Projects, good food and fireworks, what a day!

Happy Fourth!!! {yes, yes I know it's way past by now, but all the same}.We had a wonderful day. Spent working on projects together, then a yummy dinner out on the back deck, followed by a pretty cool fireworks show viewed at a local park.

This girl is such a daddy's girl. If it looks like she is glued to him in every picture it's because she is!

My adorable little flower children.

Can you tell daisies are an all time favorite of mine? I let the wild ones grow in my garden, I figure a plant is only a weed if you don't like them. Since I love the wild daisies that grow around here I openly invite them into my garden. :) I think it's a horrible shame they are considered weeds. They do have a tendency to take over if you let them, but you don't have to.

My littlest boy, such a sweet heart he is. Lately he always wants to hold my hand, hug or kiss me, tell me he loves me, pick flowers for me, tell me I'm beautiful, etc... It's really so adorable.

Snuggling daddy and waiting for the show to start. {which took forever!}

Actually sitting still for a picture, and not making a silly face for once, wow! Rare indeed.

Fire works! Lala was super quiet the whole time, but she didn't freak out so that's good. Atty still said he was scared but this was the first year he wasn't sitting on someones lap clinging on for dear life. Plus I think he actually did enjoy it. Growing up.

See all smiles. We had a blast, and even got out of there with out a problem. Sometimes you get stuck in some serious traffic, yuck.

When we got home our new crazy {and I mean seriously crazy party animals} neighbors down at the end of the block were lighting off some really big fireworks. J said they had been at it since it first got dark. {and they kept at it until midnight!} While the hubby and I were getting the other sleeping kids out of the car Bubu went in and grabbed a blanket and settled down on the sidewalk to watch. It was so cute that I just had to let him stay out there with me for a while longer. Even though it was really, really late at that point. He was wide awake and so excited. It was nice to have a moment with him and then a bonus moment when J decided to join us. He didn't go to the fireworks show, so it was nice to get to watch some fireworks with him after all.

Okay so now I am pretty much caught up and I really need to remember to never let it get that bad again! I am really trying to pack a lot of exploring into this summer and a ton of yard projects as well but I will need to make time to post now and again before I let weeks get away from me!

Yummy, yum, yum!

Our first egg! {They didn't lay the egg here, I just wanted a picture after the boys brought it to me.}

It was super little and the boys found it out in the yard. Since then they have found two more eggs in the yard, but they were soft shelled. I'm thinking I need to go get them some oyster shells. I've heard they need them for the calcium so that the shells will be hard.
I'm not sure why they are laying them in the yard. They have nesting boxes. I only let them out on the weekend too {to give me time to clean up chicken poop, yuck} so it's not like they are out there all the time. If they were I would understand more why they would be confused and laying in the wrong spot, but this isn't the case. I'm at a loss as to how to get them to lay eggs in their nesting boxes. Will have to brain storm and do some more research I guess. They are actually laying early too, we weren't expecting any for another month or so. Anyways regardless of where they are laying, we are so excited to see some eggs!

{and yes I still have even more catching up to do...}

An inspirational outing

A weekend ago we went to this really awesome park. Actually it's a few parks in one area. There is a wild life sanctuary with a boardwalk, a fragrance garden and an old homestead park with animals and gardens, plus it's right next to a river. If it was closer to us we would be there all the time! I got some serious inspiration from the gardens, the fragrance garden as well as the vegetable gardens at the other park. It was a beautiful warm day and we spent the whole day there. We also met up with family as well. Neenee {grandma} Aunties and a niece. So fun!I must have this in my garden.

And this.

I am all about organic gardening and adjusting tolerance levels, but this sign cracked me up! There were NO plants there. If you are going to place a sign advocating this sort of gardening at least have a healthy looking plant by the sign!

Because dry empty dirt does not get the right point across I do believe.

Smelling the flowers.

Auntie Rissa! Lala loves her auntie I promise, she is just focusing on those sunglasses. She was waiting for her moment to seize them off her face, and or put her fingers all over them. She's crafty like that.

Board walk fun. The kids loved this walk, I was a little nervous myself and praying the whole time one of them didn't stumble or step off in their excitement. It wasn't all that deep, just nasty.

Can you tell I'm exhausted already? And it was still before noon. We didn't leave the park until close to 6 pm. It was a looooonnnnggggg day.

My little explorers.

Had to get a picture of the boys on this pig bench, they loved it.

I am going to do my new garden beds {where the pond use to be} like this. It's a four by four foot bed split up into one foot squares with string so it looks like a grid. They were amazing. This type of compact planting fits a ton of vegetables into a really small space. Exactly what I need!

The kids loved the animals. I was a little sad and shocked that there wasn't very many animals at this park anymore {and just by the condition of the fragrance garden and park in general}. I use to go to this park as a kid and they had so many more animal, plus the park was obviously taken better care of back then. With all the cuts in budget and stuff this park has really suffered. Still a cool place, but it really has been neglected over the last 20 years. A volunteer at the fragrance garden told me that the garden is pretty much only run by volunteers at this point. If I lived closer I would most definitely want to be one of those volunteers. I couldn't help but think about all the stuff I would love to do to fix up the garden as I was walking through.

Cousins! These two are just the cutest. They were looking a wild birds, since there were no other animals in this pen. Leiella is still calling most birds spooky or spooky eagles {ever since the baby crow incident}. After the fragrance garden, the boardwalk and the park we decided that it was just too hot and headed down to the river.

Lala sat down in this pud puddle before I could even get her swimsuit on. Ahhhhhhh refreshing!

