Fun Fridays...My Favorite Things

Going to the

 

LAKE

 

 

 

 

My Top Five Favorite Things About

Our Lake Weekends...

1.  Seeing the night sky {amazing outside of the city}

2.  Laughing at old stories

3.  Eating all together @ one big table

4.  Joy riding around the lake in the boat

5.  Watching the kids play, swim, and scheme together

:: Happy Friday ::

 

Way Back Wednesday

How did this little guy go from...

 ~ THIS ~

to

~ THIS ~

 so quickly?

Happy FOURTH

 Finally, I took the time to post our pictures from the Fourth of July!

We had a FaNtAsTiC, family-FuN-filled

FOURTH.

After we finally got all of our "stuff" loaded up for a short weekend getaway... 

We headed south to Lake Whitney!

My cousin Scott owns a lake house there,

 that he so graciously offered to host everyone at.

And when I say everyone, I mean everyone...

10 adults, 3 kids, and one baby!

YES...

luckily it has lots of room and

YES...

there were people everywhere, and

YES...

 we shared the bathrooms, and

YES...

 it was rarely quiet, but

everytime I looked around,

everyone was Smiling,

Laughing, Joking, or Telling old stories

about going to the lake when they were young.

We had so much fun, what a blessing to be able to

say that about your family!

On his property Scott has several fruit trees. 

The peach tree in particular was loaded down with beautiful fruit.

It was so heavy, that the branches were hanging on the ground!

Gracie busied herself with picking peaches and storing them

 in a butterfly catching net!

Cade even skinned one with his teeth and proceeded to

chomp away at all the sweet, juicy goodness...

Whitney was quick to warn him to check the middle

for

"white wigglies"

Cade declared his peach

"white wiggly" free

and chowed down!!!

This from my uber picky kid.

The fruit trees attracted a multitude of butterflies.

Lucky for Cade,

he is kin to one expert butterfly catcher...

This girl didn't need a net!  All she needed was the 2 hands God gave her to lay hold of those beauties!

Cade took lessons from Whitney and was catching his

own butterflies by the end of the weekend!

They were like 2 peas in a pod. 

I think they were cut from the same cloth!

They were the best of friends.

We relaxed

Snuggled with Uncle D after naptime

Swam in the pool

Water skiied, tubed, swam, and rode around the lake on Scott's

awesome boat

Ate more delicious food than you could shake a stick at...

And put on the best fireworks show in the neighborhood...

All said we had tired bodies, but full hearts 

on the way

home.

It was a FOURTH to remember.

We each made some new family memories

and I look forward to making more in the years to come!

Thanks Uncle Scott

And

God Bless the USA

Is it just me or does anyone else still tear up

when they hear the ole' Lee Greenwood

version?

Hot Dogs, Homeruns and HEY I KNOW THAT GUY...

We headed to the ballpark on Tuesday night!!!

It is the first game I've been to this season

and MAN was the Texas heat in full affect.

Luckily, my brother-in-law had tickets to his company's box!

Hello air conditioning,

I love you...soooooooo much

The players were warmed up and ready to go, 

the first pitch was thrown and then...

Whose face pops up on the board?

C-o-d-y 
{he's in the middle}

  He performed the national anthem with his praise team 

from North Richland Hills!

They were in perfect harmony and sounded

phenomenal!!!

It was Kelton's very 1st game

&

he slept like a log.

{kelton...all smiles}

My nephew Kelton is 2 months old already!!!

Amanda shot some video of him playing

on his playmat the other day!

So adorable

I'm smitten :)

Just wanted to share Kelton's birth announcement with all of you!

Baby and Mommy continue to do well.

He has filled our hearts with so much joy, in such a short period of time.

I Love You Keltie!

It's Pickin' Time

Cade, Gracyn and I headed out early

this morning for a new adventure.

After meeting up with friends at our church,

we hit the road south toward the hill country!

Our destination... Marble Falls,

to visit the

Sweet Berry Farm's Strawberry fields.

The drive down was peaceful.

Beautiful flowers in bloom everywhere you looked and

Lightening McQueen playing in the background :)

Upon arrival we were promptly outfitted with our baskets

and headed to an open field.

The strawberries were overflowing to put it mildly!!!

The sweet scent of fresh fruit filled the air and

the butterflies were abundant among the fields.

Cade struck out on his own and our friend, Miss Julie made sure

he stayed out of the mud!

She overheard Cade saying to himself ,

"I am REALLY GOOD at picking strawberries"

apparently we have no self-esteem issues!

The strawberries themselves were gorgeous!

Plump,

perfectly Ripe,

and Ready for Picking...

While I was helping Gracyn with her basket,

Cade was determined to pick his entire row clean!

I think he picked every strawberry for a quarter mile...

Check out the basket on this guy,

AND

that satisfied smile!

This is an active farm, with horses, goats, and donkeys!

Gracyn liked the horses the best of all,

she even fed them some of her strawberries...shhhh don't tell anyone!


Some of our little LaDiEs

{ L-to-R: Landry, Gracyn, Hannah, Bethany, & Bella}


After laboring in the strawberry fields we treated ourselves to some of the farm's homemade ice cream.

Cade chose vanilla {no big surprise there}, but Gracyn tried their Berry, Berry Ice Cream which was out of this world delicious.

It's a combination of strawberry and blackberry ice cream.

It was seriously the best fresh fruit ice cream I have ever eaten,

and apparently the best Gracyn has ever eaten too b/c I had to pry her grubby fingers away from the plastic cup for the 2 meager bites I did ingest!

Here she is in all her ice cream glory with strawberry pulp on her tooth!

Hilarious

While we were walking back I asked Cade if he'd
had a good time and he replied,

"THAT WAS A BLAST, MOM"

Check out the weights of my two pickers...

Yes sir-eee, that's no joke.

Gracie picked 4 lbs

&

Cade single handedly picked 6 POUNDS of strawberries!!!

Our immediate future includes:

- strawberry pie for dessert tonight

- strawberry preserves

- smoothies for breakfast tomorrow

I plan on sharing the recipe and photos of our luscious strawberry pie!

I guess if kids are going to pick something,

I'd much rather it be strawberries :)