A glimpse into the future

I can't even remember what brought the subject up, but a couple of weeks ago Dan and I were talking to the girls about our wedding. Then we spent a good 20 minutes searching the house trying to find our wedding dvd. We have no idea where we put it.....I'm sure it is in a "safe" location where the girls wouldn't get to it. Our search was fruitless and the girls really wanted to watch it, so I gave them the next best thing. My wedding dress! We couldn't afford to get it cleaned and boxed up right after the wedding and as time went by I lost the interest to do so. It's just a wedding dress.....what on earth am I going to do with it all boxed up and preserved?? A couple years ago I actually considered giving it to Goodwill, but I'm glad that I didn't. I grabbed it out of my closet where it has been hanging for the past few years and brought it out to my very excited daughters. Both of them took turns wearing it (with the help of a couple clothes pins) and pretending to marry one another and marry daddy all while listening to our wedding music. They had a really great time and spent the next few days doing a lot of wedding pretending. I have since put my dress back in the closet but I think it will be fun to get it out every once in a while to let my babies pretend to be brides. Before I know it these little girls of mine are going to wear their own white dresses and really get married (hopefully to a man who is not in his underwear lol)......this gave me a little glimpse. I may have shed a tear.

Ready to kiss her groom (daddy)

They married each other

Home and Garden: early July

Things are moving along at our house. I wonder sometimes when life is going to settle down.....slow down, but then someone needs a drink, the baby needs to nurse, the laundry needs to be changed around, a meal needs to be made and I completely forget what I was thinking about. This summer seems to be moving faster than the last couple and I wonder if its just the way that life is as children get older or if its a product of me not being pregnant or having a newborn and wanting to have as much fun as we can?!? I'm thinking maybe a combination of the two.

With that being said, I have not left the house in 4 whole days! I ran a quick errand this evening and realized that I have not driven a vehicle in over a week! I've been in the car (a long drive to the mountains) but Dan drove. For the first couple days after getting home from camping we were mellow, trying to catch up and get back in sync with our life, but last night Charlotte went to bed with a fever and woke in the middle of the night throwing up. Today has been less than great with her being sick all day. Tomorrow we have a lot of household chores....lawn mowing, garden tending, bathroom cleaning, laundry folding, picking up etc. then on Sunday Dan is leaving for Switzerland for a week. I'm not looking forward to his absence.....its never easy doing life without him! Hopefully everyone will be in good health while I am single parenting!

The garden is doing okay. I honestly have not been doing anything with it. My tomato plants are ginormous and falling all over the place. I keep staking them and trying to tie them up, but they are just so huge. Thankfully it has been raining pretty regularly so I have not had to do any watering. On the down side to all that regular rain (thunder storms) some of my plants have taken a beating and I've lost a squash and possibly a couple bell peppers. I can not wait until my tomatoes get ripe.....there are dozens and dozens of green tomatoes but they just aren't turning yet. I went ahead and planted some corn, I had a whole bed and didn't know what to do with it. The corn is bigger than what is pictured, but I'm not anticipating a very good crop.

And in the home part of home and garden, I've been feeling antsy to be creative lately and last week I decided to do something about it. We've had a chandelier sitting around from when we first bought our house. It was the dining room chandelier and we took it down and replaced it before we even moved in! Its just been sitting around all this time and I've had thoughts about what to do with it but always kinda thought that I'd sell it eventually. Well, the chandelier is now pink and has beads and crystals hanging from it and it is in the girls room. The whole project took me 3 evenings, 1 can of spray paint and a tub full of beads from Michaels. I had the clear crystals from a candle holder. All in all it cost $9.00 and some elbow grease. The girls love it and I think it is so much better than the boring light fixture that used to be in their room! I have a few more projects planned for this summer to quench my creative thirst.......you'll just have to stay tuned for those! :o)

Come on.....turn red!

Chandelier before

Chandelier after

Up and coming project.....any guesses? lol

Our grasses have flowers!
Who knew.

Need a trellis for our climbing roses

Corn

Next phase of raspberries

Any birdies need a bath??

Berry bushes are now officially gigantic

So many, many bell peppers

4th of July camping

Our 4th of July weekend was spent up in the mountains near Asheville, NC camping. This was the first time that we've been camping as a family since Maddie was 8 months old. Dan and the girls (minus Eleanor) went camping up in PA last summer, but the girls both slept in a cabin, and the summer before that we went camping in Ohio, but again the girls slept in a cabin. So this was their first experience sleeping in a tent in the woods. We had an AMAZING time! Our camp site wasn't in the best location and the drive there and back (5 hours each way) was a bit hairy by hour 4 and the Duggar family moved into the camp site next door and was crazy loud (they weren't really the Duggar's, but there were seriously more than 15 kids!) but all in all it was a great trip! There were tons of kids, a picturesque swimming lake, fun kid activities and of course all the normal living outdoors excitement. We had such a good time we have already made plans to return to the same campground for Labor day weekend and we've caught the camping bug and are planning a trip up to the mountains of Virginia in the next few weeks. I grew up camping and have always really enjoyed it, but I've been skeptical about taking small babies/children camping and the summer in the south east is pretty camping prohibitive. We've discovered that if we drive 3-5 hours away we have much nicer weather and with a lot of planning (and a lot of packing) it's totally do-able with the littles! The girls had a really great time and I got some great memories captured with my camera. Can't wait for our next camping adventure!

The lake was awesome
not too big, not too small
deep enough, nice and cool
lots of inflatables

Our home away from home
the first night our old air mattress broke and we slept on the hard rocky ground
HORRIBLE!
the next day we went and bought a new mattress!

Ice cream and snacks at the snack shack

Really cool dock that the kids jumped off of into the lake

hot dog roasting

This didn't last long.....
she soon discovered the rocks
and then all she wanted to do was put them in her mouth! lol

Hot and sweaty nap time

Maddie wanted me to take a picture of her with her rock
wa-la

Evening karaoke

We attempted pizza making over the fire
It didn't turn out very well
Next time we'll use tin foil to make an "oven"

We had to put a towel under her so she couldn't reach those stinkin' rocks!

I think it's funny that she hiked up her shorts
She didn't go any deeper than ankle level :o)

Breakfast

Maddie collected moss

This isn't a great pic, but it makes me laugh
we went for a walk and the girls got tired but Dan wanted to
walk further and check a campsite out
So the girls sprawled out on the ground.
Charlotte looks beat. :o)