Campin' Out

This post comes a little late but over the 4th of July we packed up and joined our Sunday school class for a weekend camping trip. It's a hands down favorite vacation time for our kids. They love playing with their friends all day long and being in the woods! Now some of you might say we aren't really "camping" with our home away from home but it sure makes camping more comfortable and cleaner (big winning factor for me)

The kids literally rode their bikes from sun up till sun down.

Our camper sat right at the top of a hill and they loved speeding down it and pushing the bikes back up.

Breanne, however, needed to be "better" then the boys and carry her bike up instead of push to obviously prove she's a big girl.

If the kids weren't biking they were climbing trees.............

..............Or boating

Breanne thought she was too good for a life jacket so she had to sit on the dock all afternoon.

Every evening of camping needs to be wrapped up will a little burnt marshmellow on a stick!! My own personal, sticky favorite!

I'm In Love With A Singer

A Singer sewing machine that is. This machine is soooo much fun. It's, by far, my favorite past time right now. (Next to watching my kids race around the driveway on their bikes. I love that too!! Takes me back.....)

Anyway, I've been sewing up a storm. Yesturday I made an apron from a tutorial on the internet and it turned out CUTE!! (at least from my point of view.) It was way easy!!

I went to my local amish fabric store and was amazed at the awesome, vintage and retro designs they had. Kudos to those cute old amish ladies. The lady that cut these for me said. Ohhh, pink fabrics...my favorite. That brought a smile to Bre's face (she LOVES pink)

Then I whipped up this little number!

A nice feature....no butt bow!! No butt accentuation. (Although I guess that picture kind puts mine out there doesn't it)

But my all time favorite part of the apron?????

It's REVERSIBLE!!! Do you love it or what!!!!

Cousins

Well we did it, we finally got the "toddler" pictures done. God bless Renae for putting up with us! She took these talented and beautiful pictures; while being 6 months pregnant, wading in the water yet drenched in sweat from the scorching sun and waving bright colored stuffed animals in one hand to get the kids attention and holding a fancy, expensive camera in the other, praying it doesn't fall in the water. God...blesss...her!

This is the Beiler cousins. Darlene and Jason's little ones are even in the pictures. The little babies, Bo and Cash, didn't make it into these pics but we got some cute ones of them too. No worries.

I spent Tues and Wed night sewing those little matching dresses for the girls. Nothing fancy but I thought they turned out cute anyway.

ZOOOOOOOO

This was the Beiler family fun day and we decided to go to the zoo. Trey and Bre were pumped for days with excitement. Trey wanted to see the lions and crocodiles and Bre of course wanted to see a monkey.

They were acting like monkeys, climbing and swinging from those fence posts.

The "BIG" cats were a hit with the boys.

The otters were a big hit with all the swimmers of the family. We even got to see them eat!

Arlan got the kids to ride a camel and they loved it. They also wanted to ride a hippo but...go figure... they didn't have actual "hippo" rides so we opted for the statue instead.

At the end of the day the kids wanted to get their faces painted with a picture of an animal on it. Trey picked a puppy (everything is puppy right now) and Bre just wanted a pink animal...bless her heart.....can you guess what the "guy" painter painted her?

This little piggy went to the zoo and the little puppy did too.

Heritage Days

Every year, around the 4th of July, the Intercourse Community Park has a huge event/festival and fireworks. The kids just love it!

There's always great food (Stoltzfus Meats enormous sausage sandwich is the BEST!!! only if you wash it down with a cold, creamy Lapp Valley Milksake) and they always have a wagon ride for the kidos which was the first "ride" of choice!
In the early afternoon they have an antique tractor parade and then they display some of them at the park all evening. Trey was totally fascinated by these huge and old tractors. Him and his buddies were crawling all over them.
The evening closed with fabulous fireworks. (the best around, in my opinion) I would have taken photos but I had my hands full holding Bre on my lap and covering her ears with my hands. She didn't cry but she was definately scared. When it was all over.....it was all she could talk about. Kids...go figure!

New Hobby

I have been on a sewing frenzy the last 4 days. I honestly don't know how to sew but Arlan's grandma has her machine at our house and all the instruction books. So, I decided to take up a new challenge and try it out. Here's what I made. First I bought a shirt at Goodwill and turned it into this cute blue dress.

Then I bought some fabric on clearance and made this cute little pillowcase dress (that's what the instructions called it)

My biggest challenge, although it doesn't look that complicated was a curtain/roman shade for my bathroom. I love it and I'm so proud of myself for taking on this project and having it turn out pretty good.

Memorable Memorial

Well, the minute the sun came out and started sharing it's warm brightness my kids broke out the swimming goggles and started begging for a trip to the pond.

So on Memorial day we packed up the fishing rods (unfortunately the goggles stayed home) and headed out to our fun filled pond.The kids were practically running there and they threw their belongings down and headed for their favorite spots. Trey's is on the dock casting his fishing line over and over again.

Breanne's favorite spot is in the sand with her feet in the water. The frigid temp. didn't bother her one bit.

Trey thought it would be a good idea to take Charcoal on a boat ride since this was the puppies first taste of pond life.

Charcoal even liked the sand and enjoyed watching the kids play around.

As the sun was setting Trey and Arlan finally caught a fish and Charcoal couldn't get enough of it. She sniffed the living daylights out of it.

I just enjoyed walking around and checking out how beautiful the flowers and green grass are becoming.

SEE YOU AT THE POND!!!!