apriCOTS & TOTS!

Our Adventures in Apricots!

We felt one with nature as we harvested the apricots from our tree.

Step 1. Picking the apricots

Step 2. Washing and pitting the apricots

We had quite the fun little group of helpers!


Milly & Sophi were hard little workers when it came to pitting the apricots!
Sophi would not back down- she worked till the job was done:




Step 3. DOinG SoMethINg with the apricots...

*Homemade Fruit Leather:


Puree them, and pour them on a black garbage bag to dry out in the sun (& we covered ours to keep the bugs out)



*We thought we'd get creative & hang dry some Apricots:

*Then we decided to get REAL domestic & Bake some in the Solar Oven:

*Dried Apricots in a Dryer:

BEAUTIFUL!

*Or just make some Apricot Jam?!

To sum it all up, this Apricot Adventure with our kids all sounded real fun, but by the end, it really ended up being the PITS...

THE END!!!

Photo Shoot with Grandma!

So, I realized I that I have only ever posted these picts on my facebook, and not my blog yet... These are some of the amazingly darling photo's Steve's mom took. She is super talented. I loved these pictures & wanted to share them with my fellow bloggers!

Rylee Jo

Amelia

Sisters:

Match-Matching, even with their dolly's!

And our Beautiful Princess, quite the dramatic photo... LOVE IT!

Tulip Festival!

I know this is really over due, but I realized I never posted these pictures on my blog, & wanted to do it before its too outdated...
We went to the Thanksgiving Point Tulip Festival a few months ago, and Steve's mom took amazing photo's. Here are some of them:

Walking to a Secret Garden:

sisters discover a secret garden door...

It was such a wonderful day... it was beautiful. Thanks Grandma for the fun adventure!

Milly Moments

StInkEr BUg!
This little rascal LOVES Rolly Polly's! She is constantly scoping them out, roling them up & showing them to us. She loves to find "A-Bug".

My Silly Milly is quite the creative, curious, cute little terror... Looks can be deceiving!
For example, Milly decided it would be a great idea to just DUMP the whole bag of cheetos out rather than have to reach inside the bag!? WHY?!

The only thing that i can come up with to makes me laugh rather than flip a noodle, is to think of how her mind is just exploring & developing & how creative she will be one day... well, at least that's what I tell myself.

Uh, Oh- WALL ART...

I had to take a picture of this Milly moment. You may not be able to see all the beautiful red crayon circles up the wall, but sure enough, they're there- all the way up the stairway. You may ask yourself... "why wasn't her mother watching her?" Well, I was RIGHT by her, doing the dishes. I could see her out of the corner of my eye, thinking she was sitting so quietly on the stairs. I should have known better. Here she is, attempting to clean up her mess.
After the other 8 crazy messes she made earlier in the week, I had to snap a photo of this one at least, for a little proof! I think the day before, we were getting ready to leave out the door & I found her in her room covered HEAD TO TOE in VASOLINE! Yes, water-repelling petrolium-jelly ALL over her! You can imagine the clean up of that little grease ball. I believe the next day was when she dumped out handfulls of potting soil all over the living room floors, JUST as i finished vacuming the house:)

I honestly can not even get mad at her at times like these. It's almost as if i'm so frustrated that I just laugh. Sadly, it's the little things that make me more upset?!

Rainy Days

Raindrops keep fallin' on our heads...

Talk about the rainiest June EVER! I actually really loved it. I love the rain, especially when it is still warm like it has been. I love the way the rain seems to make the earth so fresh and clean, and beautifully bright green. And then to top it off is the beautiful rainbows that follow!

This moment brought back SO many wonderful memories of my childhood. I remember those times, splashing in puddles, walking up and down the rainy gutters, barefooted & carefree.
Notice the kids on the other side of the street.
What a wonderful thing!

PLAYSCHOOL GRADUATION!

Just realized I never posted these photos of Rylee's Playschool Graduation...

June 1st, 2009

Showing their Dad's singing time:

Performing their super sweet dancing skills:

Watching the photo montage:

Rylee's Lovely Graduation Speech:

We had a fun year with friends doing our own little Play School! Rylee is turning into ONE SMART LITTLE COOKIE!!!

happy fathers day daddy!

This is a little something special Rylee & Milly have been working on for weeks, to give to Daddy for fathers day:


Great job girly's:)
We sure do love our Daddy!
He's "OUR BESTEST DADDY EVER!"
(a direct Rylee qoute)

This song really rings true for both Rylee & Amelia. The best time of the day is when Daddy comes home. Rylee say's the things she loves to do most with her daddy are: Play soccer with him, Go on special treat runs, have him push her & Milly on the swings, go to football games, and she likes when he goes to her dance classes... There are so many fun things to do with Dad!

We were lucky enough to spend our Fathers Day like this: