Put-Put

One of the things on our "Summer List" is put-put. There are a couple of places to play put-put golf around here so we chose the closest one and spent our family night there!

We started off with a brief putting lesson from Daddy :)

 Even though the course closest to us is a bit run down, it was still beautiful and we all had so much fun!

 Even this guy, who wasn't thrilled with the whole put-put idea had a great time ;)

It was a great family night! When we do things like this, I'm so glad we take the time to make up a "Summer List" because these little fun things would not be happening in the hurry and rush of everyday life. Summer just seems to fly by and while I have good intentions, I don't ever get to all the things I plan to! It makes me very happy when we carve out time for special things :)

Outdoor Movie Night

Having an outdoor movie is something we've been wanting to do for a while now and we finally made it happen! I wanted to be able to watch the movie while sitting in my wonderful swing and that's what caused the trouble. It doesn't face the side of the house which would be the most logical place to hang a screen.

Good thing my hubby likes a challenge! He came up with this:

 With some pvc pipe, he came up with a frame that is sturdy enough to hold our screen! And when/if we take it down we can just slide some cute, bamboo torches down in the holes he drilled in the deck railing. Perfect!

Everyone had fun! We're going to have to figure out a better plan for mosquitoes next time since apparently some of us are sweeter than others ;)

Looking forward to cool evenings spent watching our Friday Night movies outside :)

Pumpkin Carving

Last Friday, we had a great time on a very interesting, historic field trip (which I have yet to blog) and on the way home I asked the kids if they wanted to visit a pumpkin patch so we could do some carving that afternoon. We STILL hadn't gotten pumpkins! It was cold and cloudy so I told them we could also go to WalMart and just pick some there, it was up to them. They picked the patch hands-down ;)

There's something very fall-like about visiting a pumpkin patch. I wish we had been able to make it on one of the sunny days, but I had spent those doing yard work in preparation for winter (I'm really so glad I did! I hate mowing and whatever in the cold!) so we had to take what we got.

Nick picked his right off the bat.

 Megan did too! We're on a roll!

 Little pumpkin-picking cutie :)

 Brandon, however, searched the area for just the right one...

 and searched...

 By the time he found one, my hands were frozen and in my pockets, so no pictures of that! As soon as we got home, we started carving:

 Megan drawing her design for me to copy onto her pumpkin.

 She did some of it herself but a six year old wielding knives isn't my idea of a good time so I intervened as much as she would let me ;) However, Nick and Brandon both did their own.

 Completed pumpkins!

It was a very nice activity for family night. Afterward we watched Spooky Buddies for a little Halloween treat. It was good!

Beating the Heat part II

At the beginning of summer, we sat down and came up with our summer list. I never got around to posting it (of course not!) with all the busyness of June, but we have loved having it as our reminder not only of what we want to do but what we have done! Sometimes in the busyness, we forget to count our blessings.

Last Friday (we still do our Family Nights on Friday, best tradition ever!), we looked over our list to see if anything looked particularly appealing. We decided on......homemade ice cream!! We even took it one step further and made it with coconut cream making it dairy-free!

A couple of years ago, Todd's parents bought us this cute ball ice cream maker. Since it isn't electric, it's very easy for the kids to be involved with and very hands-on.

First fill with your ingredients. It comes with a recipe book but we chose plain vanilla so our ingredients were: 1 pint of coconut cream, 1/3 cup sugar, and 1 teaspoon of vanilla. Oh so easy!

Yummy :)

The other end opens also so you can fill it with ice and a bit of sea salt.

Then you roll it, shake it, or otherwise mix it around until it's setting up, scrape it into a freezer container and place in the freezer until it is your preferred consistency. It reminds me of soft-serve ice cream when you take it out of the ice cream maker.

 We wanted to do something special with it this year so...

Homemade ice cream sandwiches! Gluten-free chocolate chip cookies and dairy-free ice cream, yum!

Coloring Eggs

We kicked off our Easter preparations with one of our favorite traditions...egg coloring! We had everything ready to go Friday afternoon but we wanted to wait until Kristen got home which basically means that I heard "When are we coloring eggs??" 542 times! When she finally got home, the party started!

 After all the eggs were colored and the last batch drying, there had to be some tickling :)

It was a fun way to start our Easter weekend! Hope everyone else had a great weekend!

The Rest of Friday...

The rest of the day was so much fun!! Todd took the boys fishing and although they didn't catch much, they had a great time together. All the guys in this house look so forward to fishing season so they start getting out there a little early ;) but you know what? They don't care if the fish aren't biting! They just love being out. I love that.

The girls and I had the day to ourselves. I had a really fun little craft set out for us:

I had bought this back in November to do at Megan's birthday party but when I got it home and read the directions, it was a NO! The rings are painted in reverse and they have to dry for about an hour between colors. That alone made it too difficult to fit into an afternoon birthday party. Then I read that the paint may not wash out of clothes and that did it! But it was perfect for our girl's day :)

 While we were waiting for our designs to dry, we painted pictures :)

 Some of our finished rings:

Then we headed to Easton for lunch and window shopping. And ice cream :) And Barnes and Noble ;)

What a great day!

Kristen had to go to work after that, but the good times continued with a bonfire!

 We heard many times, "This is the best day ever!" from all the kids! But it didn't end there!

Camping in the family room! We went out of town Saturday to celebrate Todd's mom's birthday with her so we ended up leaving it up all weekend. You can guess where they wanted to sleep Saturday night as well ;) And we let them! It was such a laid back family weekend and it was so very needed :)