Mom and Dad's 40th plus More Fun!

My parents celebrated their 40th anniversary on May 19th!   We (along with my brother David, sis-in-law Elizabeth and their Lillie Anne) threw them a 3 part party.  Elizabeth and David wrote cute poems that told what we were doing each step of the way.  The first part was pictures down by the Lakewood Lake.  Our friends Graeme and Wendy did the pictures, and I'll post them soon! 

Next step was a special picnic dinner by the lake:  Pork tenderloin (compliments of Clay, of course!), baked potatoes, green bean bundles, salad from the garden, and sweet tea!

The last step was homemade ice cream back at my parent's house.  David and Elizabeth gave them an awesome date basket full of popcorn, the movie South Pacific, sparkling cider and other goodies.  I can't wait to post the pics from our photo shoot.  The evening was so much fun, the location fabulous, and of course the company was the reason why we celebrated!  I am so proud of my parents and their example of love and commitment.  And interestingly, Clay's parents celebrate their anniversary on May 19th as well!  It was 39 years for them. 

Cousins :)

In other news.....more zucchini from the garden!  This time Clay cooked up zucchini fries and served it with pork sandwiches. 

And more fun.....trying to paint handprints!!!

How do they do it at school and not make such a mess?????

And here's more of smiley Claire!

And movie night with our friend Ean. 

So summertime means later nights spent outside and with friends, but I'm grateful for all the fun and memories!

Garden, Playtime, and Cereal, Oh My!

Garden Time!  Clay has done an awesome job starting us a garden this year.  He grew everything from seeds and this has been the most fun experiement!  The kids love to go out with him and pick weeds, water, and play!  I say this has been an experiment because we grew a little of a lot of different veggies to see what works best in our yard.  Here is a head of romaine!  I am almost more antsy than the kids in wanting to harvest the veggies!

 Here are green beans growing up the bamboo.  Behind that are purple hull peas, the thing Gracie is most anxious for!

 See that delicious cherry tomato?  Mimi and Papa held "cousins camp" at cousin Maggie's house and the cousins planted their own cherry tomatoes, along with some petunias!

 Drum roll please.....our first zucchini!!!!! 

 Time to harvest!

 And dinner with our fresh produce.....flat bread pizzas! 

And here is a hydrangea from the front yard.  We didn't do a thing to them and thankfully they returned, looking better than last year.  They are almost a month early this year.  We have always called hydrangeas Gracie's birthday flower, because they are beautiful right around her birthday, the 6th of June.  Hopefully they'll still be nice and we can still call them her birthday flower!

Kid time!  Here is my sweet Pebbles, I mean Claire!  She's been sportin' a ponytail lately :)

 What a beautiful, happy girl! 

 We love playing in the backyard morning, noon, and night!

 I can't believe how big Andrew is getting.  On the big boy swing now!

 Smiley

 The front sidewalk has been another fun play destination.  After watching an episode of "Franny's Feet" where Franny plays soccer, Grace just had to play.  And I thought she was a pretty good kicker!  My favorite line from this playtime by Gracie was "What is this wet on my forehead???"  Sweat my dear, sweat. 

 Andrew kept throwing a tennis ball around we found at Allsop Park the other day. 

Claire and me watching

Craft time!  I have taken only 1 sewing class, but felt confident enough to try a little curtain project.  The kiddos wanted to craft along with me. 

Ironed and pinned the fabric

 Got to sewing

 2 mistakes later, my mom coming to help me rethread the machine, my mom coming back to help me rethread the bobbin, and here is my little curtain!  So it's simple, a little too girly for Clay's taste, and could have been done with iron on tape and no sewing machine, but I was proud of my little project :)

Cerear time!  Claire just turned 6 months old!!!!  I cannot believe how fast her babyhood is flying.  She's been wanting to try food (at least I think so every time she sits on my lap while I eat!), so I finally bought some organic brown rice cereal.  She had a blast! 

Well, long post today!  This spring has really been fun.  Looking forward to more!