summer: swimming and ice cream

lightning bugs

pretty, pretty flowers and a trip to the zoo with friends

happy birthday, america!

Another year older, America!  I look forward to this every year because it marks the beginning of the summer.  I wait for this every year.  I spend all year waiting for summer and thank goodness it's here!

Right before we met my parents for breakfast, at you know where!!  Bagelicious, of course!

The rest of the day was spent relaxing and enjoying the great weather.  We filled up the ghetto baby pool, made some mojitos (with mint from the garden), grilled some meat and enjoyed the day!






There aren't any pics, but we ended the day at my friend's mom's pool.  The kids really liked using their puddle jumpers!


Wait, we really finished the day with our homemade red white and blue popsicles.  They were yummy!




Even daddy enjoyed one!


We have to wait another year to do it all again!

farmers market and a little birthday party

This post has been in "edit" for weeks and weeks now.  I can blame it on a million things... time being the biggest, but really, the real reason I'm so behind is a dreeeeead the pictures.  I take hundreds and hundreds of pictures a month, and I really don't know a good way to upload them here.  I'm not good in that area... I've tried using the upload button here, but that seems to take forever and the pictures are teeny tiny.  So, then I started using photobucket, which seemed perfect... it took a little bit longer, but my pictures were nice and big, that is until I realized that the right side of my pictures were being cut off.  So, I tried to fix it.  Seems easy, right?  Ummm... no.  I tried to fix the wrapper numbers (no luck), make the picture small, medium and large (no luck, and it just frustrated me further since some pictures wouldn't even change).  That bring me to today.  It is what it is and I'm just going with it so I don't get too behind.

If you have any tips, please share...

I love the Farmer's Market.  Fresh fruits and veggies, lots of people, good prices.  Good eat!

My mom always has to get my dad something sweet from the Amish. 

My girl loves people watching, just like her momma!


This little guy was good, that is until he realized he wanted to get out!  That is not fun!

We didn't get radishes, but we did get escarole to make greens!  YUMMY!







Later on today we got the priviledge to celebrate a little girl's big first bithday!  Miss Alaina turned one and her momma made her a very special cake.  Isn't it beautiful.  Rumor has it she was up till the wee hours of the night finishing it up.  The things we do for our kids.  I think it came out beautiful!




Sitting with daddy watching the pinata hitting!


My little guy loved hitting the pinata!


Nicolette liked it too!


There is the birthday girl with her daddy, our friend Mike.

It was a fun day!

there's always room for j-e-l-l-o!

It's on our Summer to-do list and I haven't made jello in years, before nicolette was born.  It was almost the 4th of July and we needed to bring something to Jamie's!  So, we made stars to celebrate America's birthday!


I had the best helper.  I am so lucky!




The finished product!  The girls and Cole couldn't get enough of them.  I think we'll make jigglers more often!  They are so fun, and yummy! And ummmm, for future reference, you need 4 small boxes of jello to make a pan.  Yes, buy 4 boxes, not one, like I did!  Now I know.  You lean something new everyday!