Reed's Rat Race

What's a girl gotta do to get some ice cream around here!?!

Izzy often likes to play fashion designer and use Milla as her model 4th of July Fireworks with our best neighbors! Milla wasn't too sure about the sparklers, but with close supervision, she had fun Today Izzy hosted her first tea party with invited guests. We had a great time with the neighbor girls. We played games, painted sun catchers and made glow-in-the-dark jewelry. Even Gavin wanted to join in with us, but he was NOT going to use good ettiquette and manners. Please note that he wasn't going to use those small tiny plates to hold his food-- the cloth napkins served his purpose.

This year, we roped off a section of the garden and told the kids they could plant whatever they wanted. They both planted sunflowers. Gavin grew a monster 11'-1 inch tall sunflower plant. The close-ups are from Izzy's plants. Anybody know how to roast sunflower seeds?

Yesterday we proved we still have "it". "It" being the ability to be spontaneous, even with three kids. I had Friday off and up until 8:30 am, we hadn't planned to do anything different other than a few chores around the house. But then Angela said, "Let's do something fun!". So we did. By 10:00 we had picked a destination, loaded the family transporter, and were on the road and headed to Rickwood Caverns State Park in Alabama. We grilled hotdogs, hiked, took a guided tour of the caverns, and swam. We wore the kids (and ourselves) out but had a great time. Couple of interesting facts about the caves... In the 1950's, folks thought the cave would make a good fall-out shelter. So they packed a bunch of food and medical supplies and about 1100 people in the cave as a test. Turns out, the limestone is so porous that it wouldn't protect anybody from a nuclear or chemical attack. They left all the food and supplies down in the cave and abandon...

Wow, we have been stinkin' busy!  I can't believe how much we've managed to cram into the last 2 months, but I thought I'd recap on a few of them.  Sit tight and fast forward if necessary. This was March. . . Rikki gives Milla her first hair cut! (just before she turns 2) Princesses at Play The family makes Strawberry Freezer Jam!  Yum!   Then Papa decided to take us on a fun adventure for Spring Break and we didn't tell the kids anything. . .  We saw Alligators We picked Oranges We rode Motorcycles We chatted with beautiful ladies !  (ok,so they are my cousins, Molly and Shelly) We laughed with Uncle Paul and all his awesome stories and just for fun, the two brothers, THEN The two brothers, NOW We woke the kids up really early and took them to my favorite magical place, thanks to Papa. . . When the park closed at Midnight, we were worn out, but we had one of the best days of our lives!

Gavin made me sing the "George of the Jungle" song while they did this.  I was instructed to time it just right so that he was in mid-swing when I got to the part about "watch out for that tree".  Unfortunately, you can't see my prized daffodils that they "tried" to avoid, but eventually got smashed by wild monkeys.  All in good fun, though, right? Then the next day I realized that they could smash all my daffodils and I wouldn't care, because time is going by too fast and I wouldn't trade all the pretty flowers in the world for my sweet kids .