Summer

I need to catch up here on some of our summer fun.  School let out at the beginning of June.  I still have yet to go through and organize all the kids' papers/projects, etc, but I did find this gem in Natalie's backpack:

I love the "eating is my favorite sport" line. :)

I found these pencils in Elizabeth's backpack:

Natalie had been begging to do a lemonade stand with her friend the first day of summer vacation so we did.  She made homemade lemonade and juiced them all by hand.  I helped her make some cupcakes too.  Then we went to the new park and set up their stand.  Sadly, I forgot to bring my phone to the park so I don't have any pictures of the stand.  They did pretty well, though.  They cleared $14 after paying me back for supplies, which they divided between the three of them (Elizabeth helped, too).  It was funny how excited they were.  Here's two shots we tried to get of Natalie throwing her new cash up in the air:

Here are the boys on one of the cool features of that new park:

I love finding them snuggled up like puppies some nights:

One night we let the kids sleep outside on the trampoline.  They were worried about mosquitos so we set up the tent.  Unfortunately, Nate got scared and didn't make it.  Maybe next time.

I love that Idaho sky.

Nate started t-ball.  The only t-ball they have here is pretty laid back.  It's actually supposed to be for kindergartners but they said we could sign Nate up if we thought he'd do alright.  He's definitely one of the better ones on the team after playing last year.  He's already gotten like 4 home runs.  I loved watching him as pitcher one night.  He was pretending to throw fast balls every time someone would hit. :) 

Here are those cute boys again, this time jumping on the trampoline in the water:

We sure do miss our pool.  The only pool here is super crowded all the time.  It has been the hottest June on record, too, so we've had to be creative with ways to cool down.

Here was our garden back when we were still pretty worried about it:

It seemed like some of our plants stayed tiny for forever and we weren't sure what would grow.  The peas and radishes always looked great, but everything else was iffy.

Here's our garden now:

It looks great!  We're still waiting on the tomatoes, beans, corn, squash, carrots and cucumbers, but we've had lots of lettuce, kale, peas, and radishes.  I think we planted a little bit late.  

We loved making our first salad with garden-fresh ingredients:

(I added some more things from our fridge, too)

It really is so fun.

The best thing about our yard is definitely our big raspberry bushes.  We've had tons of raspberries these last couple of weeks and it has been heavenly.

Nature's best snack:

I'm not sure if we'll ever be able to save many, though, since our family eats them too fast.

We've finally started working on Lizzy's quilt.  (Remember when she got it as a gift for her 9th birthday?  Yeah, she's 10 1/2 now).  

We cut all the squares and designed it like this:

With Marsha's help, we've now sewed all the rows.  We just need to sew them together and finish it all.  Maybe soon, though!

It's been a great summer so far.