Summer

Today was the first day of summer!  We celebrated with a little party, I just LOVE decorating and doing something special!

Brie made the sign!

 The above and below shots are our spread!  We made Koolaid Popsicles, barbeque beef sandwiches, grapes, chips, rice, cotton candy, and homemade peach ice cream for dessert!   All four of the kids cut the  flowers!  I love flowers, aren't they beautiful!

Streamers wrapped around jars, super simple!  They were very pretty lit up!

My kids thought this was the coolest thing ever!  I took yogurt and spread it around the top of the cup then dipped it in dusting sugar!  You can use regular sprinkles, and you can use frosting to make them stick!
Did you do anything special to celebrate summer? 

Apple Picking!

While we were on vacation some of us went to this delightful little orchard, it was a beautiful place. The apples we got here were all for applesauce. In the past I've gone to a local produce stand to get my apples for applesauce. The price at the orchard was so good, it seemed stupid not to go pick!

This was the "interesting" thing...we picked off of the ground! (Did I hear some of you saying eww gross!?!?! ) It really wasn't too bad. We were able to choose good ones that were firm and had little or no soft spots. They sell them off the ground for $4 a bushel! This saved us at least $25! I felt it was worth it, and look forward to going again.










They have some for sale already picked for a little bit more than we paid.

Breakfast Picnic

This was such a fun,easy idea. Have you ever had a picnic at breakfast?
We decided yesterday that we should have a breakfast picnic and then play in the park. (anything to avoid the afternoon heat!) I made these powdered donuts, English muffins, and cooked up the sausage last night. So this morning I just got drinks, jam, strawberries, warmed the sausage up, toasted the English muffins, and packed the picnic basket!


It was really simple and fun, and I hope we do it again. We packed everything back up, and then got to the fun stuff...playing on the playground!



We saw 5-6 ultralights taking off and flying around! The kids loved that, sorry I couldn't get a better shot...they didn't get close enough!


The rest of the pictures are of the kids playing!














Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. James 1:17


Have you done any fun, simple activities this summer?

LIFE on the lawn

Weekend Fun Part: 4

Here is the rest of the pictures from the botanical gardens!

I just love Brie and Titus in this picture!

Weekend Fun-part 3

We had planned a trip to our "local" botanical garden this spring when we were studying plants, but we weren't able to go. We were closer this weekend in location so we decided to go and check it out. We all really enjoyed it! I think the only bad thing was the temperature!
These pictures are just of the butterfly exhibit they have going on. ( pictures of the rest of the garden will be in the next post) I was hoping that we could get at least one to land on us, but we had no luck! They were still beautiful to watch!

Weekend Fun Part: 2

We were able to work on our fire making skills this weekend. I'm happy to report that they built a very good fire Friday night and Saturday morning! (using matches)








Reuben found this big guy on Saturday morning! He was moving the chairs around and picked this chair up and saw the spider. Then he laughed and laughed and tried to pick it up! I don't mind crawly stuff normally, but this guy was another story. I made Mark come deal with him! I don't know what kind of spider it is, I just know I didn't like it!