How to...

be massively pregnant, garden, take care of 17 animals, and keep the kids happy at the same time!

Have Daddy apply sunblock liberally!

Add a $10 kiddie pool!

Add 5 year old!

Still can't believe she's already 5!

Add two and a half year old in his underwear!

Mix well!

And voila!

:)

I will say that the hardest part of being pregnant in the summer like this is the NC humidity.

I can handle the heat, the belly is not a bit deal-

but the humidity has been rough on me.

It's really nice, though, to pop the kids in swimsuits, slather on some SPF 70, and let them enjoy themselves while I hurry through the outside chores that wear me out. Thankfully, Tim has been bearing the brunt of the animal feeding and water carrying- but sometimes I feel like I need to take a cold swim after just walking across the yard! *sigh*

I'm ready for cool breezes!

K turns 5 at the BEACH! (Part 1 - Pic Heavy)

The sweetest girl on the planet,

Keelin-Elise !

Came to us weighing 7lbs. 15oz. and looking around!

Now, she's hilarious and smart!

Starting kindergarten in just over a month.

Jackson Cole, the baby brother who keeps her on her toes!

You can see the wheels turning in his brain!

She was afraid of the waves last year, but not this year!

Jackson thought it was pretty cool!

Last year, he was a cling-on little guy.

Sassy faced girl- not sure what she was being silly about!

Trying to show Jackson how to make a sand castle!

And Godzilla could not be stopped.

He was merciless.

"I squished it, Mommy."

Little sand monster!

Keelin, looking very surprised!

Showing off!

Just gorgeous!

Keelin trying to get Jackson to NOT destroy every sand castle in a 5 mile radius.

Cheeser!

These were taken right when we got there. I hadn't planned on getting in the water until the next day, but I went to the car and changed into my bathing suit, per the kids request!

The waves are a lot more fun when Mommy hangs on to you!

That one was a little stronger than Jackson anticipated-

LOL @ his face!

So much fun!

This just melts my heart!

They adore each other.

Keelin thinks the best part about her birthday being at the end of June is the fireworks that happen to celebrate the 4th of July! We were able to catch a nice fireworks show and Tim managed to capture some amazing pictures. This was my favorite one in terms of color.

Summer Fun

When it's warm outside--

Keelin wants to learn, Jackson wants to cause trouble.

Jackson gets put in timeout.

Keelin does her thing.

Jackson does his thing.

I get hit with a couple of balls.

Our dogs show their smart sides ;)

Look at those big, goofy faces!

Keelin gets some smelly kisses.

Max demonstrates his incredible level of patience for only being a year old.

Jessie wants to give Keelin seconds.

You can tell how she feels about that!

Crazy 5th Birthday Cake Adventures! (post beach)

We use India Tree dyes for our food, since Keelin is especially sensitive synthetic dyes (the worst for her is red dye #40)

The present Jackson picked out for his big sister! We showed him a few online and he picked the "fish-kabobs" for Keelin all by himself- hehe :)

Playing "Farmer's Market" while they waited for Keelin's cupcakes to bake.

Uh, yeah.

I overfilled those suckers.

The colors were really nice!

The cake was delish!

But definitely not the prettiest ever.

Because you can't tell, they were supposed to be a lady bug, a butterfly, a dragonfly, and a bumble bee

;)

And the kids didn't even notice that the cakes looked strange- they just enjoyed making the batter, dying the different bowls, layering the colors, and eating what they worked to make.

Catching up-

Thanks for bearing with me, y'all!

Dad is out of the hospital and starting the recovery process at home.
So thankful that ribs heal- even when it's ten of them!

Just a little photo catch up from the last week--

Geocaching on Father's Day!

Had a sleepover with my girl in our room while Tim was away in Georgia for work!

She thought she looked like a little granny lady in my glasses!

When my Aunt Valerie came to visit my dad in the hospital, she brought me my grandmother Sarah's pressure canner. A precious thing be given/to have, especially during the midst of my dad's ICU stay.

I hit 29 weeks!

And 30 weeks!

Today is Keelin's 5th Birthday, so I'll update soon with pictures of her birthday beach trip and cake making!

Day Camp

I've gotten the Bad Blogger Bug!

This week, I was one of the leaders for Keelin's preschool day camp class. We had more than a dozen 4-5yr olds in our class! Granted, it was only from 9am-noon, but after I got home, I was pretty worn out.

So please forgive my slack blogging this week!

I'm hoping to catch up in the next day or so- with my own blog and with the guest posts and a review that I REALLY need to finish up!

Here are a few pictures from our week!

I'm only posting pictures of Keelin (and Jackson), since most of the pictures have LOADS of other kids in them and I'm not going to ask every parent for permission to plaster their child's face on my blog!

My girl!

Painting a placemat with fruit shaped stamps!

(We had a farm/garden/market festival themed camp!)

Wednesday was water day!

I seriously am going to buy one of these for our house at the end of the summer when they go on clearance. Keelin said they were awesome and they hold a 200lb person- so yeah, Mommy thinks she needs one of these! haha... no chance of me breaking it!

She was screaming her little head off- haha!

Being a kid is SO much fun!

And you gotta love her little "mono-kini"

I am really uncomfortable with most of the two piece little girl bathing suits out there. And no, I am absolutely not prudish in the least- but there are some sickos out there AND the less she has covered, the more I have to worry about keeping covered in sunblock.

I usually opt for a 1 piece for her, but this year she begged for a 2 piece- so we compromised on this one. It has a covered front and an open back. I picked it up from Babies R Us (it's a 5T- the biggest size they carry) for $12.99! Cool beans!

One of our projects was making butter.

We put 1/4 cup of heavy cream in a canning jar and shook the daylights out of it!

Miss Keelin showing us her shaking skills!

And Houston, we have butter!

We spread it on saltine crackers and ate it with our snack (watermelon- yummy!) that day. I like the taste of salted butter, so the cream turned to butter plus the salty cracker was pretty tasty. I have many friends that make their own butter, I'm sure not the same way that we did- but this seemed so simple that making it for my family doesn't seem too complicated.

I will definitely be looking into it!

Maybe it's time for me to move into trying to make my own cheeses and butter?

Butter doesn't scare me.

Cheese? Yeah, cheese is a bit intimidating.

Anyone have any words of wisdom?

Book recommendations?

I have the preggo munchies at the moment... mmm

It would only be better with a bit of my strawberry jam!

From my classroom, I could see Jackson's class when they went outside to play.

Couldn't resist snapping a photo of him, albeit a blurry one!

On water day, Jackson's 2yr old class went outside to play in a kiddie pool and explore with a sand and water table. While I was peeking out at him (my kids were making mosaics with seeds!), I saw my little boy strip off his clothes, go streaking naked across the playground, and dive (nude) into the kiddie pool. Can't fault him! It was 96 degrees and I might have done the same thing if I were him- haha!

:)