July 2013

The month of July began with some wonderful excitement when Mommy won an Ipad at our church's 4th of July picnic!  There were hundreds of people in attendance and five families were chosen at random to compete in a bean bag toss for the ipad.  Each family representative only got one shot at getting their bean bag closest to the center of a star decal on the floor of the gym.  All Mommy could think about when she was getting ready to toss that bean bag was David and Goliath and how the Lord guided David's rock straight to the center of Goliath's forehead for a bullseye, immediate kill!  Haha!  The Lord saw fit to guide Mommy's bean bag to be the closest to the center of the star, so our family won the Ipad!  We are so thrilled as it will come in really handy with Hunter's homeschooling this next school year.

The next day on the Fourth of July, Daddy took the big boys to the annual Naples 4th of July Parade.  Mommy stayed home with a fussy, teething Levi.  The boys had a fun time watching the parade, as always, and brought lots of goodies home. 

On the evening of the 4th we went to a friend's house who lives in a fantastic neighborhood where all sorts of neighbors get together, pool their money, and put on spectacular shows.  There were literally fireworks going off in every direction, 360 degrees, and you really don't know which way to turn and look because they're all so great.  And so close to where you're watching.  The big boys had fun setting off fireworks with Mr. Marks and Daddy in the street, but Levi was not in a good mood and not at all happy with all the commotion, so he and Mommy and Mrs. Marks and their sweet new baby girl watched through the window from inside. 


Hunter and Nathanael attended a really fun VBS at a local church.  The name of the VBS was "IncrediWorld" and it was developed by Ken Ham and the Answers in Genesis ministry.  Although it was much smaller than the VBS that our church puts on, the boys had an absolute blast learning about creation and using the Bible as the foundation of truth at Incrediworld.

There were dress-up contests with prizes Tues-Friday.  Tuesday was crazy hair day and Hunter and Nathanael both wanted mohawks, but Hunter wanted some more embellishment so we added some red beads to some of the chunks of hair in his mohawk.  He won the prize in his class for best crazy hair!!  He got to pick a little prize.  Nathanael was bummed that he didn't win anything.  The next day was tacky tourist day, so mommy went all out with a little more of a nerd emphasis on Nathanael's outfit.  He lost again.  :(  The next day was rainbow day!  Nathanael had rainbows on his face and arms and wore a fantastic rainbow wig.  He won that day!  He chose a kite for his prize that sadly got broken in the car on the way home.  :(  Hunter was the only boy in his class to participate for the rainbow dress up day with a rainbow on his forehead so he won a second time!  He picked a kite for his prize too.  The last day was dinosaur day and Nathanael wore a dragon costume that a friend handed down to us and Hunter wore a dinosaur t-shirt.  Neither of them won that day, but they still had a great week of VBS and came home excited to share all the things they learned and did.

July means that football season is right around the corner so Daddy started getting our boys in shape with some football drills and conditioning in our fantastic back yard.  We are so excited that Nathanael gets to play this year!!

Nathanael lost his first tooth in the month of July and got a whopping $5 from the tooth fairy!!  He was so excited!

Nathanael is getting ready for kindergarten and has spent a lot of time this summer practicing writing his letters, numbers, and his name.  This is not his favorite thing to do. :)

We've had some lazy summer days and the we've all enjoyed the slower pace. 

We have been blessed to swim at our friend's, the Sommerville's, pool several times this summer!  They have four children and our children have a blast playing with them.  One day after swimming for a little while we even got to go into their club house and watch a movie in the clubhouse theater!  It was a really fun experience!

Mommy and Daddy have been attending a Bible study every Sunday night this summer called "The Truth Project".  Daddy has gone through it before, but Mommy had only gone a couple of times  and Daddy really wanted her to go through it in it's entirety.  Typically Daddy works OT in the jail every weekend, so Mommy drops off the boys at a babysitter on Sunday evenings and meets Daddy at our friend's house where the Bible study is held.

They have a sweet granddaughter named Chloe.  Chloe and Hunter are the same age and have been in the same class at church pretty much since birth.  One Sunday night Hunter skipped the babysitter and came with us to the Truth Project.  That evening's topic was Darwin and the Theory of Evolution.  Hunter had a good time playing with Chloe and learning more about how we can be confident in our belief that Creation is true even though most of those in our modern culture do not believe it's true.

Grandpa Skultety, Jeremy and Juliet came for a visit towards the end of July.  It had been since February since we had seen them and we had a wonderful visit.   Grandpa brought Levi a ball and a camera for Mommy that he was no longer using.  Mommy had a good time learning how to use it and taking pictures of our visit.

Here's Nathanael with Levi's ball that he ended up taking from his little brother to play with!

Grandpa reading to Levi from one of his favorite picture books.

Lincoln logs with Auntie Juliet and Grandpa. 

Levi stayed on Grandpa's lap drawing and playing with the colored pencils for quite a while!

Grandpa Love

Uncle Jeremy, who will be 17 in September, stayed with us for a few extra days over the weekend.  He babysat for us on Sunday night when I went to Bible study and he played with the boys.  The boys were thrilled to have him stay with us as he always has fun things to do for the boys.

Play-doh!

This is a really fun game that Uncle Jeremy taught the boys last year.  He learned it in his history class at school.  It's basically a war where you set up two barricades and two teams throw "bombs" at each other.  The bombs are crumpled up pieces of paper.  Hunter and Nathanael go bonkers with happiness and excitement when they get to play this game with Uncle Jeremy. 

We are so thankful for our daddy's job.  This summer he got assigned to go fishing with school-aged kids on the Pier!  Towards the end of July he took the big boys fishing with him all week long.  What a blessing!

They caught lots of fish!

A couple of nights Daddy brought home some fish from the pier and fileted them up for dinner! 

We breaded the meat and fried it up.  Each time he brought home a fish it was delicious!

Daddy is excited to take the boys fishing again in the future now that they've learned all the tricks from the regulars that were on the pier every day that daddy was there.