"The Sweet Spot"

Cousin Megan shared this with me yesterday, and I enjoyed it so much I wanted to share it with everyone! Parents of young children will really appreciate this.

I dare you not to cry.

A few quick pics for your Tuesday morning

Enjoying her play house:

Enjoying a day off together:

Enjoying BSL:

FH is crawling... sort of.

Dance party (of one)

Lola's dance party on the front of the houseboat before the Pontiac Fireworks.

Good lil helpers

A couple weeks ago we visited Linda's "almost a farm," and Lola and Regan got to hold brand new baby guineas... and help feed (chase) the mamas and daddies. Linda: You need to start a daycare. You'd have two built-in laborers (three! counting Finn in a few months) right here!

Just breathe (and other random thoughts)

Every once in a while I peek at the blog to see if a new post has magically appeared. Of course, I know that's not gonna happen. But just so you know - I miss blogging and hope to be back at it sooner rather than later. This has been the busiest, craziest, most stressful summer... to date. I can handle the business. And I can handle the kiddos. But trying to manage a business during our busiest season AND take care of two little ones OR make sure they are taken care of. Well. That's another story. As usual, I feel like the first part of summer was spent preparing for the 4th of July. Then it was here, and it was THE craziest week of the year so far. Finally this week we've been able to breathe for a minute. Whew. When it was all over I realized I hadn't cooked in over a week. Most of the food in the house (what was left of it) was out-of-date, spoiled or stale. (Ugh.) I ordered new bedding for our bed more than a month ago. It arrived - about a month ago - and is still sitting un-opened in the package!! In the chaos of last week we nearly ran out of diapers, and we did run out of pull-ups, so we had to borrow one from Miss Regan. (Thank goodness for close - both in proximity and friendship - neighbors.) The good news? I think I lost about 5 pounds in a week, although I'm not sure how that happened since I lived on Jackie's pizza (and other take-out) most of the time. Somehow during all of this I managed to plant flowers, and I learned a valuable lesson: When you wait until almost July to buy and plant flowers, you can get them REALLY cheap. Wow. What a deal. Lola likes to help me water the flowers, and thank goodness for that, otherwise they might not survive. Even though I don't really have time to take care of any other living things (besides myself and my family), I like having flowers in the backyard in the summertime. (And if they don't make it? Well, at least they were cheap.) We got a little electric ice cream maker a few weeks ago and finally made our first batch yesterday: blackberry vanilla bean. So rich and creamy and delish! And way too easy. I see lots of batches of homemade ice cream in our (near) future. What's new: Finn is 8 months old. He has two bottom teeth and is working on two top teeth. Ouch. He eats SO MUCH. I am seriously running out of baby-ish type foods to feed him. He enjoys feeding himself, so we use the mesh feeder a lot - even though it's a pain to clean. He also eats puffs like they're going out of style. Not crawling yet, but he likes to pull up and stand with help. Lola is changing and growing so much this summer. She is never (EVER) at a loss for words. The only time she is quiet is when she's sleeping or watching cartoons. Any other awake moment she. is. talking. nonstop. We found out yesterday that we're getting a nephew in December! Cal and Kate are expecting their first baby, and we are super excited! So. That pretty much sums things up. In a nutshell. I have lots of pictures to share - they're on instagram, and as soon as I find time I'll post a few here. Happy Friday!