She's 4!

My girl is four today.

And okay, so I know I get a little sentimental about birthdays.  It's just...she's already four.  Four! And next year she'll be five. 

Don't even get me started on six.

She does all the big girl things now.  She works the words "actually" and "exactly" into conversation as much as possible. She's all about favorite colors and princesses and dressing up.  She rides her little bike all the way around the neighborhood without stopping.  She helps Nate build towers with the Legos and "reads" him the books she has memorized. She kisses my head if I tell her I have a headache. She's independent and nurturing.

I want to keep her little and I want to see who she'll become all at the same time. 

 I so love that girl of mine.  What a blessing she is to me.

Happy 4th birthday to you, Brooke!  Love, me

A Princess Party, Of Course

Oh, how I love the princess thing! I love the imagination and sweetness and innocence.  As I watch Brooke grow up right before my eyes I have a whole new appreciation for it. The "princess" years don't last long, you know. 

This weekend both sets of grandparents came in and we had us a little princess party.

I would love to be the super creative mom bursting with ideas for my childrens' birthdays months in advance, with tons of ideas to share with you.  But I'm more the "keep it simple" type.  We had flowers and balloons and every princess birthday item Target has to offer.

Four is a really fun age.  Brooke was thrilled for her birthday.  This smile just makes me happy.  I love this girl.

 Gifts of the princess variety, of course.

I did a horrible job of taking pictures at the party!  I didn't get any of my dad or of Scot's parents.  I didn't hand off my camera to be in one myself. I only took two of Nathan and about 20 pictures total.  I'm not sure what I was doing.  Something very important, no doubt.   

But anyway...happy 4th birthday to Brooke!  And thank you, thank you to the wonderful grandparents that make her the happiest princess in all the land.  :-)

Just Peachy

This weekend we went to the local orchard and picked some peaches and blackberries. 

We found a box...

...and waited for the tractor to take us to the peach trees.

And then we dove in and started pickin'.  There were rows and rows of trees, all loaded with ripe peaches.  YUM!

Sampling was allowed.  That's good because we ate our weight in "samples."

After we loaded our box with peaches, it was off to the blackberry bushes. Blackberry season officially ended two weeks ago, so we were told picking blackberries would be a bit of a "treasure hunt." Information that would have been more useful before we went all the way out to the blackberry patch, but we were up for the challenge.

Every blackberry that Brooke picked went right into her mouth....

  or somewhere around there.

I don't know what my deal is with wanting to bake lately.  I usually HATE baking.  There's such a strict formula and if you leave out one little ingredient or make one mistake you're done for.  But for some reason I couldn't stand to leave our fruit in its natural, healthy state. 

I made blackberry crisp AND peach pie. So now I have blackberry crisp and peach sitting in my kitchen.

Come over to my house and you will be force-fed dessert.  Just warning you. 

B-O-R-E-D

Bored, we are.

We're totally in Groundhog's Day mode. Every day we wake up and every day it's so stinkin' hot.  We go through our baby pool/Play-Doh/painting/tv/dress-up/other assorted playing rotation.  A sprinkling of playdates and errands. Lunch. Nap. Repeat. Not that it's all bad.  It's just the same.  Nothing blogworthy going on here.

And I have to say, this girl who dreamed of hot summer weather just a couple of months ago is now longing for the pumpkin patch and Halloween costumes and wearing jeans.  Football games and chili in the crock pot and pulling out the warm blankets.  Doesn't that just sound like heaven??

But, until then, we're passing the time.

We paint. 

Well, okay, so twice we painted.  Only twice because...

but mostly because...

We bake.  So we can heat the house up and really see what the air conditioner's made of.

I read that if you add a stick of butter to a box mix, the cupcakes taste more like homemade.  A tip that must come straight from the Paula Deen School of Cooking. I found a great icing recipe (about halfway down in this link). And check out the S'mores cupcakes in the link.  Someday I'll try to make them and report back.  They look amazing. 

An evening of decent temperatures isn't lost on us.  When it finally cooled down one night (and only one night) we went to the park.  It was nice to be outside for a little while. 

 Nathan, that's called a tree.  Remember trees from when we used to go outside?

 This sweet sibling moment brought to you by the clearance bubbles from Walgreens...

...short-lived as it was.  Nate dumped his bubbles and got ahold of Brooke's  shortly after.

Is it September yet???