Happy Independence Day!

Our cousins, the Carrs, came in to town to help us celebrate the 4th of July! I organized our neighborhood's first annual 4th of July parade! I really didn't know how the response was going to be, but when I walked outside Monday morning and saw the cul-se-sac filled with red, white, and blue kids on bikes, wagons, scooters, and lawn mower trailers, my heart filled with American pride! It was so wonderful to see! The parade was awesome - we invited the neighborhood over to our backyard for popsicles, volleyball, cornhole, and neighborhood mingling. People stayed for a couple of hours (before the heat melted us away). It was awesome.

The prep work:
We even had a lego float in the parade!



We made firework cookies (and ate them too!) which were really easy and very fun-looking! We "cooked out" (as they say here) and the weather was pleasant enough to enjoy eating outside together.
We did sparklers and snaps and smokey snakes before it got too dark. These 3 boys were brave enough to do some snaps in their teeth!
I just love celebrating the 4th! We sang patriotic songs as we lit the fireworks and talked about our country and how fortunate we are to be living here. We are just reading in the Book of Mormon about the Jaredites being brought to the promised land. We are so blessed to be here at this time in history. God bless America!

(we also did face painting this day and Annabelle had been a "black cat." It didn't come off that well!)

Blacksburg and Annabelle's 3rd Bday

Annabelle turned 3! She got a barbie cake and lots of fun girly presents. She felt so special. She is such a sweetheart! We love her so much!


Bryce went to scout camp last week, so I took the kids up to Blacksburg for a quick visit with friends. We rode horses, went swimming, visited the park, drove by our old home and school and neighborhood, rode on a zipline, made applesauce, played with friends. It was so refreshing to be back with friends. A piece of our hearts will always be in Blacksburg!

Whole Wheat Almond Butter Crepes with homemade Blueberry Sauce and Bananas

With Mangos on the side. Yum.

May, June, July?

Where did the last couple of months go??? I haven't had time to sit down at my computer long enough to upload any pictures in a long time! Isn't that so sad? I finally did today and realized that there are so many fun pics that I need to do something with!

I missed putting up Caleb's 9th birthday (the end of May). He had a bunch of friends over for peach cobbler, slip and slide, water volleyball, and 9-year-old boy fun! He is so much fun. He ordered a carrot cake for his bday cake again this year. Yes, I hand peeled the carrots and everything. I even made it dairy free so I could enjoy all the hard work!

Lucy finished off her softball season in June. She had a lot of fun playing. She was the only one on her team who actually made 3 outs in an inning! Too bad they didn't count outs :) She's a star!
Happy Father's Day to Bryce! The kids made him the enormous tie that he wore to church to show off how much we appreciate him!
He really is a fantastic Daddy! (William was taking a nap during this picture)
Late June we had a fun weekend with our long-time Blacksburg friends. We spent some fun time at the house jumping on the tramp and playing the wii. On Saturday we drove to a cute town called Little Washington that's on the waterfront. We saw sea turtles and walked on the boardwalk, and ate dinner on Main St.


Then we went to a nearby town called "Bath" where we enjoyed "The Promised Land" Pageant put on by our stake. It was a great production telling the story of a North Carolina Revolutionary family and how their generations down traveled west and found the church. The kids really loved it and we were really impressed by the talent!
We really enjoyed the pre-show festivities - they had bobbing for apples (I've always wanted to do this, as unsanitary as it seems!!). Latacha and I had a little competition:

I totally won!!

Yard Sale Glider Make-over

I found this chair at a yard sale before I had William last fall because I knew I would need another rocking chair to rock him in. I think I paid $6 or $7 dollars for it. It did NOT look pretty when I bought it, but it was functional. I inteded on recovering it, but never really got around to it (taking 3 kids fabric shopping is NOT my idea of a productive shopping trip!) until Leslie was here. We don't have a huge selection of fabric stores, but we did find this cute black and white cottage fabric that fit perfectly with the newly painted black and white bedroom furniture. Here is a picture of the nasty early 90's blue fabric that the chair used to flaunt:
Blech, into the garbage it went!

Also, here is the before picture of the other dresser for our master bedroom:
And the after . . .

Ahhhhh, much better! I spray painted it with a glossy black paint, and replaced missing hardware with some fabric scraps from the re-covered glider. I'm still working on the white dresser, I took apart the door and I'm re-doing some hardware. Hopefully pictures to come.