GROUP PICTURE

I just got an email of the group picture that was taken friday at the pancake breakfast. These are all the elementary school kids, minus the six little ones up front that aren't in school yet.

NEW LIGHTS

This past weekend we got all new landscape lights and spot lights. When we ordered new counter tops they were offering a rebate in the form of a giftcard to Lowes.These are much brighter than our old ones. We have 10 new landscape lights and 3 new spot lights. I didn't get a full shot of the front of the house, but there are lights on the other side of the garage too.
I took some of the old lights and moved them to the backyard and added one of our old spot lights to the front yard tree. It now has 3 spot lights on it.

PANCAKE BREAKFAST

I love our street. This was from friday. On the first and last day of school everyone on our street gets together for a pancake breakfast before the kids hop on the bus. Mike and Angie hold it. Violet now refers to Mike as "Mike Pancake". We then took Violet to school and then took Chris' dad to the doctor. We've had a busy and relaxing weekend. Time to head back to work and get back to our normal routine.

NEIGHBORHOOD BBQ

We decided to hold it at our house since we get evening shade in the front. We put all the food in the garage and had two grills going.

LOTS of food!!!

Dancing to music.

Fun with the neighbors.

Violet lasted till 7:35 then wanted to go to bed. I lasted till 12:15. Chris lasted till 1:15.

LAST SWIM LESSON

Every week Violet sits on my lap before lessons begin. She'd get really quiet and nervous.

The water was really cold today. Violet was not happy about this. Nor was I.




moments before dunking, I was trying to explain to Violet to close her eyes and mouth really tight. She'd didn't really get the concept of doing it together.

Violet cried a little and explained, "no do it again Mommy".

With every class Violet did less and less crying. I think we'll be going to the pool more often this summer to keep her used to the water.

DEANNA ROSE FARM

We spent the morning yesterday at Deanna Rose Farm. It was a nice break from everything and we all had a lot of fun. Violet warmed up pretty quickly to all the animals.

I like this picture a lot. It would have been better if there weren't other people in it.

More cow bell!

Did not like the goats at first. They kept licking her legs and chewing on her pants.


She warmed up to them and then wanted to hug them.

Gross! Oh, don't touch that end.
The goats made the most impression. She kept saying the goats were giving her kisses and that they were trying to eat her pretty dress.


We fed the ducks and the fish.

We played on the playground a little bit. It was kind of crowded with school groups. To many kids running around and Violet can't get out of the way quick enough.

Time for a break. By the time we left it was really starting to get hot.

FLASHBACK FRIDAYS

Uncle John to Violet.

EVENING JUICE

Capri Sun to be exact.

Most of the neighbors, and us, keep their garage fridges stocked with water, popsicles, and Capri Sun. That way whom evers house we end up at in the evenings, there is always something to drink.

SAY WHAT? WEDNESDAYS

I was told, "Birdies make bacon".

MMM....MESSY

The mess was worse by the end.

TEA FOR TWO

Tea with Hailey.

Enjoying the one day of sun this past week. I think this was Tuesday.

FLASHBACK FRIDAYS

Uncle Jason to Violet.

MY FUTURE'S SO BRIGHT...

Besides eating off paper plates for a few days we ate once or twice. We had Chili's friday night and Violet refused to take her sunglasses off. She wore them the entire meal.

NEW COUNTERS!!!

It took us 4 1/2 years to finally get the counter tops we wanted. We picked them out a month ago and they were finally installed this weekend.

To save money we tore out the old counter tops. It was pretty easy since the old ones were only screwed in place and not glued.

The hard part was getting all the caulk off the tile back splash. The caulk had a gritty texture to it and was hard to peel off. We ended up using a caulk solvent that softened it enough to scrape. Of course we had to apply this three or four times. But it did the job. So we were out of a sink for about 5 days. This made for some creative cooking, eating off paper plates and rinsing out cups and utensils in the bathroom. Kinda gross I know.

But here they are all shiny and new!! It totally makes the under cabinet lighting we had put in when we had the house built, totally worth it.

And here's my new giant sink. No more double sink that I only use one side of. I could get both dogs in this if I wanted! We also picked out a new faucet.

We decided the shorten the islands counter top by about 5 inches. It's meant to have bar stools but we don't have any. So the counter top hangs out just a little bit and it's not so obnoxious.

We are now thinking of adding wainscoting to the island, corbels and painting it a light grey. We should probably replace the outlets and outlet covers with grey ones too.

MOTHER'S DAY & BIRTHDAY

It feels like it's been weeks since Mother's Day. Things have been a bit hectic around here. Chris's dad has been in ICU since last Friday and was finally moved to a regular room yesterday. So he has much improved and we hope he'll be going home soon!

For Mother's Day I got a Finch bird house and we went Heartland Nursery to buy some plants. Chris got the post in the ground for it last Sunday but we haven't had a chance to paint it or add any of the plants around it.

I got new lamps for my birthday a couple of weeks ago because they were seriously reduced. They are much nicer and brighter than the lamps we had.