Whew! It's been a long, HOT summer. The entire month of July was an inferno. Since the heat and humidity was mostly unbearable it meant having to occupy the kids indoors, which was challenging at best!
Since it's almost fall (yay, finally!), here's a rundown of what's been going on the last few months!
July ~ The Fourth of July was so dang hot, that most towns in the area had to cancel fireworks because of the risk for fires. It was so hot, that we didn't even take the kids to a fireworks show. We did celebrate with some sparklers however and popsicles in the backyard!
We spent the weekend after the 4th of July up at my parents Homestead (and yes, it's
their Homestead as I have never lived there). The kids loved playing in the outdoors and getting dirty. My dad purchased a new fishing boat, so we took it out on the water to do a little fishing. Elena got to use her fishing pole for the first time and she caught her first fish! She was actually the first person to catch a fish on the new boat!
The kids rode on the ATV's with Daddy and Grandpa, which they both love. Here they are sitting on the ATV's after riding around the yard.
I've been working on taking better images with my camera (and editing them!), so I experimented with silhouettes. Here's my favorite one from the weekend.
In late July my sister and I took the kids to Bookworm Gardens for a "fairy festival". The kids built fairy houses in the woods, made fairy wands and walked around the gardens. Elena posed with her fairy house just long enough to get a picture...then she promptly knocked it down!
Emanuel laid an egg with Horton!
August ~ We celebrated Elena's 3rd birthday the first week of August. We didn't do a big party this year, just had some family over to celebrate! I had asked Elena what kind of cake she wanted for her birthday and she always responded with "a truck cake". The girl loves construction trucks (she knows them all by name!), so I did a little searching on Pinterest and combined a few ideas together to come up with this:
The cake was actually a flourless cake. Its main ingredient was....wait for it....black beans! I didn't tell anyone there were black beans in it until it was all gone! Nobody would have guessed! It was so good....I think it will be my go-to chocolate cake recipe! Of course it had to have a peanut butter icing since Elena loves peanut butter!
I had worked on putting together Elena's birthday gift for months before her actual birthday. She loves to dress up, so I collected various dress up pieces and put them in a basket for her. Most items came from rummage sales or the Goodwill. The only piece I actually bought at a store was a Dora dress. Here is Elena modeling many of her dress up clothes...all at once!
As I mentioned before, I have been praciticing quite a bit with my camera to take better photos of the kids. Once the weather cooled off a little bit (and really, it was
just a little bit!) I started taking the kids to the park to play soccer and to have picnics on a blanket. Of course, I used that opportunity to snap some photos of the kids! There was a lot of "you walk that way, mommy will follow you". "Hold your brother's hand". Click, click, click!
So that brings us to September.
We, again, went to my parents Homestead for Labor Day. Some good friends of ours joined us, as well as my sister in law and niece and my brother in law and nephews.
The kids loved it! We played outside a lot, picked veggies in the garden, ate a LOT and just enjoyed the company!
Some photos from the long holiday weekend.
Elena playing hide and seek amongst the laundry.
Emanuel picked the last apple off the tree.
The kids picking green beans for dinner!
Of course...we went fishing too!
That about wraps up summer!
I have a few more posts to write up with a photo project and a home project I worked on this summer too!
