early daddy day & more

yesterday, the gift i ordered john for fathers day was delivered. two huge boxes with hammocks.com written down the sides. inside of trying to hide them for a week, we gave it to him early. despite all his wrong guesses, he was pleasantly surprised. lots of smiles all around--we set it up in the living room to try it out.




looks like fun. and it just might be the perfect gift for Horizontal Man!

later, john trimmed ben's hair


and the big boys went to the vipers game.


today ben woke up miserable and has been running a fever all day.more teeth are on the way. for now he justs wants to be held. and i'm going to do just that.

another dreamy beach house

while i still can't stop dreaming of this house i posted about here, i have to admit this home featured in architectural digest this month is pretty darn adorable.






ok, so who's buying the lottery tix tonight? i'm definitely in.

mandee the great

email is such a great thing. so is the web. i live too far from my family to really enjoy the day-to-day highlights, but through the wonderful web world, i am able to stay connected. that's the whole reason i started this blog in the first place, right?

well, my wonderful sister sandee sent me a link to this youtube video today. and i am so smitten. it stars and is directed by the talented mandee (my niece). this is one girl who is going places, so world, you best stop and take notice! oh and did i mention that my nephew matthew did all the filming and editing? does it get much better than this? sandee, you did so, so good with your kids and you all INSPIRE me. awesome, just plain a-w-e-s-o-m-e.

funky what?

"mommy?"
"what anna?"
"can you come wipe me?"
"no anna. you can do it by yourself."
"but mommmmeeeee, i have some funky diarrhea!!!!"

it's times like this when i need a vacation!

yet another project

i saw this today and it might be added to my summer to-do list.


i have a printer's type case already, but mine is filled with seashells (of course). but there is something so sweet and lovely about this one. i think i might just have to have one.

speaking of summer to-do lists, look at this beautiful summer list (meg is so darn creative!).


i'm thinking we need one of these too. what a good way to make sure you get all your summer fun in without forgetting anything!

can you tell i'm all about summer now?

tired boy

ben was such a tired boy. he is fighting a warm weather cold--the worst. he is full of boogers and very clingy. my poor sweet boy. but despite the cold, he still managed to shower us all with love--even giving anna's teacher a big wet kiss!


while john gave ben an early bath, i ran around with josh. we discovered that some of our hydrangeas were ready to come inside. they are making us all smile.


i hope the hydrangeas have a good year so we can enjoy them for months to come.

the garden we planted this spring is finally up and growing too. every day, it changes a little more. the kids love discovering--a new tiny green tomato or a new sprout in the wild flower bed.


i bet you thought martha lived here, right? isn't it so pretty?

monday funnies

today anna brought this home. she and her teachers made it for mother's day. and although it is a bit belated, it brought tears to my eyes to see how much work they did just for me.



when we were driving home, we had a very funny conversation. i told anna how beautiful she looked in her pictures. she told me, "and stylish too. stylish means that i look really pretty." before i even got a chance to chuckle, she exclaimed, "and look at how long my fingernail is in this picture, just like aunt bon's!" well, with that, i just got hysterical. she's right, she does look stylish and aunt bon sure had some long finger nails! all my stress and worry from the day melted away, right there in my car, as we laughed together.

bye bye baseball

today is also josh's end of the season baseball party. since we all have to bring something, i made these:



there is a picture of each boy on the top of their own cupcake. i hope they like them as much as i do.

while i iced the cupcakes, ben read the paper. and anna played on the computer.



i love sundays.

dancing machines

last night i put on one of the kids' cds after dinner. while i cleaned up, these two provided quite a show. they danced and jumped around and acted a fool. i love their smiles in these pictures.






earlier in the day, i made this. it's hard to tell the details in a picture, plus i don't know how to turn off my flash, but it looks really good in person. i love the fact that i used my mom mom's old broken watch faces and other vintage stuff like a stamp from france, old ribbon and lots of really old buttons. i hung it near my front door and it looks so pretty.



anna is patiently waiting for me to get off the blog so she can play her computer game. since when do 4 year olds play computer games? she just asked me if the pictures were done "buffaloing" to the computer. she meant "uploading". that might just be the cutest thing ever.