Our big summer project.

This summer sure has flown by. Between the store, a toddler and my hobbies there's not a lot of time for much else, but my wonderful husband finally gave in to the idea of a pool!!! So the fact that it's the end of summer didn't even phase me! I look at it as a fresh start for next summer! We got the pool in now we're (my husband, I try to help but you can imagine how well that goes) building the deck and it is ginormous. It's such a slow process working on it after he gets home from work and on the weekends when we don't have other stuff going on, but we'll get done eventually!

Rees' new obsession

For months Rees has begged for paint. Every time we pass the craft isle at Walmart he says Rees needs that mom (the paint) and I have avoided it for this long, but he caught me in a soft moment and I said "sure" so that was all he talked about all the way home. We went out to the patio and away he went, he had most of his Toy Story book colored by the time he was done. I must admit it wasn't actually that messy, I should have gave in sooner :)

Love this picture

I adore taking pictures of flowers. They are naturally beautiful, very cooperative and you don't have to convince them to smile for the camera :) I went to take some pictures last week of some Asiatic Lilies and they were gorgeous. Of course I my favorite of them all was the wonky angle one that I got on my last try! I am going to enlarge this as a wall print and I can't make up my mind which processing I like the best...

Daddy's right hand man

So we had a water leak in our backyard. We had to bring the backhoe in and Mat had a little helper the whole time!

A boys work is never done

Love this picture

Summer Fun

We're having an amazing summer. I have dedicated my summer to my little man and making sure we get plenty of quality time together (he is growing up too quickly) and we have been pool rats this summer. He is doing great at learning to swim. The 99 cent swimmies have been such a blessing. Those big bulky suits with the floats in them are nice, but the swimmies give him so much more freedom to actually swim and he has no fear so he's well on his way. Just thought I would share a few of my favorite pictures! 

4th of July

I hope everyone had a great 4th...our family sure did! We had a great day swimming, eating and then we had a beautiful fireworks display although I am sad to report my pictures sucked. I was not as clever as my dear friend V to research the fireworks procedure for taking good pictures so I wound up with 100+ stinky fireworks pictures. Oh well there's always next year! But back to the good parts of our day, the food was at the top of the list. Potlucks are my favorite I love eating other peoples food as a matter of fact I hardly ever eat what I take to a potluck just because I want to sample all the other new foods. I'll share what I made with you because all the recipes got rave reviews and they are definitely festive and super delicious. I will be making these again in coming years!

Brownie's & Berries Dessert Pizza 

Yumm-o you gotta try this one the recipe is HERE

Red, White & Blue Poke Cake

This one was my favorite. Recipe is HERE

Layered Summer Fruits with Creamy Lime Dressing

So Delicious  Recipe can be found HERE

Columbus Zoo trip

We had a great weekend. Mat, Rees and I went up to Columbus for the weekend to visit my best friend from high school and her new baby, which by the way is absolutely perfect! She is too gorgeous for words. After our visit we headed out for some late dinner and then went back to our GREAT hotel! Rees had a ball playing in their bathtub ... weird that's the least enjoyable part for me when I stay in a hotel but it was by far his favorite! The next morning we all got up early and headed to the zoo! By like 10 am it was 90 degrees it was unbearably hot. Rees had a great time and Mat and I did too minus the drenching wet outfits we were wearing, Mat had it worse than I did he had to carry Rees on his shoulders most of the day lol! Good thing mom's not strong enough for that :)

In the hotel opening the $4 bottle of water after he was warned not to. 

Our little elephant! What is it with my boy and funny hats?!?

Picture share!

I LOVE summer. We swam most of the day today. Rees is lovin' the .99 swimmies (orange ones that go on your arms) He can swim so well with those he just paddles all over the pool without a problem! then we came home and he took a nap and my sister and I watched a mediocre movie, Remember Me with Robert Pattinson (Edward from Twilight) and then we went out and swam some more well Rees did in his little pool I finished Eclipse! Yep I actually finished a book. I am super proud of that because within my 30 years on this Earth I have NEVER finished a book. I hate to read, but if anything could motivate me to read it is Twilight. I know I sound ridiculous but I don't even care those movies ** and books live up to all the hype. I can't wait until the movie comes out next week!!!

So I got some cute snaps this week and I wanted to share a couple of my little guy...time is passing by so quickly he is so big aghhhhh!

Vacation post #2 Pigeon Forge . . .

I am loving summer! We barely come inside these days between the big blow up pool in the back yard, Rees' mud pie station and the book Eclipse we stay really busy. Yes I am reading a book. I am a tad embarrassed to admit it but I support team Edward all the way LOL!!! Who ever thought that vampires and werewolves could be so entertaining. Anyways... the computer has been more of a job to me than fun these days since I much prefer being outdoors but I did manage to go through the other 1/2 of my 500+ photos from vacation and here is another collage of our wonderful vacation (which by the way I am needing wanting another one already)

This was really neat. 

