Swim Lessons

Little Lady had her first 'swim lesson' on Saturday! She is doing them with her daddy and so far she is loving the water! I really want our littles to love the water and to feel confident in and around it. I have had a great fear about water and drowning since I was a little girl and if it can be avoided with our kids I would be so grateful! It helps my anxiety with the kids near the water too, if I know they are good swimmers. Plus it's a great way for the two of them to have daddy-daughter time together!

We could have put Little dude in the same class with his sister but we decided he would probably get more out of it next year. He and I tagged along this week so we could get pictures of the exciting event!

Her hair is getting long again!

She was cold by the time they were done, but she didn't even complain! 

So far she loves to "sim!"

Summer nights

I look forward to the summertime. But really it's the summer nights I love.

The last three summers I've realized that we do more family things. Maybe it's the longer days, but I don't mind the kiddos staying up later and there are many spontaneous outings as a family!

Sometimes we go to the park or just for a walk through our neighborhood. Sometimes there is a detour stop at the Dairy Queen. Saturday night, though, it was the new self serve frozen yogurt (aka fryo!) place near our house! We will probably be frequent visitors all summer. Yum!

My personal favorite is any chocolate froyo with all the different Chocolate toppings! I may have a slight problem. :/

Little lady could care less about the frozen yogurt. She is much more entertained by the game they have for the kids. Basically it's a video game projected on the floor and you move around and use your feet to play. Saturday night she was the entertainment of 4 junior high school girls. They laughed and encouraged her silliness and she was in heaven with all the attention!

Have you tried self-serve froyo yet?! If not, what are you waiting for? It's soooo good!

What's you and/or your family's favorite part about summertime?

Garage sale

Friday and Saturday was our first time doing a garage sale since being married. It went really well too! It mostly consisted of baby gadgets the kids had out grown and we found to not be necessities. We sold a lot of Little lady's clothes (her closet was ridiculously busting at the seams!) And some other odds and ends I purged through out the house in the last couple of weeks. Hubby even got motivated, after seeing stuff actually sell, and started purging the garage of the unnecessary!

We both loved how good it felt to just get rid of stuff!

There is no doubt how our culture puts such an emphasis on stuff, but I find it interesting to think of how little we actually need! And I've even witnessed first hand how my family actually thrives when we simplify, even the kids and their toys. Little lady is so much more creative when she has fewer toys out and to choose from. It's amazing really!

Ok, off my soap box and back to the garage...

Our neighborhood was having a community garage sale weekend so I decided to break away from our sale and go treasure hunting. I brought a friend for accountaability! What's the point in getting rid of stuff just to buy more! But I did have a few things I was looking for specifically!

I found a couple of great deals:

.50

This apothecary jar to hold all my buttons. :) I'm a sucker for cute and practical!

$10

A mirror I plan to turn into a prop for abundant Sonshine product photos. With a little paint and tweaking it'll have the perfect unique look I'm looking for!

$10

I think this is my favorite find of the day!! I love toys that are made all from wood! They are sturdy and durable, but they are really pricy too. This was so worth the ten bucks. It has 4 sides plus the top can be removed to storage space inside the box! Each side has a different activity to include a white board and a felt board. On the felt board side I think I'm going to make those story board characters from the bible I remember from VBS when I was a kid. We can act out bible stories on it. :) I'm so excited for the use we will get put of this wooden toy!

That was our garage sale weekend. It was a lot of work but a lot of fun too!

Pickin Berries

Little Lady and I visited a berry pickin' farm last week.

Tractor towed us out to the fields of strawberries.

We walked the rows and found the ones that were bright red and ready for the pickin'!

As you might notice Little Lady was enjoying those bright red, ready for the pickin', berries!

This was our bunch. 

After Little Lady was done having a little snack.

And she was thirsty after her little snack!

We had a really good day at the berry pickin' farm!

Happy Birthday, Little Lady!

That's exactly what it was, a happy day. We had a wonderful time with family and friends celebrating our baby girl's first year of life!

I would say that the birthday party was a huge success! We did an open house style so people would feel free to come and go as they could. We loved seeing everyone that was able to make it and we missed all of those who weren't able to.

