Gardening

In spite of the drought going on here in Texas, we still have some beautiful blooms in our yard. I love my purple morning glory. Morning after morning it's still going strong...thank you God for this beautiful flower that I get to enjoy every day! It's growing on a fence in our backyard mixed in with a bright pink coral vine. It's gorgeous.

Our garden has slowed down, and we are actually gearing up for our fall garden. We have a few faithful plants left though, like okra. It has such a pretty little bloom. .
I won't lie, I despise picking okra. The leaves are so irritating to my skin. I've tried wearing long sleeves, but I need to wear gloves as well. But who wants to wear gloves and long sleeves in this heat? So, as of last Saturday I hadn't picked for a few weeks. Needless to say there was a LOT of okra that needed to be picked and thrown away. I think T and Sunshine picked 10 pounds of it.
And last but not least, our watermelon. While we will not have the largest watermelons this year, I am just glad we'll have something to show for our efforts.

Cooling Off

This morning, my helper and I were out watering various plants around the yard and in the garden. I asked Sunshine what she was watering, her response was "myself". I am glad she is keeping cool!

Sweet Dreams, Sweet Girl

We've been enjoying checking out books from the library this summer, we even started a bookworm to encourage reading. Each time we read a book together and answer some questions about the book, Sunshine adds an oval to her worm. Her sweet friend Maggie is also doing a bookworm and her mom and I plan to have the girls celebrate their met reading goals together.

Last time we were at the library, Sunshine checked out the book below. It's a really cute book, and in the story Horace wears slippers that his mom made for him.

Since reading "Horace", Sunshine has been wearing her slippers to bed. I am amazed that she actually wakes up with them still on. My socks come off while I sleep, I cannot imagine being able to keep slippers on. I took this picture last night after she dressed herself for bed. She is so sweet and each day I realize how more she can do on her own and how much I miss her being little.
She loves to read herself sleep. Along with the slippers, she usually has at least 6 or 7 stuffed friends in bed along with several books. Last night I think we fell asleep before she did. Sweet dreams, sweet one!

Yum!

Last week we whipped up a batch of chocolate buttercream frosting. Sunshine has figured out that getting to lick the beater is a great way to taste test out what we've been working on. Now if she could just do it without covering her face with frosting!

We've been working on her swimming. She is so comfortable in the water, I really need to upload a video to show off her craziness. This morning we went over to Papa and Nini's to swim and of course she had a blast. Without fail, her first words after jumping in from the side or off my leg are "Again!". After our swim Nini, Sunshine, and I had a little tea party on the back patio. It was a great Friday morning!

Kick off to Summer

Sunshine and I kicked off the summer with a trip to Kansas to visit family and friends. We always enjoy our time in Kansas, and this trip was no different. We celebrated Sunshine's 3rd birthday with my family. My parents gave her a stuffed horse, which she loves. She has been dressing the horse up in some of her clothes and he just fits right in with her conglomeration of stuffed friends. Here she is with her new horse....

I think all kids love playing "doctor". It seems her new pony needed a checkup,

so she got some help from Grandma.

Grandma's little helper. They made a cherry pie together. It was so tasty!!

Cousin time! They enjoyed playing in my Dad's sand pile. They had a blast

crawling up it and sliding down.

Grandpa and C building a tunnel.

We spent an evening with my Grandma Ila. We had a great time talking about family history and Sunshine enjoyed playing with all the different toys. Nothing changes at Grandma's house....I love going there for that very reason. I am so lucky to have both of my Grandma's still here on earth.

Precious new life! My youngest sister and her husband welcomed their first child in May. It was fun to get to meet her for the first time while she was/is still very much an infant! We had a great time with the 3 of them. We enjoyed pizza at Gambino's and then went to check out the orchard they are working so hard on.

We also visited my sister LJ and her family. The kids had an absolute blast playing grocery store. I think they emptied and refilled the food cabinets multiple times. They loved racing through the house with a play shopping cart. We made a trip to Manhattan too. We had lunch with a good friend and mentor of mine and then stopped by Call Hall for some ice cream! I am thankful for all the great memories that were made.

Sunflowers

Our sunflower crop this year was our tallest yet! They have been fun to check on over the past couple months. The heat is taking it's toll and they appear to be about done for this year. Hopefully we will have some come up from all the seeds that falling off right now.

Outdoors!

The weather here in Texas has been mild lately, so we really have been enjoying the time to be outside before the heat is oppressive. Our garden has taken off, we've been enjoying tomatoes and cucumbers this week. We have green beans that should be ready soon as well as an assortment of peppers. Our watermelon and okra have a ways to go, but we are looking forward to enjoying them as well. I meant to get a picture of Sunshine with her sunflowers before they were taller than she is, but as you can see below they beat me! They are blooming now, so I need to take a picture of them and get it posted. On of the first places she goes when we are outside is her tomato plants. I think she would sit out there all day and eat tomatoes is I let her.

Looking for tomatoes.

We gave her a sandbox for her birthday. She really loves to play in it...and I can get some gardening done while she is occupied!

Last week we brought home 11, day- old chicks. They are growing fast and doing great! Hopefully they will all be laying this fall (minus the rooster) and we will be able to offer more eggs to our Bryan/College Station friends.