Sweet Summertime

 Summer is in full swing, and I can certainly say that we are having our best summer yet!! The girls are four and two this year. Everyone can walk independently and is potty trained, no one is nursing anymore - it is the perfect set-up for fun. We have been enjoying the warm weather and also having such an open schedule. This week starts up a once-weekly Bible study for me that will require us to be at church one morning per week, but other than that we are not doing anything structured this summer. No dance classes, no park district classes, nothing! I was nervous about having an open schedule, but.....I LOVE IT! Not having somewhere to be all the time has freed us up to visit parks, splash pads, make play dates, take library trips, and basically do whatever we feel like doing! If the girls ask to do this or that, my answer can usually be, "Sure! Why not?" The freedom of an unscheduled summer is wonderful. :)

One thing we've been doing is taking lots of trips to the library. We are all signed up for the summer reading program (even mom and dad!) where you can earn coupons and things for local area attractions, restaurants, et cetera. The girls love to pick out stacks of books to bring home and read. Savannah and I have also been exploring little "chapter books" that I can read aloud to her (instead of just picture books) and she feels like such a big girl. It's so cute! Right now we are reading a Pippi Longstocking book, Pippi Goes to the Circus.

Getting ready to visit the library.

We have also been heading to the park whenever we can! We are having a lot of fun trying out different parks all around town. Sometimes it's just us girls, sometimes Matt is with us, sometimes we meet a friend or two, and sometimes we meet up with our MOPS friends at the scheduled MOPS park dates. We also seem to be in the habit of packing a picnic about once each week and enjoying lunch outside after some play time. Normally the girls whine a lot at meal time and it can be difficult to get them to eat, but they always seem so calm and content when they eat in the fresh air!

This was at a new park that we discovered.
The girls loved it so much they wanted to go back with Daddy on his day off yesterday.

Even though we live in a town home now, we do have a large grassy backyard where the girls can play. The girls love running through the sprinkler and playing in their water table! We have a little pool, too, but we haven't gotten that out yet. I am sure we will soon, though!

This girl just loves to be outside!

This sweet girl just loves to scream while running through the water!

This was actually at 8 a.m. It was a HOT day!

Silly girl....she had water in her eye. :)

This past weekend we decided to try our hands at a little gardening. I have never been much for keeping plants alive, but I wanted to try some gardening this year, because I want the girls to learn about how plants grow and have fun watering plants and picking our harvest to eat. We planted in pots. We have basil, cilantro, and parsley that we planted from seeds, bell peppers, a strawberry plant, and also some Impatiens to add some color to our back porch. This morning we had our first ripe strawberry! I picked it and let the girls split it, lol!

Both girls really love to water the plants.

I was so excited about this ripe strawberry! I hope we get lots more!

With some more time on my hands, I've been having fun trying out different hairstyles on the girls. Savannah complains a bit about having to sit still, but she loves the finished result. I usually let her watch some TV while I work on her hair. Hailey thinks it's fun to sit and have her hair done like Sissy, but then she gets upset about all the little rubber bands in her hair and wants to rip them all out and let her hair stick up all over the place like a wild woman. ;)

Twin dutch braids.

This was a very pretty do! I loved it!

The back.

From the top you can see the zig-zag part.

This was the result of sleeping in french braids. So pretty!

Cute little pigtails on Hailey, with a side part.

She looks so sweet! But she got very upset after this and ripped it all out.

Dutch braid to the side, with a bow.

Another variation of pigtails for Hailey.

We are still living in our town home right now, and it seems that God has closed the door on us selling this place. It's very frustrating for us, but we know that we're not the only ones in this position, unable to sell. Unfortunately this has happened to many others who bought right before the market crashed. We are pursuing the possibility of renting our place out so that we can still move. For now, though, we're enjoying summer in the place that we've called home all these years. :)