Summer Fest

Today was our neighborhood's summer party.  Every summer the neighborhood comes together in front of our house; we roast hot dogs, have water balloon fights, and just get reaquainted all over again. 

 

I love our neighborhood...have I mentioned to ya before? 

 

It has it's faults.  Granted.  But here are some things I love...

 

 

 

Brick lined streets!  Yes we live on a street that is still paved with bricks and I absolutely adore that!  This is Emma devouring a piece of cake that the neighbor across the street made.  Yum!

 

 

 

 

 Cal liked it too!  In case you hadn't figured that out ;)

 Here's the cake that is being devoured in the previous pictures which brings me to something else that I love...the lady that lives right across the street, her name is Diana, and she makes the most phenomenal cakes!  I love that !  Frequently she'll send over samples to try.  Her husband works with Nick and they keep an eye on our house and the kiddos.  Love the neighborly feeling around here.

 I love that Emma's about to deck Cal with a water balloon.  I love it's a neighborhood where our kids can just be themselves and have fun. 

 Cal being crazy.  All of the kids seem pretty used to it.  There's no pretext or need to explain the kid to everyone...we all have our own Calvin's in our family's and it's cool.  I have to say, I love Emma's little smirk in this picture!

 Big mature trees and old houses...what is not to love!  In this picture they told the kids to "pick out a partner" so that's what Emma did!

 Calvin decided to grace us with his presence as Spiderman.  Love it!

 You never know when a good old fashioned sword fight is going to break out!

 Our neighbor's being, well, neighborly!   I love it!

 I threw Nick in the mix by volunteering him to grille.  He grunted and grumbled but once we got there I think he really enjoyed himself!

 The water balloon committee hard at work!

And we had Spiderman so for our next act...Darth Vader!  I think he had to be in costume to play with the big boys.

All in all we love our neighborhood and these events remind us why we are where we are.  We really are enjoying ourselves!

Summerfest

Every year our neighborhood has a party called Summerfest.  It is a lot of fun.  The firetrucks come to let the kids tour them and then they hook their sprinklers up to the hydrant and let the children run through them. There are water balloon fights too, which the kids loved.  We even vote on which house should be on our neighborhood's Christmas ornament this year. 

As a sidenote, in case you didn't know we live in a historic district here in our little city.  We are on the state, city, and national historic registrys.  We are a proud neighborhood and we like to get together...we have Summerfest, a Halloween Party, a Christmas Caroling party, and an Easter Egg hunt. 

The neighborhood originally was owned by two men and then they eventually sold off their land (kind of like subdivisions are today I think).  Our house was built by the daughter and son-in-law, who was a prominent attorney in our area, of one of the original owners.  Anyway, I wouldn't have known all of this except our neighborhood has a book of the history of houses and that's what is says about ours...kind of neat, right?

 Here's Cal who apparently had never tasted water so good.  He was just DYING to get more from the cooler. 

 Kazoo caught in a case of seriousness.  How beautiful is she?

Here are the kiddos playing in the fire department's water...they had a great time except for, and I don't know if you can see it or not, but the street is brick and it got VERY slippery. 

All in all we had a great time and got to socialize with some really great neighbors. 

Sunrise

While on vacation we took the kids out of bed at about 5 in the morning and headed to the beach.  They didn't seem too thrilled.  One of our favorite things to do as a couple is to go watch the sunset...we whoop and holler.  We hold our breath in wonder of God's paintbrush at work in the sky.  It's just fantastic.  I have no idea when Nick and I started this but we have watched the sunrise in lots of places...this was the first time with the children though.  When we arrived at the beach, this is what we were greeted with...

 I simply adore this picture.  I can remember this morning with this picture.  I remember the sound of the waves and the seagulls crys, the feel of cold, damp sand in between my toes, the feel of salt water misting my face, the the transcendent glow of the sky ahead of us.  Wow, God, wow...it's all I can think to say.

Anyway...

 Cal and his sleepy smile in his jammies

 Emma always has a big smile waiting, even sleepy with bed head wearing a nightgown

 And the sky continues to pinken and grow more and more beautiful and suddenly...

Why hello Mr. Sun!

 Gorgeous

 I love it

And we're up and at 'em. 