Rivers make me nervous so they were only allow to put there toes in, but it was enough to cool off. They still had tons of fun in the sand and squishing in mud puddles.

These two were just plain adorable as usual. Some how they ended up both wearing green sunhats and pink swimsuit and they were just too much!

Love.

So there you have it, I managed to drowned you once again in pictures. And believe it or not... I am still not caught up with my posts. Good Grief.

Garden beauties...

Red, White, and Blue

No I'm not catching up with a 4th of July post yet... I'm talking about my house! I finally went for it and decided to paint my front door red. I love it! First we took the storm door off, something I've wanted to do for a long time {previous owners put them in, but it didn't make much sense on such small front steps. People practically got pushed off the steps just opening up the screen}. Then I took some pictures of the house and went to pick out paint, found a color that looked great with the blue, or at least I hoped it did. I really lucked out because I didn't even try it out first, just bought a gallon and went for it. Don't ask me why I bought a gallon for a front door... I just did. Before

After
I also painted the trim white and I'm going to be painting the trim around the windows white as well. So there you go red, white and blue... what do you think?

Okay three catch up posts down, more to go...

First camping trip with all the kids!

In keeping with the catching up theme now I will share about our fun little camping trip with J a couple weekends ago. We went camping for two nights up at a lake about an hour away from our house. Our van was packed to overflowing. In fact before we ever going camping again I insist we have a trailer or rack of some sort, we were ridiculously crammed in like sardines. But it was worth it, the kids had a blast. Spike has been insisting that he was going fishing with his uncle J when he came for a visit, so we made sure to bring the fishing poles! My one and only picture of J on this trip. He was trying desperately to get out of the way, but I snap it as fast as I could. I've had to get pretty sneaky these days with the pictures.

This camp site is such a beautiful place. It's next to a lake in the mountains and is surrounded by trees and then open pockets of fields. There is a cool bridge over the water and a little play area for the kids. Lots of fun to be had. We are thinking it's going to be our yearly go to place for camping with the kids. I use the word camping loosely as we ended up getting a cabin {thankfully there just happened to be one available, when we tried to reserve one they had been all booked up} I had packed up for tent camping but was so relieved to get a cabin instead. Especially since it decided to down pour the first night we were there. I don't think in reality we are ready for tent camping just yet with all the kiddos.

The kids loved this tire swing, I could not believe how many times they wanted to spin around on it! I got sick just watching.

Running around on the grassy hills. The only big negative about this place is the horrendous amount of goose poop that was all over the place... That being said in the three days we were there I never once saw a goose. Weird. We did see a really cute raccoon though, and deer, and about a million tadpoles. I kid you not, there were black clouds of tadpoles on the edge of the lake in one spot.

The boys fishing. They didn't catch anything, but they had fun trying. Actually I take that back they did catch something on the very first night, but it was so tiny it got tossed back in. It was cute how excited they got {my husband included}.

Daddy love.

Atty was obsessed with this net. In fact he threw the most embarrassing, have to go back to the cabin, fit over it. He said he needed to go potty so I asked Bubu to hold the net while he went. He did not want to let go of that net for even a minute. From the moment those words left my mouth until about 15 minutes later by the time we made it back to the cabin the boy fell apart. He didn't get that net back for quite some time. Mommy was not a happy camper.

No camping trip is complete with out s'mores {unfortunately, as I would rather skip the whole thing}. Atty roasted his banana chunks again this year and it didn't bother him one bit. I made him sweet crackers and cashew butter "chocolate" and he had s'mores the magic diet way. :)

On our last night there we went out at dusk to go bat spotting. Wow was there a lot of bats! I couldn't get any pictures, because they are super fast. It was really fun though, we sat and fished and got all excited every time a bat swooped by.

It was fun that is until this happened. It was Spikes turn to hold the fishing pole and I looked away for a moment to watch bats with the other kids and when I looked back over he had decided to wrap the fishing wire around his wrist! Just like that. This kid is always getting himself in the weirdest predicaments. He's the same kid that shoved a crayon so far up his nose we had to take him to the ER, and they had to sedate him to get that crayon out! Anyways, it ended up being no biggy, my hubby just clipped the string. I was freaked out there for a second though because it looked so tight! Lesson learned I hope. Lesson being either don't look away when Spike is fishing, or don't wrap fishing line around your arm, either one.

Beautiful time, and an even more beautiful spot.

And I still have more catching up to do... sigh. :)

A day well spent

Wow do I have some catching up to do, one post is not going to be enough. I have all kinds of excuses for my absence but I won't bother going in to them. You're welcome.{I find it nearly impossible to get good group pictures of these kids lately, drives me crazy!}

So for starters, J is here!!! He's camera shy so I count myself lucky if I happen to get a picture or two of him. To start his visit out right, and to celebrate Fathers day {yes I'm going back that far} we went to an awesome park, it's a favorite of ours. We spent the day enjoying the beach, hiking and having a picnic.

Daddy picked his girl a rose. So sweet, she hung onto that thing for a long time... before she ripped it into little pieces.
And yes my hubby is carrying her in a sling, he's awesome like that. :)

Got my yearly rock picture. I will have to find the other ones that I have taken over the years to compare. These kids of mine are growing up way too fast! The more I try to slow things down the faster they seem to go.


Had to get a picture of us together on my man's day. He is such a wonderful daddy! Makes me so happy to know that my kids have such a great example in their father. Some one they can look up to and admire.

Beautiful and full of spunk.

And wait what is this... a picture with J in it!?! Well count my lucky stars. :) I had an unfair advantage, he was trapped after all between two little kids. Isn't he getting so tall and handsome! We are excited to get to spend some time with him, more adventures to come!