We have all enjoyed a nice, fairly quiet June. Not a whole lot to report, but here's some pictures.
These girls sure do love Decker. He's a pretty good little snuggler sometimes. They took to him with him to Goldberg's for breakfast at the Battery one morning which I think they all enjoyed.
Before and after his quarantine haircut; he needed this so badly!
We were excited to head to Birmingham to finally visit family. It had been too long! We simply enjoyed hanging out and catching up with one another. Merritt absolutely adores Mia and loves being around her.
The girls have been doing some extra chores this summer to earn some spending money. Mia has been tasked with pressure washing the back porch and sweeping out the garage while Lily has needed to clean out and organize our pantry, downstairs closet, and refrigerator.
We bought a few different spray in hair dyes and had a little fun with it. We used this purple and green combo to give Mia a Mal from Descendants look. It was pretty awesome, but she didn't like how it made her hair feel, and the color never seemed to fully dry, so it was coming out on her brush. Oh well, it looked super cool while in, and it was something fun to try out this summer.
Lily and I had a lot of fun one evening playing Gravity Maze. We both enjoyed the challenge and completion of this. I always love getting one on one time with my girls; they are such amazing people.
Mia has been saving up her money since her last birthday, and she used part of it recently to buy an Oculus Quest virtual reality system. It's so cool! She is having so much fun with the games, and it's really neat when it's cast up to the tv, so we can all see what she's seeing. Lily has tried it out too, and enjoys a lot of it. Really, it's just funny to watch someone move around with this!
Lily and I have both finished our paint by numbers paintings that we started a couple of months ago; this has been a fun new quarantine hobby to pick up! I painted van Gogh's Cafe Terrace at Night, and Lily painted this beautiful underwater scene. I have thoroughly enjoyed this!
Neither Ryan nor Mia have enjoyed the painting as much as Lily or I, so they are letting Lily paint theirs. She's been working hard on Ryan's Venetian scene, and then she'll move on to Mia's tiger.
Just a little staring contest between Lily and Decker.
We had a little redecorating this past week. Since we remodeled back in 2015, we've had "the girls' office." It had this beautiful wall size map on it, and it was painted a beautiful shade of blue. We had sticky notes all over it to remind us of friends serving on the mission field around the world. The girls' desks were in front of the map, and it was a great homework area. Lily's keyboard was also in here.
However, we recently received a 1908 Steinway piano that belonged to Ryan's grandmother, the wonderful lady we named Mia after. We decided to give the room a little bit more formal look to it for this beautiful piece.
Lily is already playing the most beautiful music on this! We are very thankful to now have this piano, both for the special history it holds for our family and for the lovely music that Lily will make on it in the future.
We celebrated Ryan for Father's Day with a Giordano's pizza! This is his favorite deep dish Chicago pizza. When we found out they delivered frozen pies, we knew we had to try it. We ordered one sausage and one pepperoni. They ship in dry ice to stay frozen. We made the pepperoni for him, and it was delicious; it tasted just like being in one of their Chicago restaurants!
Mia went over to Danielle's house for an afternoon/evening of swimming and fun which she greatly enjoyed. It's so nice to start seeing friends again!
While she was gone, Lily and I watched the last movie in The Hunger Games series. She's quickly read through those books, and we've watched the movie after she's completed each one. After dinner, she, Ryan, and I watched Ferris Bueller's Day Off together; what a classic!
Like I said, it's been pretty quiet. We did go over to the Martin's house for another concert by Mark Miller, like we did last month. That was a lot of fun; it was a beautiful night with great music and good friends. We've had a ton of fun continuing our quest to watch all the Marvel movies. We only have three more to go! This is a great summer for movie watching. Liz, Kendall, and her girls came over for a day trip, so it was fun to hang out with them again; we went over to my parents on Father's Day and had dinner with them and Wayne's family. We are always grateful for time with our family. It's been a nice month, though quiet. We are healthy and happy to be together. For that, I am very thankful.