I adore the sunrise.  It happens every single day and every day it is different.  God is amazing.  He loves us so much.  He wants us to be happy, to experience joy and warmth, and peace.  In our home we are teaching the children that creation is one of God's big ways that he shows us His love.  After all he created ALL of this for us to explore and enjoy.  Sunrises feel like a hug from God...warming, and a gentle reminder that God's in control of the day ahead...don't worry, I've got this one...

Thank you sweet Lord for sunrises and the children we can introduce them to...

Blueberry Picking

Last week we went blueberry picking.  It was hot.  But then again it is the middle of July in the midwest, so I guess that is to be expected.  We are so blessed to live about 15 minutes away from an organic blueberry farm. 

Our kids LOVE blueberrys.  That may even be an understatement.  We save so much money picking the berries ourselves.  To give you an example of how much we save, Meijer had blueberries on sale for $1.50 a pint this week.  At the blueberry farm we got organic blueberrys for 1.75 for a pound!  I get dizzy with the money saving excitement!!! 

We picked 30 pounds of blueberries.  Holy Cow that is a lot of fruit!  We froze almost all of them.  I am hoping to have enough left over to use throughout the year.  And I'd love to have enough to make fresh blueberry muffins for Christmas morning...yummy!

 Here's the gang on the tractor taking us out to the farm.  This farm is so organized it is just unreal.  They have acres and acres of plants.  They drop you off at a row where a worker takes you and puts you at a bush.  The bush hasn't been touched so you have an entire bush of berries to pick rather than try to aimlessly look for a bush with fruit still on it.  Yeah!

 Don't they look delish?

 This is what Cal did the entire time!  The worker gave him his own bush and when I was done with mine I picked from his.  That little stinker had half of his bush's berry's gone and NOTHING was in his bucket.  Nothing!  That's a lot of blueberrys to eat!

Emma was hiding!  She picked berries the entire time!  She is so diligent in her work!  She was keeping a berry track of what she would eat which was so cute. She'd yell out "I've eaten 5 now!  I'm up to 5!"  She cracks us up. 

Can you tell we were kind of hot?  Ugh, it was miserable.  The good news is that I got a rockin' awesome farmer's tan!  The blueberrys are behind the kiddos.  So when we got home yours truly got to package them all for freezing.  14 bags later and I was done!  Whew!  It is so worth it since we love blueberries!!!!

Fair Time

Wednesday we made it to the fair.  We went in the middle of the day and it was very caliente, hot!  Next year we are totally going at night.  I think it's fun at night with the lights and all of the action, but it was definitely less crowded during the day which was a nice advantage.  This was also the first year that the kids could actually ride some rides together.  Last year Cal was too little and Emma was barely able to ride a couple of rides so while she rode those two rides she was tall enough we tried to console a grumpy two year old who didn't understand the concept of not being tall enough. Plus, last year Cal wasn't potty trained so we had the diaper bag, and the sippy cups, and the stroller, and on and on.  Boy what a difference a year makes!  It was nice to just go to the fair.  Just to get out of the car and go.  No gear, no bags, nothing. 

 The first thing the kids wanted to ride were these motorcycles.  Notice how happy Emma is.  She loves it. and then you have...

 Mr. Serious.  He was intent the entire time.  I really think he legitimately thought he was driving this motorcycle. It was his job and he wasn't about to take it lightly.  So cute. 

 Here's Cal with his 4-H project.  See how nicely he stayed in the lines?  NOT!  He's so cute!  This was his first year so he was excited to find his project.  Not as excited as he was to try to tear down everyone's model building projects, but still excited.  Don't worry...no models were harmed! 

 Here's Emma...she did a sewing project.  Hard to see, sorry!  It was a butterfly and when we turned it in the fair people thought there was no way she did it on her own.  I'm not the doing my 5-year old's fair project, type of Mom, you know. 

 My little hear swelled a little when the kids passed up another ride in favor of the carousel.  So many kids think they are boring but our kids LOVE them.  They watched the mechanics the entire time!  Emma picked a horse away from Cal and I was so worried she was going to fall off and die in some fiery crash.  I kept asking "Are you okay?" And by the end she sounded like a teenager answering "ugh, YES, maummm.  Leave me aloooone!"  Okay, okay.

Here are Cal and I...he's such a happy little guy!  I love his hat!  We scored it at the GAP.  If you like the GAP you should go.  They had things on sale and then an additional 40% off.  His hat was some crazy cheap price like 2.00.  Holy Moly. 