Inside the Wonderworks museum they had a big bubble factory.

As soon as we arrived at our cabin Rees started this hilarious thing about being quite because there were bears outside (off of the wrap around porch) and it was really funny. But then the whole vacation kinda revolved around his bear fascination. So we found this cool place called Bear Country and they had everything related to bears including a live bear walk through. 

This was part of the bear exhibit. I'm sure it was against all rules to be 

climbing the fence over top of the bears, but according to Pap's it's all okay :) 

Wonderworks. This place had so many interactive things to do. 

He even got to walk on the moon.

Warning: NO BEARS WERE HURT DURING OUR VACATION! but  not due to lack of effort!

I am happy to report a month after our vacation that Rees is just as much in love with his raccoon hat today as he was on vacation. He wore it tonight!

Found this growing in my zebra grass next to my Koi pond...

Does anyone know what it is? If so I would love to know so I can get some more!

Do I have any bead lovers???

So my sister and I have started a home party business called The Bead Trunk. I am obsessed with beads and our inventory reflects it! These beads will fit all popular bracelets such as Pandora or Troll or if you don't have a bracelet started yet we sell all the hardware that hold beads too. We have bracelets, necklaces, key chains ear rings and tons more. The beads are incredibly beautiful and extremely affordable. I started a Facebook page for our beads so if you are interested check it out HERE.
 If you want to earn FREE stuff book a party today! June is full we're booking for July now.

Here are some pics of our bracelets and beads...

Our first family vacation... Pigeon Forge!

It has been so long since I have blogged. I have so much to share that I don't think I can get all of it into one post so I think I'll make this a series. Over Memorial Day weekend we took Mat, myself, Rees and Mat's mom and dad to Pigeon Forge for a long weekend getaway. We stayed in this cabin

  

click HERE for more information on the cabin

I can't tell you how much fun we had. Rees was an angel during travel and he LOVED the cabin which was perfect for us. It had 3 levels. The first floor had an adorable fully stocked kitchen and a great living room along with a game room, which Rees had a wonderful time in. The lower level had an indoor pool and a deck with a hot tub on it. Then the upper level had two bedrooms with bathrooms in each. Not to mention a wrap around porch that we bear hunted from each evening. Rees was really into that LOL! The cabin was only a mile away from Pigeon Forge so we didn't have a long drive which was really nice. Our first day there we went to Ripley's Aquarium in Gatlinburg. I had been there before and really enjoyed it as a matter of fact I dug this old picture of Mat and I from 6 years ago up and it was the exact same spot that we took our family photo 6 years later!

 I can't tell you how much fun we had. Rees was an angel during travel and he LOVED the cabin which as perfect for us. It had 3 levels. The first floor had an adorable fully stocked kitchen and a great living room along with a game room, which Rees had a wonderful time in. The lower level had an indoor pool and a deck with a hot tub on it. Then the upper level had two bedrooms with bathrooms in each. Not to mention a wrap around porch that we bear hunted from each evening. Rees was really into that LOL! The cabin was only a mile away from Pigeon Forge so we didn't have a long drive which was really nice. Our first day there we went to Ripley's Aquarium in Gatlinburg. I had been there before and really enjoyed it as a matter of fact I dug this old picture of Mat and I from 6 years ago up and it was the exact same spot that we took our family photo 6 years later!

 
Rees really enjoyed the aquarium. He liked the sharks more than anything else so we had to chase them around the aquarium. If your ever in the area I highly recommend the aquarium it's hours of fun for the kids and is entertaining for adults too!

Then we found a place in the parking lot of Tony Romas Restaurant to ride camels and Nan took Rees for a spin!

We visted the Dixie Stampede and Rees' mouth was open the whole time. That was by far his favorite thing we did. He was in amazement of the show. It was a great time, but if you ever visit don't forget to take your own silverware! they think it's funny to make you eat with your fingers.

Back to the cabin. It was a lot of fun to have a place to call home away from home. Rees would wake up every morning and head outside to hunt. This particular morning it was a squirrel him and Paps spotted.See the  "bullet"  in the air. He was pumped about hunting the whole trip and he tried to convince all of us that there were bears off the porch (which could have been possible, but we really didn't see any) Rees + his raccoon hat = the cutest hunter ever!

Here are some other photos of our wonderful vacation.

This pool was in the bottom of our cabin! It was great, although no one got in it :(

I'll end with this cute little fella' that we met at Ripleys Aquarium. I have a lot more to share but I think I'll finish the rest up tomorrow!