Cupcakes indeed.

We have been busy, but it has been fun, most of the time..

Friday, we had a practice run for a cake for an upcoming double birthday party.

(Hey Annie!!)

It was quite fun, and my kids couldn’t complain when there was more than enough cake batter from the pan to bake up some cupcakes.

 

(And when I say kids, I mean Peyton.  I think it’s accurate to say that SHE worked solo on licking the frosting off of every single cupcake, and putting them back.)

The, coincidentally, my sweet mother-in-law, came by with this fun cupcake stand:

How thoughtful of her!  She saw it while she was out shopping, and thought of me.

Thanks Darlene!!  I do LOVE it!

Busy fun.

I have been trying to find some relaxing time crafting.  Can’t wait to do more, and to scrapbook with the fun new paper I bought..

(Like I need any more paper…)

Guess who’s line this was made with?..

If you guessed Crystal Wilkerson, you’d be right!

I was probably a wee bit too giddy when I found her paper at my favorite scrapbooking store.

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE digi, but I also love to use my hands and actual product.  It is quite therapeutic..

June 30th..

June 29th..

June 28th..

June 27th..

June 26th..

June 25th..

June 24th..

June 23rd..

A rockin’ awesome sunburn.

Today, was Merrill’s day off.

Oh, how we love those kind of days!!

We spent the morning and early afternoon doing yard work.

Then we went up to Merrill’s parents to take a much deserved dip in the pool.

(It was the hottest day of the year, thus far.)

We rescued a dragonfly..

Went diving for sunken treasures.

Chilled..

Wished the cherries would ripen faster!

Laughed, a lot.

It was quite fun to watch Merrill and the girls play different games.  He helped Lynn master treading water.  He was the shark in their game and he feasted on Ashley’s guts for a while, while she screamed (that is what she does best!).  Peyton and I played.  I helped her get comfortable with her back float.  She got comfortable enough to jump into the pool, whether or not someone was there, ready, and waiting to catch her. :O

I also read while Peyton snoozed, and all of the splashing, laughter, and screaming, were the perfect soundtrack for me to also doze off to.

We had a fun day and even managed to live through a wasp sting.  I just hope that Ashley doesn’t remember all of that too clearly.  It might make for more poolside scream fests.

P.S.  Did I mention that we are ALL sporting some sun-kissed skin?  Well, we are, and I love it!

A time capsule of sorts.

Not too long ago, we had a family activity at my parents house.

I consisted of my family, my three brothers and their families, and my parents, tearing out two rather large bushes from the front lawn of my parents house.

I really wasn’t good for much of the hard labor, I was good for carrying loads of branches to the dumpster parked on the street.  Lynn was quite good at it too.

But while we were there to be man (or woman) power to help get the monsters out, we were also there to be together as a family, because we do have fun together, and to also see what we could find in the bushes.

Between those two bushes, we had lost many things throughout our growing-up years.  We were excited to be reunited with all of our “lost” belongings.

Many balls, different kinds and colors were discovered, a bat, garbage of all sorts, even an old “Otter Pop” tube.  It claimed to be “super size”, but was sadly, smaller in size than the ones my kids enjoy today.  But it must have  been super-size to us!

As my two older brothers rolled the last remains of one bush down the driveway to the dumpster, a clump of paper fell out.  I went to retrieve it, and found a note.  It was in bad shape, it had been there for maybe 15 years, so yeah, bad shape indeed.  It was girls handwriting, already slightly torn.  It would have been fun to have been able to read it, see what secret someone shoved into the bush.  It can keep secrets.

We didn’t find our missing G.I. Joes, or the countless matchbox cars we were expecting to come across, but we still had a good time.

The best story to come out of the bush was my dad’s first sprinkler.

He bought it when they bought the house, 35 years ago.  He used it only a couple of times and then it went missing.  He assumed that someone stole it.  (It was a nice little sprinkler.)  He kinda forgot about it, went on with his life as a new homeowner.  Probably found himself a new sprinkler.

So he wasn’t expecting to be reunited with his sprinkler 35 years later as we cut down those bushes, but he was.

He cleaned it up, gave it a new home in the garage, and we all wondered just how it got into that bush.

I just took pictures of it….

Quite the story from those time capsule bushes.

June 22nd..

June 21st..

June 20th..

June 19th..

Took this (plus MANY more) picture of my sweet niece.

Fits perfectly as it is celebrating teens week at I {heart} faces.

Go on over there and see what else you can find!

Father’s day, the real deal.

Thanks in part to our two previous Father’s Day celebrations, we enjoyed our Sunday, and actual Father’s Day at home.

It was quite nice.

And a bonus, I managed to get some pics of the man himself.

(And you somehow managed to not break my lens!)

Love you Merrill..

(I hope you still love me after posting pics of you.)

Pre-father’s day fun.

Our weekend consisted of three Father’s days.

3.

And they were all so much fun!

Friday, we had a barbeque and swim evening at Merrill’s parents.  That was a father’s day / birthday (meow kitty!) celebration.  The girls’ weren’t in the mood for me to snap too many pics of them.  They were in a heaven of cool blue.

Saturday we went to my parents for another barbeque and more fun was had there.

(And more pics were taken…  lots more.)

We ate lots of good food, and cupcakes…

Held babies, and played with them…

Took more pictures, and laughed..

Saturday we went and watched Terrace Days fireworks, and got the best seat in the house I’d say.

I just regret not lugging my camera with us on the hike, because it was a hike to get to where we were…

Oh, well.  One day…

June 18th..

Daddy’s day off.

We all love when Merrill takes a day off.

We usually spend a great part of the day outside, getting the lawn trimmed and primped, but we play too.

Yesterday, there were a few funnies, courtesy of the girls, that came with our fun day.

We had a few errands to run after the yard was taken care of.  A few were at the mall.  We don’t go there very often, for various reasons.  We just don’t go if we don’t have to.

Yesterday was Peyton’s first time venturing the mall sans stroller.  I think she enjoyed it too much.  Her adventurous little spirit led us to many a window display yesterday, and everything was “cool!”.

As we left the mall, on our way to find the right sized inner tubes for Ashley’s bike, Peyton was tossing out names of stores we could possibly be going to.  That cracked Merrill up that she would know the possible stops.  Once we confirmed that we would be stopping at Target, she said, “OH!  Tah-get..  I love you Tah-get!”

We got bikes fixed, enjoyed the rest of the day outside, got many pics…

  

I had to take Ashley’s training wheels off to fix the back tire, and asked her if she would try riding without her training wheels just to try it.  She was freaked-out.  She wanted to go get Merrill (who was trying to rid himself of a headache..) so he could “protect her from me”.  What a crack-up.

Her training wheels are back on.  I think she has fully recovered.

But none of Lynn, she is just too fast for me now. :(

We ate dinner and prepared to head out to Lagoon of the evening.

(The issue with the car fixed itself when Merrill took it out for a drive to see if the issue was with the brakes.  Hallelujah!)

When we were talking about going “somewhere fun”, Ashley got so excited!  When we told them we were going to Lagoon, her excitement disappeared.  She was disappointed, she’d rather go play on all the swing sets at Pitcher’s Sports.

What a goof.

We had a fun night there.  Peyton was the one who chose most of our rides there.  The train being a top priority, and the carousel also.  She got too comfortable on the sky ride, (my dad would have freaked out) as did Lynn on the Tidal-Wave.  The fearlessness in them reassures me that they have some of me in them.