June Extras

aaaaaah....June

the month of:

mismatched and on the wrong feet flip flops

lather up with sunscreen

run the dishwasher twice a day

vacuum the kitchen floor three, four, five times a day

toys everywhere

pool bag with us at all times
where are my sunglasses?
air conditioning, please!

spontaneous

random

enjoy every second

FUN!

best garage sale find of June was this little bucket of tools.....

EVERYTHING in our garage and house has been "fixed" multiple times.  :)

i love how she scrunches up her face when "fixing" something.

she also tends to talk in a gruff voice when putting her tools to work.

what's with that?

sweet lollipop spent the majority of the month in the sand box.

oh, Lord did I have my work cut out for me!

if I neglected to check her shoes before coming in the house, my blood pressure when through the roof as she trailed tiny rivers of sand through every room!

June also brought us babies in buckets and "Momma, can I help?"

several rainy days provided an excellent backdrop for a plethora of puppet shows

and one night we had a perfectly full rainbow in our backyard

pillow sandwiches and tickle time were abundant this month

J and I loooooove our jobs

and I am not one to say that summer is the best part about being a teacher.

there are other things i love more.

but, i won't argue that lazy summer days with these girls is DEFINITELY one of the perks of working in education.

Tulip has become a fan of the Spanish Nursery Rhyme book that I brought home from school...

what can I say?

the girl has great taste.  :)

Peach's little voice from the backseat summed it up so perfectly on our way home tonight:

"Momma, everything is so happy right now."

Ah, yes....everything IS so happy right now.

Summer is going nice and slow.

I'm sure that come September, I will look back and say it went waaaay too fast.

But right now, it seems like just the perfect amount of family, friends, food, sun, and all the good things that make everything so very, very happy.

15 books and a trip to the bakery

Peach enrolled in the summer reading program at our library this summer.  She's always been a book worm, but this has cranked her book-lovin' into HIGH gear.

She had to read 15 library books (or have them read to her) to earn the first prize.  We accomplished this in 1 day.  However, I made up some excuses why we couldn't go redeem her prize for a few days because I didn't want to look like the teacher-mom who forces reading on her kid.

Anywhoo - once I thought an appropriate amount of time had passed and that I surely would not look like the reading nazi, we redeemed her book chart for a coupon to get a cookie at the bakery.

that coupon hung on the fridge for a couple days until we had a nice morning for a stroller ride

she picked out the M&M kind

and chocolate chip for her sister

but they ended up trading half way through :)

we took our time and enjoyed every last drop of the ice cold milk

i tried not to feel guilty about eating cookies at 9 am

i took in the quaintness of our little bakery, the group of men speaking czech in the corner and the ladies who oohed and aahed over my daughters' blue eyes and precious curls

it was a half hour of heaven for me

wonder what the next 15 books will earn us?

berry-d treasure

pickin' berries was number sixteen on the summer fun list this year

can you believe that in all my 29 years, i'd never been to a berry patch?

the weather has been CrAzY around here lately, but today was calm and dry, so I called up the local berry patch only to get a message saying that due to the hail and rain, they were closed early this year

WHAT??!?!?!?

the rest of the message said that if we were interested in picking raspberries, we could call another number to see if they were ready.

so, I dialed it up and the lady told me that although they had just recorded the message i'd heard, they were going to be open for a few more hours for any last strawberry pickers

i did a little jig right there at the breakfast table and we tore out of the house in a flash!

 The kind lady on the phone warned me that there was very little left, but I wasn't in search of much:

• Just a cup and a half of strawberries for the strawberry rhubarb jam I wanted to try out
• And a memory  

 She was right.

There wasn't much.

But, we dug and peeled back and tossed the damaged, rotten ones in search of our berry-d treasure

It became a little game...

I found one!

Jackpot over here!

This one is a keeper!

and after about an hour of searching, we came home with 8 pounds in our box and at Lord knows how much in our bellies...

it must be noted that this little petunia was on the brink of turning into a strawberry with all the delicious red juicy-ness she shoved into that little mouth

i pretty much had to hose them down when we got home :)

the jury is still out on their clothes - they are soaking as we speak.

I had enough for the jam and three freezer bags full of little ones to save for smoothies later on.

Sweet day with my sticky little berry pickers.

And to think - we almost missed it!

Little blessings......Thank you, Lord

here, birdie, birdie

we've got two cardinals living in the tree out front.
totally cool.
the problem is...the tree is so densely covered in leaves that we only rarely get a glimpse of them.

so, here is the first of three ideas that we came up with (or, rather, pinterest came up with) for luring them into our viewing area.

tea cup bird feeders and baths

it's really pretty simple

garage sale tea cups and saucers glued together with a dab of gorilla glue

we like them so much, we made a few extra for the grandpas' father's day gifts.

and there you have it...bird feeder/bath

next up:  peanut butter/margarine toliet paper tubes

cover with birdseed, freeze for an hour and hang up for the feathered friends to feast on.

Peach has been having a blast keeping our feeders stocked.

And it must be noted that she is thoroughly disgusted with the squirrels who keep raining on our bird-watching parade.

On more than one occasion she has given me a mini-heart attack by screaming "Momma!" at the top of her lungs.

When I come running, she is looking out the bay window, fuming, "THOSE DARN SQUIRRELS ARE EATING OUR SEEDS!"

project #3 is still in the works...

stay tuned.