Garden goodies

We planted and actually succeeded at growing a garden this year! Yay Alberty's!!




























Today we sampled a delicious, albeit small, watermelon. Garden fresh really is better! We've seen it with our zucchini, our green beans, our basil, our green peppers, our strawberries (even if we did only get one strawberry per person!), and our lettuce. Our broccoli, carrots, corn and butternut squash didn't go so well but that's ok.

What a great experience for all of us. Owen loved getting dirty and finding the bugs. Brendan was the most focused at helping build and tend to the garden. Claire loved the butterflies. Emma loved grabbing a strainer and going to pick the fresh veggies. All contributed, tried everything and learned plenty!



























Already planning on what we will grow (or try to grow!) next year!

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Go Tigers!!

Great start to the weekend!!

Last night Brendan had a great night at the ball fields--several big catches and good at bats!!

This morning the kids slept in and slowly trickled into bed with me to snuggle (poor Darran is working and hopefully won't see this and be too jealous).

Then Brendan finally got to work on his birthday present....Lego Technic. Loved seeing the smile on his face.











And now we get to go cheer on the MU Tigers!!!!

I Fall!!

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Gymnastics

How cute are they?? We've added gymnastics to our crazy, busy lives. The girls deserve some fun too after all the baseball games they sit through, don't ya think?


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It's Muny time!

Girl's Night: The girls got to go to the Muny with Grandma Brenda, her girls, Laura and Sarah, and cousin Taylor last night. Showing at the Muny: the Little Mermaid!! What a special treat!


Dinner before the show- waiting for the rain to pass.



Still raining (but doesn't it make for a cute photo?)



Little cool but the rain let up just in time for the show!

The girls LOVED the Little Mermaid and their girl time, complete with sleep-over! Sounds like an annual tradition has begun!

Thanks Brenda, Laura and Sarah for taking our girls!

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Goodbye Boys!

It's hard to believe it's been a year since the girls' trip with Ann and Blaine to San Diego! This year the boys headed to our Nation's Capitol!!



This is our "before" picture...next time we see them they will have grown a lot- knowledge-wise and physically, I'm sure;) We can't wait to hear all about DC!

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Fourth of July

I love the fourth of July. Family, food and fireworks! What could be better?

We started our morning with a red, white and blue breakfast- the ingenuity of Emma. Red scrambled eggs, white milk, and fresh blueberries.






Next, I made cake pops for the first time! Yummy!
1 box cake mix of choice (yellow is what I used)
1-12 oz container frosting (I chose buttercream)
32 oz candy coating, in color/flavor of choice (we chose red, white and blue of course!)
Bake cake as directed. Let cool completely. Crumble. Add frosting and mix thoroughly. Roll into 1.5in balls (I used small ice cream scoop). Freeze 15 min. Melt candy coating. Dunk ball into candy coating. Spoon out and tap spoon on edge of bowl to rid of excess candy coating. Let slide off spoon onto wax paper. Let dry. I used excess candy and piped crisscross over top.






So delicious...and festive!

Next we spent the day at Darran's parents. We enjoyed a lot of yummy food! We even grilled some zucchini fresh from our garden- we had just picked it this morning!

After eating more than we should, we worked it off with a game of whiffle ball. Little humid, but lot of fun. The great-grandparents were even there to cheer us on;)

Finally, we finished off the night with Fire in the Sky, the fireworks display CoMo puts on down by the football stadium.







A nice one with the promise of....







A silly one;)

Happy Birthday U.S.A.!!

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