summer days

Back in January I got us a family membership to the kids' museum and it's been a great investment!  Now that Hadley can walk it's much more fun to take her.  She is so inquisitive and wants to try everything!

The only problem is convincing her and Asher to be interested in the same things at the same time.  Um, yeah.  That.  Oh well, for now we are taking turns choosing what to do.  Everyone is learning patience.  :-)

Apparently honey badgers come out in warm weather because there have been quite a few attacks in our house lately.  Bless Asher's heart - he's a constant victim.  

When she's not in attack mode she's oh-so-sweet though!

This big boy finished his school year 2 weeks ago.  I can't believe another year of preschool is behind us.  He had SUCH a fun year - made a lot of friends, learned to write his name and grew many social and academic ways.  I'm so grateful we have another year of preschool to go.  I couldn't handle sending him to kindergarten yet!

We wanted Asher to get some swim lessons under his belt early in the season so we did them last week.  Ash did great and made some big strides towards being able to swim independently (still not quite there yet…).  Is it just me or does he have a certain resemblance to Teen Wolf when he get totally wet?  ha!

This girl has no fear of the water.  Which gives me endless fear.  Her new life vest came and I'm feeling better.  She was much more excited about it before we got in the water!

Little miss found her birthday purse the other day and has been carrying it everywhere.  When she insisted on carrying it into the store I almost died.  So stinkin cute!

We are having a fun-filled summer so far!  Can't wait to see what the next weeks bring!

from the sewing room

My little side business Gussied Up Baby has been pretty busy lately!  I've scaled back a bit to keep a realistic balance between my home responsibilities and this work and I think I've found it.  I really love sewing and embroidering so I'm glad to have a way to do it while still meeting my family's needs.  But, for real, this list - yikes.

Making beach towels for our family trip in a few weeks…

and, of course, coordinating outfits for the kids to wear for their grandparents' Christmas card photo.

Girl cousins get a little something extra.  :-)

Lots of stars and stripes dresses going out for the 4th of July coming up

And birthday presents for Asher's friends…

I tried a couple other faux smocking designs for Hadley and I love them!

My machine has been busy, but it's great!

strawberry season

I tried a new kind of stitching on my machine the other day called "faux smocking" and, I have to say, I love it!  It's such a fun change from the usual appliqués that I do.  Hadley was all too willing a model for me today.  :-)

This sweet strawberry and I were taking some pictures when Daddy pulled in from a trip to the store and it was all over.  Beeline!

The only thing that brought her back to me was a promise that she could ring the doorbell.  ha!

I loooove her little tongue sticking out in concentration.  Trying so, so hard to reach it!

Don't worry - I lifted her up so she could press it.  :-)

little mommy

I was hoping to get some pictures of Hadley in her cute bubble on Sunday and it became obvious really quickly that photos weren't happening without baby doll.  I love that H has been more attached to her babies recently.  I mean, is there anything cuter than a little mommy loving on her dolly?

Pure sweetness, I tell ya.

Oh this girl - love her!

memorial weekend

So I'm only a week late with this post, which, given my current trend, isn't bad at all!  On Memorial weekend Drew had off from work on Monday and we enjoyed a nice, long weekend together.  This almost never happens, so we really loved it!  All day Monday Asher kept saying "no school today - it's a holly-day!"  ha!

On Saturday we took the kids to a local rescue zoo.  They had lots of animals that were either hurt or abandoned by (dumb) people who thought having a giraffe in their garage would be cool, until it wasn't.  Anyway, this great zoo saves the animals and all profits go to running the place and rehabilitating the critters.  They had a big feeding area with pigs, goats, etc and both Asher and Hadley loved feeding them!  There was also a safari ride where we saw the bigger animals in their enclosures.

What's a trip to the zoo without a car picnic?  ha ha!  We'd planned to eat in the the shade somewhere but all the tables were taken and Asher couldn't wait one minute longer to eat so the car it was.  Making memories here folks.  :-)

Our community pool opened so we took the kids swimming on Monday morning.  Hadley is fearless to the point of being dangerous.  She'll jump right in whether someone is there to catch her or not.  Needless to say her new life vest is on the way.  Asher, on the other hand, is our cautious guy.  We had to coax (and coax. and bribe. and threaten) him to get in but he finally did and had a great time!  Swim lessons start for him tomorrow so hopefully it will be easier to get him in the water!

After swimming we had my parents and grandparents over for a BBQ.  Hadley took charge of all the cooking.  ha!

The kids took over the chairs outside while the adults were chatting inside.  After some serious lounging and conversation...

They were ready for popsicles.  A & H love them some pops.  All American kids, I tell ya.

Notice Hadley's little pinky sticking out?  I die.

All in all it was such a great weekend - couldn't ask for more!