Flower Girl

My little girl and nature

 

Froggy

We are about to embark on an adventure as a family.  Yes it is time for vacation once again.  This year our children have a little spending money, but no wallets to put it in.  So, what do I do?  I make one for them.  Using a cell phone holder pattern I made a wallet/money bag for the boys.  Not a bad job if I do say so myself.  In case you couldn't tell they are suppose to be frogs.

 

Marshmallow Roast

I bought these huge marshmallows for roasting and we never got to building a fire to do when we could burn.  So, I fired up the BBQ and we used it to roast.  The kids loved it maybe a little too much.  Ben started playing with his like it was putty and then a roasted marshmallow food fight occured.  Kids were happy until the parents became unhappy.  It was and icky sticky mess.  Since I was going to cut the boys hair the next day I just did it early so they could take a shower afterwards and clean the marshmallow off too.  I so need to remember that they need supervision if we do this again.

Toilet Paper Mayhem

Why do children enjoy playing with the roll of toilet paper?  I mean really!  You would think I would learn my lesson and keep either no toilet paper in easy reach of the kids or only by crap toilet paper for them.  As it was this was the good stuff strewn all over thr floor by Lexie.  And yes she knows she did wrong.  Just look at the expression.

On a happier note and much cuter one too.  This is a shot of Peter at 2 months.  He weighed in at almost 15 pounds and is strong as all get out.  Isn't his foot cute though?

He is also the most smiling baby I've ever seen.

Splashdown 2010

Once again we traveled to Splashdown water park for the annual Wagstaff party.  Every year Doug's work, Wagstaff, pays for all it's employees and their families to run around and play at the water park.  The children love it.  This year was much easier not because we had any less children in fact we had more, but because Ben and Chris are now old enough to run off by themselves.  I can't tell you how much that diminished the stress level of the day.  I got to read a book and watch over Peter while Doug took care of Lex and Evan.  All in all a good trip.  Evan is already asking to go back.

Each of the kids got a kids meal with prize for dinner.  Lexie got this parrot hat in her meal. 

Evan was a regular fish in water.  He loved going  down the slides.

Lexie was actually loving the water this year too.  Doug had his hands full with her.

Peter on the other hand was not so hip on the water.

So he spent most of his time chillin' in his stroller.  Ben and Chris stopped by to say hi.

Raspberries

We love fresh berries or any fruit for that matter but fresh berries and cream are tops.  Unfortunately we are unable to harvest our own.  Nature has fought the entire way with poor weather and deer.  We've finally got all the berry plants fenced and are now trying to coax the little plants to grow and thrive.  Lucky for us we know people who know people with raspberry plants that over produce and are free for the taking.  Yesterday we went and picked and picked and picked.  Doug laughed when he saw the amount of bowls I was taking, but as it turned out we didn't have enough.  The berries and big and sweet and abundant.  In less than two hours we had our bowls full and I think we got over 7 gallons maybe in the range of 10.  That's a lot of berries for the short amount of time we were picking.

Evan's contributions

Our total bounty of fruit

Now what to do with all these raspberries.  We love them fresh, but there is way too many to eat them all.  I'm freezing some, but I only have so much freezer space.  I could make jelly, but we have enough of that in many varieties to last a very long time.  I've also been blessed with zucchini and had planned on trying a new recipe for blueberry zucchini bread.  Aha!  Instead of frozen blueberries I used fresh raspberries (next time I will use frozen).  The result was delicious and Doug says it may be his favorite.  I tend to agree with him.  I've been looking for a good zucchini bread recipe and I think I've found it.  The original was found at mybakingaddiction.com

2 eggs

1/2 cup oil

2 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar, lightly packed

1 cup shredded zucchini

3/4 cup wheat flour

3/4 cup white flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 cup frozen blueberries (or I used raspberries)

Preheat oven to 350*F.  Lightly grease and flour a loaf pan (for sweet breads I like to use sugar instead of flour).  Beat together the eggs, sugars, oil, and vanilla.  Fold in the zucchini.  Beat in the flours, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon.  Gently stir in the berries.  Pour into prepared pan and bake for 55-60 mins or until knife inserted in middle comes out clean.  Cool 20 min then turn out on rack to complete cooling.  Or if you're like us you'll eat it warm as soon as you take it out of the pan.

Linked to eatathomecooks.com

July 5th

On monday the 5th of July we went to my grandparent's house to celebrate.  There was a fish pond, treasure hunt and other games for all to participate in.

Evan got this dinosaur/monster hat at the fish pond

Lexie trying to catch that big fish

Peter had the right idea

Little cutie

Swinging kids

Chris trying his hand at fishing

Ben with his water bottle from the fish pond

Lots of fun for the weekend, but I'm glad it is over.