School Daze

Only one more week of school! Yay~ can't wait for summer vacation :) The kids have been wrapping up the year with field days, picnics, and field trips. Caleb's class took a field trip to the Loveland Historical Museum and had a scavenger hunt along the way looking for various facts about Loveland. Here he is at Veteran Memorial Park writing down facts for the scavenger hunt.















A sign on the bike trail with more info that he needs















Showing Isaac the train display















Mrs. Steele's 3rd grade class

















3rd grade friends












Ella's field day was last week too! Here she is with her BFF from kindergarten
















The parachute game















WaterBall Toss















And here's Abby's field day. One bowling pin down - one to go!














The water funnel relay - impossible to stay dry!




















Her best friend in 2nd grade















Lastly, Ella's end of year picnic















Ella with Mrs. Marsalon - her kindergarten teacher















Creating her tye-dye t-shirt















Her picnic funday also had bubbles, a waterball fight, sidewalk chalk...















and hopscotch

A Makeover

We have done a little work around the outside of the house lately. Here is our garage makeover
BEFORE

AFTER (total cost - approximately $2 of leftover paint and $15 for house numbers)

Carl trimmed out the garage doors in black and added house numbers and I painted the shutters.

We love the difference it makes!

We also gave our front porch a little makeover.
BEFORE

AFTER

We stained the front porch "thundercloud" from Sherwin Williams. Painted the door black.
Added a chair and side table

A trip to IKEA

A couple potted plants and an oversized "E". The surface of the side table wasn't quite large enough, so I added a PNG basket that I had

And spray painted it black. I have "rearranged the furniture" out here a few times and now I have it back like this. I. love. how. this. turned. out! It is exactly what we wanted :)

And finally our rhododendron bush has been in full bloom. I love this time of year!

Ella's Birthday

She wanted a flip-flop party. We set up her little table in the dining room,and got flip-flops for all the guests.

We even found some flip-flop straws :)

Her cake sitting on the sand (graham cracker crumbs)

I couldn't get all the pom-poms in the picture

but we made a bunch!

My 6 year old!

Her beautiful smile

Every single gift was her favorite!

Another favorite

Her little girlfriends

Trying out her new hula-hoop

The girls with their flip-flops on

And another birthday girl that stopped in to say hi! Happy Birthday, Lisa!

She loved every second of her birthday party and must have told me thank-you a thousand times! I am so thankful for Ella. She is spontaneous, energetic, unpredictable, mischievous, loves life and she has a smile that can light up a room.

Mother's Day and More (post 1 of 2)

The four reasons I love being a Mom.

The reason I love being a wife. I am so blessed with an amazing family!

Last week was Pappy's birthday. Here he is with all the grandkids..and his cake :)

My sister also had a birthday recently. We surprised her and showed up for her birthday dinner at my Mom's. I made her a cheesecake (my sister-in-law, Michele's recipe). If you want to make a perfect cheesecake, you have to try it. I don't think it has too many calories, it only had 5 packages of cream cheese and 7 eggs in it ;0)

Abby's class put on a few skits for the parents. Here is Abby as the number 9.

Isaac has found many very random places to take a snooze. I found him in here the other day. Yes, that is a laundry basket full of clothes. And yes, he has his arm in Caleb's boot! And yes, I moved him to his comfy bed!

Girls' Day Out (Post 2 of 2)

The girls and I had a fun girls' day out. Carl's mom had given us tickets to the Cincinnati Flower Show, so we spent the afternoon admiring the beautiful flowers.
This is a peacock with flowers for its tail!

The baskets were amazing

My girls

Have you ever seen hydrangeas so big!?! They were about twice the size of Abby's head!

This was Target's display

with a Liberty of London watering pot

and shovel. Love it! (there's more hot pink hydrangeas)

The peacock again and our little bags of Lily bulbs :)

You can't have a girls' day out without Starbucks!
Of course Ella had to add something to her hot chocolate.
Anything so she could take off the lid and stir it.

Abby in the big comfy chair

Mmmmm! I think we need to make this a habit :)