Us.

Well, this started out with me wanting to get a picture of Evangeline.  She was cranky and would not cooperate with me.  The crankiness slowly faded into goofiness and finally Mommy was sucked into the goofiness.  We ultimately did a little rolling around on the ground before we decided we had enough. 

Red, White and Blue Take Two

Since my family can never do just one holiday celebration (and I wouldn't have it any other way), we got together at the farm over the weekend.  Yum...grilled pizza's made by Dad.  Uncle Kenny, Mom, Zach and Candice were there, and of course Kyle and Evangeline were too.  Uncle Zachary introduced Evangeline to Smoke Bombs.  She loved 'em.  I also got to see my nephew's room all finished.  It's adorable, just needs a baby.

It was all things tennis last weekend around here with Wimbledon going on.  Kyle and Evangeline hit the courts and the driveway several times.  We even had crumpets for breakfast on Saturday while we watched the final match.  Evangeline's pretty darn good at hitting that ball around.  She just might be

a natural.  

She had a "The Hills are Alive" moment. 

T'was a fun day.  

Happy Birthday U.S.A.

I enjoy the 4th of July more and more each year.  It's such a great time for family get-togetherness.  Kyle gets 3 days off and we have plenty of family gatherings to attend.  This year we had a wonderful cookout at Peggy's house before the band concert/firework extravaganza.  The weather was beautiful this past week, mid/low 70's. 

(I'm not sure I've mentioned how much fun Peggy, Mom, Evangeline and I have had with the Hot Design nail art kits.  Maybe too much fun :)

Evangeline tried her first sparkler.  It was pretty exciting stuff.  She got another one of those lessons that can only be learned only by experience when she was just compelled to touch the sparkler after it had finished burning.  Poor girl got her first taste of what hot is.  We kept an ice pack close by for the rest of the night.

We walked to the fair grounds and watched the band concert perform before dark.  The Marshall firework display has always impressed me.  They do a big job for such a small town. 

 

Evangeline spent the first bit of the firework display with a coat over her head.  Then she graduated to sunglasses.  She came around at the end and liked to point out the ones that sound like sizzling bacon and the ones that went rouge.  Our night concluded with more sparklers in Ammie's back yard.

Shiny Choppers and Pretty Flowers

With kindergarten on the horizon Evangeline has a lot of poking and prodding to get in before the start of the school year.  We visited the dentist last week for her first official check up.  She's been before, but all they could get her to do was sit in the chair and open her mouth for peek.  She wasn't having any part of it.  This time I took her to a dentist just for children and it was fabulous.  When we got there they gave her a little bear as a gift.  Once they called her back they used the bear as a tool to show her what they were going to do in her mouth.  She agreed to everything including an x-ray (reluctantly).  The x-ray was crazy because I got to see her front adult teeth.  Kind of made me sad in a way.  My girl sure is growing up.  The dentist told her that she had some of the pretties teeth he's seen all summer. 

I really enjoy taking pictures.  I especially like to take pictures of things that I find either beautiful, inspiring or nostalgic.  Mom's cutting garden are all of those things to me.  We've always had a garden in the front yard that just grows wild and free.....buzzing with bees and butterflies.  Evangeline loves to pick bouquets from this garden patch.  

Evangeline has had it in her head lately that rolling down a hill would be a great idea.  I try to remind her that I rolled down a big hill once and it was horrible.  I think this might be one of those things she is going to have to learn from experience.  

Mauling Grandma is a favorite pastime.  

I love summers for the extra amount of time I get to spend with my mom during the week.  We have a lot of fun paling around together, us girls. 

We picked up our third CSA share last Wednesday.  There were lots of new and yummy things included in our pick up this week.  I also pieced together another quilt top little by little over the past few days.  You can never have too many blankets, right?  And who knew sewing little pieces of fabric together would be so relaxing and enjoyable.  This quilt is Kyle inspired with the little guitars and all.  I got the fabric for my birthday.  It's called Honkey Tonk.  I think I'm going to add a boarder to it before it's quilted.  I really like this double slice block.  It's scrappy, quick and very easy.