Happy Birthday, Boothe!

Happy 2nd birthday to our little Boothie.  I can't believe it's been 2 whole years since you were born.  What a blessed 2 years it has been!

If you can't beat them, join them

It's almost the end of June and we have yet to be able to go to the pool or the beach.  We did visit the splash pad one morning with friends, but with all of the rain, we have been spending way too much time indoors.  On Saturday after Brooke's shower, it began raining...pouring.  And it was still so hot outside.  I ran and got the girl's swimsuits and told them to have at it running in the rain drops and puddles.  I originally thought it would only pour for maybe 15 minutes tops, but the rain continued for much longer and they got bored of the rain before it even stopped.  Then yesterday we discovered that we had gotten so much rain that our basement had turned into a wading pool.  Next time I'll just send the girls downstairs in their swimsuits.

 Boothe stepped off of the porch and said, "I'm getting all wet!"

 They were soaked within minutes and loving it.

 Dan joined them outside with an umbrella and the video camera for awhile.

Magnolia had VBS this morning and so Boothe and I ran some errands together during some more torrential downpours.  This time it wasn't nearly as fun in jeans and flip-flops while trying to get in and out of the car and stores.  Rain is on the forecast for the whole week.  Let's hope we get a bit of summer come July.

Indianapolis Children's Museum

The first weekend in June we drove down to the children's museum in Indianapolis for the day.  It was a fun but long day and I was exhausted by the time we left.  Luckily with the girls being so young we could skip a couple of the exhibits that were geared a bit more towards older kids.  They still found plenty to do and play.

This was a blown glass exhibit.  The entire ceiling was made of layers and layers of different shapes and colors of blown glass.  Although most of the activities associated with this were older-kid oriented, Magnolia was having fun playing with the plastic replicas.  Moving them around the room to make different designs.

 Up next was the Barbie room.  Right up my alley about 20 years ago, but still really cool today.  Boothe and Magnolia had fun dressing up and coming down the Barbie runway.  I had fun looking at all of the old Barbies and accessories on display.

 Boothe put a little red sticker on her face during the car ride and it lasted there below her eye all day.

 And by far the favorite time spent at the museum was at the Dora exhibit.  I don't know what it is about Dora, but my girls love her.  I'd take Barbie over Dora anyday, but I had my fun in the Barbie room already.  It's very geared towards the preschool crowd with lots of active play.

 Boothe met a new friend.  She was hugging him and didn't even know his name.  I told her people will get the wrong idea about you...

 Out of the Dora room into the play and discover area.  Water tables, sand boxes, blocks and play gyms.

 Dan and the girls went on the carousel thats housed on the top floor of the museum.  It has a really neat history and I would share it with you if I could remember what it was.  I read about it as the rest of my family enjoyed their ride.  This carousel went really really fast.  It was pretty scary.  Or maybe I was just playing with my camera and took a picture with the shutter open for a long time.

 Very fun day!

Strawberry Pickers

Last Saturday afternoon we visited Rosey's Strawberry Patch in Michigan City.  We used to have a U-pick strawberry farm in South Bend but that closed and I don't know of any farms closer than 45 minutes from our house.  This one, although not officially, is organic and unsprayed so we went with Rosey's.  We picked for about an hour and had just over 22 pounds of berries when we were done.  The strawberries are $1/lb which is really cheap compared to how they are priced anywhere else.  The girls had fun and an hour was just about the perfect amount of time that Dan and I could stand to bend over to pick the fruit and the girls didn't get bored.

We ate several pounds that day and the next, but I had enough to freeze 25 pint sized bags for this winter.  I will buy a few more pounds from the farmer's market to eat and make into jam.  If we would have picked 30 pounds that would have been perfect.  But I don't mind buying some already picked to accompany our labor.

You can tell this farm doesn't spray their plants as most of the green you see in the photos are weeds!

 Boothe got right down to business picking berries...

 ...right out of Dan's box and putting them into her mouth.

 Magnolia had more fun running up and down the rows.

 Taking ownership over one of the 2 boxes of strawberries we picked that day.

 I wonder if they ate any straight from the vine???

 GUILTY!!!

 Who, me?



Rainy Day Women #12 and #35

We have had a ton of rain here during the last few weeks.  Lots of thunderstorms and completely wet and rainy days.  A couple friends and I have been planning a garage sale and have been rained out twice now.  We have a 3rd date set and rain is forecasted for that day as well.  It will happen eventually.  Our garage is FULL of stuff and I'm ready to get rid of it and make some extra money.

We love to watch the rain as it comes down, especially when it's raining hard.  Boothe usually gets a little to close to the rain and them complains that she is all wet.  She looks so BIG standing on the porch in this picture.  Her 2nd birthday is in less than 2 weeks and I can hardly believe she's been around for that long.  Seems like she was just born.

 

Baby Shower for Brooke

A couple weeks ago Kathy threw Brooke a baby shower in Valpo for family and friends over in that area.  She got a lot of nice things and is on her way to being ready for baby when he arrives next month.  This weekend I'm having a shower for her and invited friends from the South Bend area.  Next weekend Brooke is officially done with work, they are moving from Muncie to South Bend and hopefully will close on their house.  This could be their busiest weekend ever.  Let's hope Raife doesn't make an early appearance this weekend too! haha

We love an excuse to get (and eat) a cake from Strongbow's!

 Some of the kids from the shower.  Addy, Boothe, Avree, Josie and Magnolia.

 Brooke with the gift that the girls and I gave her.

 Opening gifts...

 Brooke and Kathy, the hostess with the mostest.

 Sorry about the balloon string in the face, Brooke, but it's worth is when both the girls are smiling so well.

 Me, Magnolia, Brooke, Boothe and Mom after the shower.

Why have I all of a sudden after more than 2 weeks without blogging decided today was the day to get caught up?  We went strawberry picking on Sunday (post to come soon) and I'm trying my best to put off putting up the 22 pounds of strawberries by doing everything else on my to-do list first!