 I love these three people so much it makes my brain hurt thinking about it. 

Here is my favorite moment of the fair.  Nick took them on this ride.  I have never been on it.  My mom would never, ever let me go and as a result I am now terrified of it. But Nick wanted the kids to experience it as it was always the thing he looked forward to do (isn't that just the cutest thing?) So he took both kids up.  I was really expecting that Emma would get out there and chicken out.  But she didn't...she loved it.  She screamed the entire time coming down!  I guess as a result of me not going I got this cute picture so it was worth it.  :)

 A fair's not a fair without some weird side show race thing, right?  Here we have the "weiner dog" races...don't you just love their costumes? 

And here are the pig races.  Seriously my husband was more excited than anyone to see them and I have no idea why.  They were pretty cute though.  We had fun and then went home. 
The End.

4th of July Fireworks

This past weekend Nick ended up having 4 days off and we did nothing. NOTHING. It was heavenly. We worked around the house, we spoiled the kids rotten, and we made tons of little family memories. The only thing on our agenda was turning down invites to picnics and people's houses...we just wanted to be together and recoop after our seemingly crazy schedule. So we did a lot of this...

Ah! I'm sad this is probably our last year for footie-pjs. There's nothing like snuggling up with a kid sporting those soft pajamas. Here he is waiting for fireworks to start.

And here they are! All together now...oooh, ahhh. It was a fun night. I love living downtown for the fact that we drove 3 blocks to see them.

Here's Emma watching...

And Cal with Daddy (and blue easter bunny...cleaverly named, right?)

So that is what we did. I did do some garage saling but found practically NOTHING! So we went to Goodwill and had a grand old time. I found the ugliest dress EVER! And bought it :) hahaha!

Hope you all had a happy 4th and did everything you wanted to do :)

Parade!

Well as I mentioned we went to a Parade on Wednesday. It's a family tradition of ours that we go down to Nick's mom and dad's and watch the parade go by their house. The kids love it. Here are some pictures of the big day...

Emma dancing...isn't she so cute? And yes folks, that is gen-u-wine shag carpeting...museums are starting to call...

Here's my boy shotgunning black olives as fast as he can get them on his little thumb. It's amazing to me how much he's looking like Nick and Emma's looking like me...weird, right?

Here we are getting ready for the parade. Believe it or not but this was the time when they were NOT getting along at all. We were having some "be by each other, but don't talk to each other, don't look at each other...just leave one another alone!!!" time

Seriously...this girl loves to pose. vogue, vogue, vogue

Their annual spot...CHEESE!

So sweet.

They both were wearing red shoes...I am thinking of blowing this pic up REALLY big and finding a place for it in our home. What do you think? I just love the simplicity of their little feet in cute little shoes out on the curb, waiting for the parade.

I try to get a picture of their profiles, side by side, every year. No idea why...it just makes my heart go pitter patter...

The parade is also the kick off to the town's fair so afterwards we walked down and got some carny good. I think the kids were a bit overwhelmed by their cotton candy.

Happy Fourth of July!

Splash Pad

Emma has got so daring this summer that she will get her head wet in these things...so proud of her!
Looks like he's having fun, right? Yeah, this thing wasn't spraying water...he is so cautious about getting wet, its weird

I LOVE this picture...doesn't it look like she's praising God???

And here we have Cal...standing on the edge, ready to go home...

This summer we have started going to the Splash Pads a little more often. Emma LOVES them and Cal kind of likes them. They are just so cute when they play together. Splash pads were put in our area because they can install one for the same amount that they pay insurance on a public pool, about 100k...isn't that INSANE????

Plus I am a little uneasy about public pools. I remember working at one and when someone would have an "accident" in the pool we would dump BARREL'S of chlorine in the pool to get the PH levels back to the right place. Then everyone back in the pool. Ick.

Some pools I am okay with. I know the pool at a waterpark is okay because it has to actually be filtered through a system. You'll also notice that they are wearing shoes simply because I don't like weird foor fungus' in my house...ewww.

Anyway, there's my bit on water. The children are enjoying the summer and I think that they are just too, too cute. There was a button to turn the water on so it doesn't run all blasted day but it was too high up for the kids to reach. Whenever the water would go off they would run over to the drinking fountain and push the button on that...they thought that was the on/off switch...how precious!