Granny Smith

Throughout my kids' lives I've always tried to make sure that we've always got something planned. Something on the books. Having things to do is what keeps all of us sane. Another spouse with Lane's squadron started a playgroup and asked if I'd help her out with ideas. We've done the Children's Museum downtown, we're planning on a pumpkin patch next month, and we went apple picking today. 

It was a lot of fun running around at the orchard and grabbing apples as we went along. The orchard we visited was an organic orchard, so the kids were able to eat the apples right as we picked them. 

 There were things throughout the orchard for the kids to play with and on. Hunter loved the tractor, Eden loved the swing, and they all loved the freedom. We were also able to sit down and have our picnic lunch in the middle of everything. Just being outside, breathing the fresh air, was a great stress reliever!

 When we sat down to eat lunch, Lane was able to call and say hi. It was fun to talk to him and let him watch the kids run around. While we were talking the connection was starting to get crummy...big shocker, I know! This time when the connection was crapping out, Lane's face started looking funny. He couldn't understand why we started laughing, so I took a screenshot of the phone and sent it to him.

 After lunch, we continued running around and finished filling our apple bags. Hunter gravitated back towards the tractor and climbed again. Eden did a great job making sure we filled our bags with granny smith apples because we were told that they're the best for apple pies.

 As soon as we got home, that's exactly what I did. I made an apple pie. I had crust in the freezer already, so I didn't make that from scratch, but I did make the filling from my freshly picked apples! I can't wait to try it.

Picture Post

I can't believe how much time has passed since I posted pictures of our every day! We've been super busy, and just trying to keep up with the busy pace of life. Eden is still loving dance, Hunter is still crazy {it's a minor miracle if he's not climbing or falling from something!} We have fun playing with our friends, and we've made sure to soak up the last few days of summer before the fall hits {and it can't hit soon enough!}

Making a pumpkin for Daddy's Halloween box.

Eden's mosaic for the Halloween box. I should have read how many stickers there were before I decided to buy this one. 200 stickers is quite a lot of stickers for a 3 year old!

This nasty guy was on my tomato plant! He was HUGE!

Ginger the morning after getting her stitches.

The kids love to cuddle her, and Eden loves that she can help take care of Ginger.

Hunter couldn't be left out of the cuddling! He was yelling every time he saw her, "OWIE!!!!!"

My handsome little guy at lunch after church.

The kids enjoying a day at the "beach" with friends. This beach had no waves and had grass that we could sit in while we watched the kids play. 

Eden and her friend Sadie.

Sophie got ahold of Lane and loved walking around with him. 

Hunter is a lover of shoes!

Eden went on a photo shoot one day. She took pictures of me and Hunter, the dogs, herself. 

Hunter brought me his diaper and I told him to put it on. This is how it ended up! It was funny to watch him try. In the end he was very frustrated with the fact that he "put it on" and it just fell when he took his hands away.

Poor Eden, getting sick.

Still not 100% but we needed to get some fresh air. We took a day at the Safari Park and my heart melted to see them walk around together.

It was a hot day, so the kids got some lemonade. Hunter loved having his own cup!

We discovered a new part of the park, and there was a water pump that Eden liked using.

The elephants are my all time favorite animal at the zoo! {And check out that beautiful tree!!!!}

He was reaching up to try to get treats from the trainer {that's his shadow right in front of the elephant}

Bed head

This is in addition to the 10 bags I already put out! I spread 13 of these and I have 18 more to go. I just have to get the weeds up before putting the mulch down.

She was being such a good big sister while I was doing the mulch!

Hard at work! Who needs a green thumb, when you can have a red hand instead?!

Awesome big sister moments were over at this point. She didn't think she'd get in trouble because she was hugging him...

But this is what HE thought of the hugs! He was pinned down and couldn't get up. He was just a little bit mad.

Sweet crazy girl still isn't feeling well. She's had a fever off and on since Saturday. She found her way into my bed a few early mornings when she woke up coughing.

Place Cards

My mom isn't sleeping much these days. She's up all hours of the night compiling lists of things that need to be done before the wedding. {If she was this stressed out about my wedding, she did a great job of hiding it!} This go-round, all she has to do it the rehearsal dinner! My goodness, the woman needs to get some sleep! Anyways, we were up late texting one night and trying to come up with different ideas for place cards at the rehearsal dinner.

I also needed to come up with an idea for shoes for Eden. I wanted silver because I thought they'd be able to be worn more often, but we decided gold was the best route for wedding colors. Sara's going with a "fall" color scheme, so gold works better than silver, for sure. I found shoes, and I ordered them.

Does it get any better than a beautiful pair of glittering toms?! I mean, she can wear them with her jeans this fall, and she can wear them comfortably for the wedding. Win-win in my book! Ok, so one item checked off the to do list of Mom's!

Now I was off to scour pinterest to find place card ideas for the rehearsal dinner.

I found a bunch and then we finally decided on one of them and I was off to get to work! I had to buy the paper for them {we decided on the top right place card} and get cutting. I thought paper choice was going to be the easiest part of the whole thing, but in actuality, it was the hardest! An hour in Michael's was no fun with screaming kids and an indecisive me.

And then we had to decide on a shape to cut the top layer of the place cards! I was going to use my crucit cutter, but I had to narrow down the idea of the cartridge to use. After that I had to decide what shape we actually wanted to use. This was almost as hard as picking the paper! But not quite...surprisingly!

The decisions were out of this world! I had no idea that making one simple place card could be so difficult. {*It wasn't hard to make...it was SO hard to decide on!*}

How big did we want them?

 Did we want to use the "t" stamp or not?

 Did we want to hole punch the layers and tie them together with twine?

 Or, did we want to glue them?

 In the end, we made them an inch bigger than they shown above, kept the stamp, and glued them instead of tying them!

I'm happy to say that the place cards only took about an hour after all the choices had been settled. I cut them, glued them, stamped them and it was over and done with. I'm so glad it wasn't so hard the whole way through! I'm excited to see them "in action" at the rehearsal dinner in just a few weeks! Ahhhhhhh! Just a few weeks?! How is my baby brother getting married so soon?! I'm so excited! {As long as I'm able to get my laundry, yard work, house work, and everything else under control before I head home!}