Becca's Pretend Birthday

Even though Becca doesn't turn 5 for another 2 weeks we celebrated her birthday this past weekend when her cousins were in town. I made a huge cake so I could freeze half of it for her real birthday next month. She really enjoyed it and loved telling her primary teacher on Sunday all about her pretend birthday party.

Her new barbie from Lily and Thor.

The cake! I might have had too much fun making this one.

Becca had requested a yellow castle cake for her birthday. She's talked about it for months.

I think she liked it!

Swing Set

We've talked about it ever since moving in, but this summer we finally got it done. We built a swing set. Okay, I shouldn't say 'we', Mike built a swing set. And it was quite the accomplishment. Our backyard is not level, and it has a bunch of trees. Last year, we cleared out some of the underbrush and cut down several trees, but we couldn't get the roots and stumps out.

So this summer we started up again. Mike rented this machine and drove all over the backyard digging up the stumps and leveling out a large section for the swing set. I don't think he minded, he seemed to be having a lot of fun driving that around the back yard.

Last Saturday one of Mike's coworkers came by with his son and helped Mike get the building started. Mike was so organized for this project. The night before he laid out all the wood and labeled it so he knew what went where. Then he went through all the hardware and did the same. (Krissi and I did help with that part.) It saved him tons of time on Saturday.

They made so much progress that even after they left Mike kept on working and had the whole thing finished by dinner.

The kids had to take a test drive immediately. I think it turned out to be a great success!

What summer is all about!

Summer is in full swing at our house. It's hot, it's humid, the kids are out of school and we're spending lots of time doing fun outdoor activities.

It's not really summer until you break out the sprinkler for a fun afternoon. This day was great. It was starting to get shady on this side of the house. I set up the sprinkler so it would get the garden at the same time, and the kids just loved it.

An afternoon at the park. Since we didn't have the swing set up yet we took the kids to the park for a picnic and some playtime.

More water fun. I bought this pool last year on a ridiculous sale and the kids just love it.

We decided to roast marshmallows one night in the backyard. The coals weren't really hot enough but we had fun trying anyway. Rachael especially enjoyed the treat as you can tell by how much of the chocolate she is wearing. She loved every minute of it, and then went straight to the bathtub.

Garden update

A while back I posted about the garden we started this spring. It was really more of an experiment since we've never really had a garden so I was curious to see how it would work. We planted almost everything from seed, except some romaine lettuce so I was anxious to see what would actually grow, and what would actually produce vegetables.

This is how the garden looked in May. The lettuce and spinach were growing great and we've had some wonderful salads. We got some sweet sugar snap peas and some tasty radishes to add to it.

And then we got rain, and lots of it. We were picking peas and lettuce almost daily! I had to take more pictures, and this time I put the kids next to the plants so you can get an idea of how tall everything got. Unfortunately, the lettuce and spinach began to bolt so I had to chop down the entire plant. But what do you do with 7 plants worth of lettuce!! We had a week of salads. I still have some in the fridge. Thankfully it lasts much longer because it's so fresh. I've already planted more romaine and spinach seeds since it was just so tasty to have those fresh salads.

I took Chris's picture next to our monster zucchini plant. The leaves are huge, but we've only picked 3 small zucchini.

And of course the peach tree. No peaches, but we expected that this first year. I'm just glad it's still alive and producing leaves. We must be doing something right.

End of School

Another school year has come and gone. Chris had a great year of 1st grade. He had a wonderful teacher who really connected with all the kids and Chris loved going to class each day. I can't believe how much he learned this year. He's doing very well in math and reading. He even got the Principals award for having straight A's for the whole school year. (Can you tell I'm a proud mom!) He can't wait to start 2nd grade in the fall and this year Becca will be joining him. How do they grow up so fast!

Chris and his friend Sean.

T-Ball

Chris finished his first season of T-ball, and loved every minute of it. He loves to be part of a team. He had a great time learning the basics of baseball and trying them out each week. The only part he didn't like was that he got bored just standing on a base waiting for the next player to hit. Occasionally he would just sit down and wait until it was time to run to the next base. I guess his patience level is similar to mine. Oh well, he had fun anyway, and we enjoyed going to all the games and cheering him on.

Rachael-ism

This past weekend we got to visit with my sister-in-law Karen for some strawberry picking and jam making at our house. On Sunday we drove her home, enjoyed a wonderful dinner and then drove back to Lynchburg. As soon as we got in the car, Rachael started asking for a snack. I nicely told her that we had just had dinner and she could have a snack later. Apparently to a 2 year old "later" is about 2 minutes. She repeatedly asked for a snack and I repeatedly told her no. After about 15 minutes of having this conversation I turned to her and said "Rachael you just had dinner, we will have snack later, that is the plan." To which she clearly replied "I don't like that plan."