Castle Parks RULE!

If I were a kid, I would want my mom to bring me here...

Wouldn't you want to play here???

This is the castle park at the elementary school in Holdingford...you know, this is the town with the infamous lunch ladies that won millions playing the Powerball lottery!

Well, their elementary school has a killer playground that the kids love to play on so we called up our friends, the Krumrei's and asked them if they wanted to take a field trip with us.

I brought snacks for those who just can't seem to get enough snackin' in a day...

And bubbles for everyone!

There were bubble blowers that were battery powered and lung powered blowers. And then there was the stupid doggie bubble blower that had it's batteries removed because it kept running and running, but didn't produce any bubbles. {Lets just say that Mr. Doggie found a new home in the bottom of our garbage can!}

We had so many bubbles that we invited the kids sitting at the table next to us join in on the fun.

Audrey thought the bubble blowing was the bomb!

The "big" kids were more interested in conquering the playground. Especially the high bar!

This is Julie...

She was designated as the "high bar lifter" (only because I was busy snapping pictures, of course!)

I think she got a little freaked out at how daring Peyton (her 5 year old son) was on the high bar.

That little sucker flipped right around like there was no tomorrow! I think Julie about had a heart attack {you can see her hands there waiting to catch him!}

Then, there is this little stinker!

He had to try his hand at hangin' from the high bar too! He wasn't quite as skilled as Peyton, but he sure hung in there!

Did your mother ever tell you that crack was bad for you? All crack except this crack, of course! If this little girl's ever-appearing butt crack doesn't make you "crack" a smile, I don't know what will!

Doesn't all of this playing make you wish you were a kid again?

As a kid, I used to love to climb. My mom used to say she thought I was part monkey and part bat because I would to hang by my feet from the stairs in our kitchen, when I was a kid (you'd have to see it to truly appreciate it...I literally laced my feet between two open steps and hung upside-down...and then I would attempt to drink water, eat, etc. Oh and whenever anyone new would come over, I just had to show off my extremely unusual talent!

Okay, so I digress.

Here are a few more monkeys I know!

Oop! There's that pesky crack again! Poor girl is NEVER going to get to wear a pair of low rise pants!

These two little buddies sure loved the tire swing.

And Tootie simply loves any kind of swing.

As a matter of fact, the majority of my time was spent pushing and pushing and pushing her in this...

But how, on Earth, could you say "no" to this face????

Or this one, for that matter???

You're right! You can't and neither can I!

I ♥ Faces Week 29 - "At The Beach"

I have been taking a summer break from playing along with I ♥ Faces, but I just couldn't resist entering this weeks theme At the Beach. This picture is of my little dolly-dumplin' in her adorable little swim suit. I just love her cute little Buddha belly sticking out and her sweet curls. I could just eat her right up!

I am going to be so sad when she outgrows this suit. I bought it last year and had to wait an entire year for it to fit her. Here's hoping we get many more chances to wear it this year!
Make sure to go check out all of the other beach babes at http://www.iheartfaces.blogspot.com/ by clicking on the button below.

Beautiful blooms

So far today has been a great day. The kids and I spent some quality time together playing this morning. I simply love those type of mornings. This afternoon we headed into St. Joe to a "End Of Treatment" party for a friend of mine's son, Carter, who just finished his maintenance treatments for Leukemia. Woohoo, Carter is cancer free and lovin' every minute of it...and so are his family and friends! Way to go Carter!

Grant and Audrey were wiped out after all of that playing at the park and they fell asleep in the car on the way home so I have had some time to do some cleaning, laundry and now blogging! Woohoo for me!

To change things up a bit, I thought I would share some pictures taken around my yard. I am a bit of a flower freak as you will soon find out.

I have an array of perennials and annuals and every year I choose a color theme for my annuals.

This year's colors {if you can't tell already!} are red, orange and yellow.

This is the first time I have ever used oranges and yellows so it was interesting picking out my flowers this spring.

I was forced to buy some varieties of flowers that I had no experience with, but is actually proved to be quite fun.

Above and below are various colors of marigolds {yes, the stinky ones!} and I always swore that I would never plant them, but I actually really like them. They are super easy to grow and I really like how they compliment each other in these pots.

Since I do not have a garden {mark my words, someday I will} I grow a few tomato plants in pots alongside the house. I usually do grape and cherry tomatoes because my dogs both love to eat them right off the plant, but this year I went with cherry and big boys. As you can see they aren't ripe yet, but they sure are going to be yummy!

Had to throw this one in there too. Grant snatched the cat and said, "Hey Mom! Take a picture of me and Trixie!" So I did exactly that.

Just a few more pictures of the flowers.

Believe me, I did not take pictures of all of them or we'd be here all day!

But maybe I will share a few more another time.

As for the rest of tonight...the hubby just called and said he was finally on his way home.

He told me to have a cold beer waiting for him when he gets here. That actually doesn't sound too bad. I think I just may have to join him!

We are also grillin' pork chops for dinner and then maybe having a little bon fire with the kids in this little fire bowl.

Hopefully the skeeters won't be too bad tonight. With the rain we have been getting lately, they are terrible around dusk.

Then, we promised Grant that we would camp out with him on the porch (4 season, fully enclosed...its actually more like our living room) on the hide-a-bed and watch spider man.

Have I ever mentioned that I loooove weekends and spending time with my family??

If not, I really should!

Born to be a biker!

If ever anyone was born to be a biker like his Daddy...I'm guessin' it is this little Firecracker {HA...read his shirt. I crack me up!}

Grant got this motorcycle to ride on into our wedding when he was 20 months old. He wasn't the best driver so we had the bike attached to a large, cloth covered piece of plywood on wheels (float style) and he was pulled in. I'll have to share those pictures some day too. He was so cute in his little tuxedo!

I digress.

On this particular day, he decided to give his sister a ride. The funny thing is...the bike is only a one seater! Tootie's face had "Are you sure this is a good idea?" written all over it!

It' didn't take her long and she got much more relaxed.

But I couldn't get her to smile or to hold on to her brother.

Good thing the bike moves about as fast as a turtle with two kids on there!

I just treasure the times when they actually play together and enjoy each others company. It is a nice break from the bickering, whining and crying that I seem to hear quite often already!

Tootie decided she wanted to give driving it a try. The bike has a foot pedal rather than a button to push with her finger like her tiny little 4-wheeler does, so she was confused why it wouldn't stop.

Toots also isn't very good at steering...make that she isn't good at steering AT ALL! I had to drop my camera every few seconds (not literally, of course!) and run over to turn her before she hit my van.

She didn't want to be done riding so I got Grant to bring her on a few more laps around the driveway. And then he had a bright idea...

He was making a break for it up the driveway and his little sissy thought it was pretty funny!

And there they go. My two little dumplin's riding off into the sunset...

Until they reached the gravel and Mom stopped them of course!

The funny thing is, when Grant was 2, Duke left on his motorcycle with a friend to go riding. As they were leaving, Grant ran into the garage and hopped onto his cycle and started following them. They were long gone by the time he got about half way up the driveway and I had to coax a very angry two year old back to the house and try to explain to him exactly why he could not hit the open road with the guys quite yet! And I am sure we will be having many more of those discussions in the years to come since it does appear that he has motorcycles in his blood like dear o'le Dad!