{The girl LOVES lemons! And I know they aren't good for her teeth, we limit them. But it was her birthday!!}

My mom and I spent the day before baking and getting prepared for the party. I think the decorations, cake and party favors turned out darling! Stud Muffin did a wonderful job helping with the decorations and taking pictures to capture our day.

{The party favors were sugar cookies on a stick! They turned out so cute :D}

Little Lady soaked up the attention like a champ. She truly is a people person and loves to be where the people are, see what they are doing and even just chat and give hugs. It was so cute to watch her make the rounds and tell all of her guests "HI!" with her big cheesy grin, often to be followed by a big hug and snuggle!

{The sign on our front door}

She did great opening and even sharing her gifts with her friend, Baby E! I was really impressed and love to see her generous heart at such a young age. I hope I can help encourage and teach her to be generous with her things, all the blessing that she's been give from God.

{She had just finished playing peek-a-boo with the bag}

Stud Muffin worked on and perfected a video mixed with slideshows to music and home videos of Little Lady's first year. It happens to be an hour long! I think I'll post it and anyone who wants to watch can, if you don't want to that's fine too! But it is adorable and really doesn't feel like an hour as it keeps you entertained.

After gift opening we moved right along to the cake festivities as Little Lady was fading fast at that point.

Nana made her a strawberry cake with pink frosting! I think she really enjoyed it but kept looking at her observers like "Why is everyone looking at me?" She was pretty cute, as always! Then it was time for a quick bath...

Not too long after that Little Lady made a crash landing and went to bed for two hours!! When she woke up we had a BBQ dinner with family before we were back to a near empty house again.

She ended up staying up until 9p before she slept the whole night through til 7a!!! {Yay, sleep for mama too!!}

We had a wonderful day and plan to spend today just resting and enjoying Nana's visit. :D

Here are some more wonderful pictures from the party:

Vacation: The Weekend

Friday:
We went to Sea World! I think we were there 5-6 hrs. Little Lady did outstanding. She even sat through a couple shows! Ok, so she actually got her nap through one of them. :)

It was a great experience though and I think everyone enjoyed themselves.

Watching the dolphins while they swam underwater. 

Playing with Opa {my dad} while we waited for the show to start.

Probably my favorite show of the whole park, Shamu!

Truly amazing creatures!

Playing with Oma.

Saturday:

The guys had another fun day of SCUBA diving off of Catalina Island. They have a dive park there that is set up and blocked off specifically for divers to enjoy! I heard stories of huge crab and lobster, they really enjoyed the day.

So that left the girls to fend for ourselves! 

We first went to the children's museum, Pennypickle's Workshop. It was such a neat little place!

It was set up as a professor/scientist's house with quite a few different rooms. It was as if he had conducted all these experiments and left notes written on the walls for the kids to try them out as well. 

She loved this piano! It was wired to other instruments that would play when certain keys on the piano where hit.

If she were a little bit older she probably would have gotten more out of it, but there where buttons and switches and gadgets all over the place. Plus there wasn't anything in there she couldn't safely touch! 

Here she is dancing to some music.

She fell in LOVE with this jukebox! With the colors and the bubbles going up the side, and of course the music!

A hot air balloon basket that you could get in a play around.

And after all that hard work play, we were ready for lunch!!

Sunday:

Our 4th of July was relaxing and I wouldn't have it any other way! It was a great way to have to end our lovely vacation.

We woke up late, even Little Lady, and then headed out to Ihop from some breakfast! Yum. Little Lady is so social and loves to yell "HI" at every person that walks by and if anyone will stop and give her some attention, well they are her new BFF!! She isn't shy. At all.

After a delicious late breakfast and an afternoon nap we headed to the club house for some fun in the sun! I was surprised that it was pretty bare from being a holiday, and a warm sunny one at that. But we weren't complaining to have the spray park all to ourselves again. :D

Daddy enjoyed making his own splash going down the slides at the pool!

After drying off we started the grill and enjoyed a delicious summer dinner of beer brats, potato salad, beans, grilled corn-on-the-cob and ice cream for dessert! Yummy in my tummy :D

Thank you Opa and Oma for the wonderful vacation and visit! We enjoyed our time as a family and getting to spend time with you! We look forward to the next visit with great anticipation. Much love.