Featuring Deacon's blessing and more!

Maelie really wanted to dress Deacon up as a girl for Daddy so we found one of Maelie's dresses when she was a baby and put it on him (only one time and never again was the agreement).  Here she is holding her pseudo sister.   He wasn't very happy in it. 

Sterling and Deacon.  He likes him, gives him 2 thumbs up!

This speculoos is from Holland.  It is NOT peanut butter, but looks like it.   It is amazingly good.  It tastes like creamy cookies.  I LOVE it. This is all I have so we eat it very sparingly.  MMMmmmmm

I bought this treasure box in Germany while I was there. It's handmade from Turkey.

It's the perfect box because there is a trick to open it so the kids can't get into it.  When Denver, Jenn and I tried to figure it out, we couldn't and had to be shown.   The inside is pretty and velvety.

We went to Serra Do Cume at dusk.  It's hard to get dark shots, but these are some of the few that looked the best.

Last week we had Branch Presidency BBQ.  It was fun and delicious.  There were 8 adults and 16 teens/kids.

The families:  Ours, Dacayanan's, Parkinsons, and Stroms.

Colson loves the pool.  He practically spent the whole 3 or 4 hours in the pool.  He was shaking when he got out because the weather was cool, not cold, but not weather for the pool. (In July too!)

Grilling...

Colson found some flowers and put them in his ears.  :)

We made chore charts.  Each kid got to decorate a clipboard to keep their daily chore charts.  If they complete the chart each day, they get 50 cents.  They potentially can earn $12 a month.  It's not only chores on the charts, but things like practice piano and read a book and brush your teeth and say your prayers, etc.  The dishes and other chores are on there too, but it's a pretty full chart of things they need to do.  So far, they've done great.

Deacon hates his swing because he hates laying on his back.  He has been a tummy baby from the beginning.

Our finished clipboards.  These are the ones I made for Cole and Sterling.

These are Garrett's and Maelie's

On Sunday, Aug 4th, we blessed Deacon Windsor Palmer.

All the kids.  (Deacon has grown so much and so quickly.  At 6 weeks he weighed 10 pounds!

Between the 3 family shots, you can see everyone's eyes open.  The sun was in our faces.

On the way home from church we saw  these flags someone put up. 

Call us crazy, but we're going to move!  We only have a year left, but a house opened up that has a million dollar view (nothing in the way of the ocean).  It's just around the block.  To me, the move is worth it.  We'll see if I agree after the move.  It's not set in stone yet because the paperwork isn't done and they can change their minds at any time, but it's looking promising!

That's all for  now.  Stay tuned for  the Praia Fest post!