weather, a lot of swimming, a lot of s'mores and a spectacular fish fry.

my littlest man playing in the water:)

before this weekend i would have never guessed how much max loves swimming!  he was like a little fish and this life jacket was awesome, he was able to swim off on his own in any direction:)

riley and lilly.

max and daddy at the fish fry.

max and nick with the master fryer:)

just some of the minten family:)





max's first time keeping the headphones on in the car to watch a movie!

catching up

so this is going to be my month to catch up on blogging from the months i have missed.  the summer has been very busy around my house, but we still were able to enjoy the nice weather and great family time:)

in the beginning of june we attended little chutes annual cheese fest.  the kids had a great time the weather was beautiful if i can remember correctly it was the first year in a long, long time that it didn't rain:)

grandpa elrick on the helicopters with lilly and max:)



daddy and grey.

lilly and max going into the fun house.



me going in after max... he was having to much fun in the ball pit to move onto the rest.

the kids at the parade.

grey was a little sad because he wanted max's sucker:)

like i said the weather was great... but all the food was even better:)

fun on the farm.

this past friday we went to a local farm that also sells plants.   lilly, max, aiden, jack and evan really enjoyed checking out the animals.   with grey first look at the cows you could just see confusion on his face, but after a few minutes he was having fun with the rest of the kids!  next time i will have to get pictures feeding the goats and horses.