Little painter

Well, at least she had fun, even if she did not figure out that the paint is supposed to go on the paper.

 

Antique car parade

Every year Hamilton holds an Antique Car Show and Parade. This year I took the kids to check out the cars parked in the morning before the parade. I know that owning these kinds of cars is really impractical, but holy cow it would be a lot of fun! Here are a few of my favorites.

Just fyi that Trans Am above is for sale..... 

 The Hamilton hippie van! We talk about Hippie Vans a lot at home because we have a couple of toy ones (and Beetles, too), so it has even made its way into Teresa's vocabulary as "Hippie Ban." So cute.

The interior of the hippie van.

Sean loved this Ford F-100. He has a toy one just like it.

They enjoyed sitting in the back of this old bus. The parade even had old fire engines, tow trucks, and all sorts of other vehicles besides cars.

Oh wait! How did this 1998 Chevy Prizm make its way onto this blog post? Well, while we are on the topic of cars, I must tell the story of the day we were pulling out of our parking spot at the Y and a lady backed into us. She paid out of pocket about half of what the car is worth to put a new door on this beauty. Hilarious!

Harvest time

We planted a bunch of sunflower seeds this year and actually had success! They turned out small and kind of ugly due to the lack of rain, but at least the squirrels did not eat all the seeds after I planted them and the deer did not chomp off the tops of the plants as they were growing. The past few years were failures due to the critters that abound.

 

Teresa saying "Cheeeeeeeeeeese!"

Check out this tomato. Yes, this is one tomato.  Well ok two because there is a little cherry one hanging out next to this monster one. I must admit, I am so trained to have perfect-looking produce from the grocery store I had a hard time enjoying this one. But, it's a process I guess, I need to retrain my brain to understand that what you see below is actually normal (I think)!

 

Here are a few carrots we picked. We ended up with a lot of carrots, but I found that they were really bitter and tasted strange. I planted them in containers with potting soil, so I don't know if it was the chemical fertilizer or the type of carrot I planted, but I did not like them. I cooked them up into dinner and they were fine. They were also kind of pale compared to the ones you buy at the store (again, I need to get over the garden bounty not looking like the Meijer bounty.)

 


We also had a few peppers, a lot of garlic, lettuce, and loads of tomatoes. I am looking forward to doing even more variety next year, especially things the kids like such as peas and green beans.

summer

Sean recently got glasses and looks pretty sharp in them.

 Ok I know I have a biased opinion, but isn't this little gal seriously gorgeous?

I attempted to French braid her hair one day. Now that was weird to think about - I have a daughter and I'm sitting there French braiding her hair. Whoa! Feeling old for sure. But it was still fun.

Sean's second year of Safety Town. Teresa had to join in too but obviously was not ready for being an official participant (it's for 4 and 5 year olds) because she failed at playing Officer Bob's favorite game (everyone sit and be quiet while he talks). :)

The kids went to the firehouse one day and did an exercise in the "smoke house," which is like a little mobile home and an alarm goes off. Then the kids have to practice going down a ladder.

 They also got to spray a real fire hose!

This is the last day. Sean is the one with the glasses. :) I had to include this picture because of the hair on the girl to his right. Awesome! I love the red curls.

Enjoying cookies and McDonald's orange drink - you all know what I'm talking about, right?

Miscellaneous May

We did a little family outing to Oxford a few Saturdays back. I had seen an ad in the paper for the Oxford Wine Festival so we went to check it out. The weather was beautiful, and we had a lot of fun!

One booth was giving away little boxes of goodies for the kids. Suckers are always a big hit, although they make this choking-paranoid mama nervous.

Though I don't eat beef much, I loved this sign. Locally-raised! Yeah!

The festival was at a park in downtown Oxford. Sean and Teresa had a blast at this fountain area.

Back at home, playing at the LEGO table is a regular occurrence.

One day they had the brilliant idea of going grocery shopping in the pantry. Teresa was in charge of the drink cart.

And Sean has been going through a growth spurt lately. Seriously, we have been going through a loaf of bread in a few days, a 5-lb bag of pears is mysteriously empty after a couple of days, and I almost constantly hear "I'm hungry!" or "More, please!"

At least he's growing in style. Hahaha!