Horsin' Around

I've been a lame blogger lately. Sorry. Summer seems to get so crazy - lack of routines, spur-of-the-moment activities, weekend trips, busy home business!

Since school will be starting next week, I am hoping to return to a more normal schedule/routine. I thought I'd share some more photos of our summer before school. Laura says she is excited to start school. I, on the other hand, am not excited at all! I have LOVED having both of them home all day during the summer. We've had so much fun and I have truly savored hearing the sounds of their laughter and watching their creative escapades. We've rarely turned on the television this summer and it's been fun to watch them come up with so many fun activities to keep themselves occupied. I am absolutely going to miss this.

Laura attended "Horse Camp" during the last week of June/first week of July. She and her fellow campers performed a show for parents on the last day. Laura had the time of her life! She cannot get enough of horses. She is already looking forward to going again next year. Lindsay really wanted to go to horse camp too. (Next year she'll be old enough.) It was hard to drag her out of the barn each day after dropping Laura off. Bribery = parents' best friend.


My cat lover - she LOVES cats! I was worried it had fleas but if it did, we didn't catch any. :)

Be back soon with more photos!

"I Can't Believe It Mama!"

"I have had tons of parties before and this have never happened." -Laura

I'm pretty sure there is nothing Laura loves more in this world than throwing parties. Her dad and I are not sure where she got that gene from as neither of us is really a "party animal".

About once a week, she plans some sort of grand celebration - faux Christmas or other holdiay, stuffed animal or doll birthdays, any sort of occasion she can think of is a reason to party. We even had to have a Memorial Day party this year. She planned all sorts of activities for us to do including finger painting and her famous pinata. Last fall for one of her celebrations, she made a pinata from a small cardboard box, some colored paper and a bunch of tape. It has been used for most of her celebrations since then. I was going to post a photo of it but I can't find any photos. Shoot.

Anyway, today she planned a celebration for one of her doll's birthdays. She had everything set up and activities planned in the yard. L&L kept coming in and telling me to get outside for the party. I was working and made them wait a bit. Oftentimes, as in the case of today, she is also bugging me to make food - menus are important, you know. I declined her requests today. She wanted me to make rice & I didn't feel like it. I'm sure I will regret saying no to this request one day. Anyway...

I finally made my way outside to the party. First I had to sign in.

After getting the signing in formalities attended to and my party hat on, I was pleasantly pleased to see this:

The tables and chairs are ready. The children and babies are dressed in their finest party frocks. Let the festivities begin.

This is what I see next. A (mostly) pleasant game of Chutes and Ladders taking place.

By the way, if you feel you may have seen these fabulous party hats before, you may have. They are leftover from Jeremy's pirate birthday earlier this year.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but it could be avoided no longer. The sky was getting dark and the clouds were looking menacing. Then it began to sprinkle, followed immediately by a major downpour which resulted in this:

And this:

In the downpour, Laura had to run out to rescue her hanging pinata from the tree house. Whew, all is well.

The downpour ended as quick as it had begun. The party animals decided to re-assemble their party in the yard. Party on!

Unfortunately, once the party was set back up and I was summoned back outside, it began sprinkling once again. Repeat previous steps.

It was decided that the party should move indoors. Eating commenced. The pinata (hanging from my refrigerator) was broken open.

The party was a rousing success.

Even though now I have a big wet mess all over the place, I love days like this. These two girls light up my life in ways I could never have imagined. How thankful I am that the Lord saw fit to allow me to be their mother.

What is summer

without watermelon???

Guess who...

is riding her bike at the age of 4 years & 9 months with NO training wheels?????

Ahhhhhh, my sweet baby is no baby! :(

School's Out for the Summer!

Finally, here are photos of Laura's last day of school. These were definitely worthy of sharing because they are funny! Yes, Lindsay is wearing a "cat" suit. I believe it is actually a leopard costume but to her, it is a cat. She LOVES cats! She loves wearing this costume! I will say though, that I certainly garnered some strange looks at the post office when my cat came with me...

Jeremy and I recently spent many hours spreading this:

Jeremy did much more mulch-moving than I did. I am happy to report that the last shovel-full was removed from our driveway last Friday evening while I was away enjoying a "scrapbook night" with a friend. (It took almost a month to remove this 15 yard load from our driveway and place it around our house and in our new backyard landscaping plan.)

Here is a first photo of Jeremy's lofty project. He is building the kids a treehouse in our backyard. We have a GIANT apple tree just begging to house a fun fort in the air! There is lots more done now, photos coming soon...

.

Hope everyone is enjoying their summer as much as we are!

My Little Author

I already missed my goal of posting every day. That didn't take long...

The week before school was out Laura's class hosted an "Author's Celebration". Lindsay and I were able to go and check out the books Laura had written. Laura even got up in front of everyone and read a poem she wrote. We couldn't really hear her but she was brave to do it! Lindsay LOVED being there with the "big kids" and was fascinated watching them!

Here are a couple photos of Laura reading one of the (non-fiction) books she wrote, "Hummingbirds".
This is my favorite book she wrote - I think it is hilarious!

It is called "When I Got Sick" (very fitting since we seemed to do a lot of that in 1st grade).


(Notice the doctor implements on the cover.)


"I got strep throat then it got worse."

"I had scarlatina. I had to go to the doctor's."


"I had to take disgusting medicine."


"I had to miss one week of school."


"But I am better."

I love this!

Time Flies!

I've been lax in my blogging. I've not been lax in my living. Things have been busy and crazy and fun. I wanted to post weeks ago about Memorial Day weekend. We met Jeremy's family at Hocking Hills to hang out and have fun. I have lots of photos...


I wanted to post about Laura's "Author's Celebration" at school. Lindsay and I were able to go to school and see Laura's class "perform" a poem, we got to read many of the books (stories) Laura has written. I think I'll share one of my favorite stories soon. We played games and even had snacks. The students planned the whole celebration - very cute!


I wanted to post about what's been keeping us so busy. Anyone know what 15 yards of mulch looks like? I've got photos of that too...


Jeremy has been extra busy outside with another lofty project. Any guesses?


I wanted to post about Laura's last day of school. I guess she's now officially a second grader. (She almost missed her last few days of school due to another bout with strep throat.)


Our family has also been busy welcoming my sister's newest addition, baby Diana Rose, born May 27th at a whopping 9lbs, 7.5 oz. I am SO excited to be headed up north to see this little miracle this weekend!


My goal this week is to post EVERY day with all of the photos I've been taking recently of everything we've been doing. I'll do a different theme each day because putting all the photos on this one post would take me forever. (Does anyone else think blogger's photo adding feature is time consuming and frustrating?!?)


Today I am going to include some photos from our Hocking Hills trip.




(Yes, that is Laura way down there on the left side of the photo above.)



See ya' tomorrow with more photos!