{sweet & juicy}

The temps are rising.

We go outside to play at 9 am, and we're sweaty.

Just like that, we went from cool breezes and windows open to AC on.

It's official...
The start of summer is just around the corner.

Barrett's already re-discovered a {sweet & juicy} summer favorite.

Our second watermelon of the season. 
 Too bad it was raining when we cut into this one, so we had to enjoy it inside.

There will be many, many more to come.

We hope you can enjoy a sweet & juicy watermelon this weekend!

Happy Memorial Day weekend!

Yuummmm!

Meet the Baby:: Introducing Caroline

Amber, Christie, Megan and I hosted a "meet the baby" shower for Audra and Caroline this past weekend.
It really was the perfect afternoon, and everyone enjoyed getting hold the new baby!

{beautiful cake and cupcakes by my talented friend, Christie}

{Audra, Lydia and Caroline...and the hostesses with the mostesses}

We were so happy to have big sister Lydia join us for the party! She did so good too!

Sorry to her mommy for the four or five heavily frosted cupcakes she might have been given by all of her aunts!

{Exhibit A: first cupcake of the afternoon from Aunt Christie}

{Beautiful girls: Kennedy, Caroline, Lydia and Jillian}

{Exhibit B: Time for a BLUE one from Aunt Gretchen. I think the sugar was kicking in, she looks happier here}

{All the bfe mom's got to hold the baby too}

We were happy to have Jillian join us too! We'd just celebrated her 1st birthday with a party the day before. Isn't she a doll!!
She let all her bfe aunts hold her, and we were thrilled!

Congrats again, on your beautiful little girl, Audra!

Although I was hoping Barrett would finally get a bfe baby boy playmate...

I wouldn't trade Caroline for anything in the world! She is a sweet addition.

Now, I get to look forward to Megan's new addition in October!

Excited to find out next week what she'll be having!!! I'm sending BOY vibes to her!


You can see many more pictures from the shower on my website.
I loved them all, so I put together a little slideshow...
{Click the picture below to go there}

OR you can get there from HERE.

hard-workin' boy

I forgot to post these picture in the {curb appeal} post!

A few of the landscaping process, and our hard-workin' little helper.

He is always telling me "me workin' hard, mama."
He loved being outside with us, and of course digging in the dirt.

See, there's that giant WEED plant I was telling you about.
I guess it might be pretty somewhere. It gets pinkish-purple blooms in the Spring.
But, this was not the spot for it, so bye-bye giant weed plant.

I'm sure people coming to our door always thought, jeesh, they need to pull that giant weed!

These show you want a mess the front bed was before. 

I'm still not 100% in love with it...but I'm not sure there's much more we can do...

Short of hiring a professional landscaper.

After the plant replacements, and before the river rock.

Barrett was a big help...

putting ONE rock on the shovel after every scoop we got.

Yeah, seeing the front bed in this picture confirms that I still don't love it. I think it's the long stones at the front. They need to be power-washed for one. But I think it might look better with something low, like some bricks?!?! Anyway, this picture shows that my new window is in and sparkling! I'm glad to finally have that replaced! Nice that it was under a double-lifetime warranty, but I had to wait a long time for it. It only took them 8 minutes to replace too!

*Just looked back at the pictures of the long stones above. They didn't look near as dirty as in this last pic. Maybe that's because I just ran out and took this picture in the rain :) Hopefully they're just darker and dirtier looking when they're wet!