Mommy, what is a thorn?

It was exhausting watching daddy work in the yard all weekend, Noah had to take a water break. Nothing better than watching a three-year-old pondering...

Some of the extra time spent thinking was surely due to a rose bush incident earlier on in the day. Nothing that required a band-aid...but feelings were hurt-and a few roses suffered the wrath of an indignant little cowboy.
At the end of the day, the roses were pruned, trucks were played with, yard work was complete; and now it's on to the next project...






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If these six boots could talk...

A spoon-filled Father's Day weekend...

Sunscreen?

Check!
Hats?
Check!

Sam look at me!

Noah takes his time soaking up the sun before trying out the water...

Hmmmmm....

"Mommy, I'll go if you go!"

This is FUN!

Ew.

Father's Day Fun!

Time for a game of Spoons @ the Ferguson's! Madeline style...

Working on her strategy, looking for four cards of the same number... Grandpa & Madeline The brother's tussle over a spoon...

After a near spooning accident the rules changed to: When you make a match...uhm...do...THIS!

Uncle Dan & Madeline...who was first?!

You can't be serious?! She says...

Spoons, the goof-balls game of choice :)

Sometimes all you need in life is a deck of cards, spoons, a 5-year-old... and a smile!

Bad-guy fun & Jackson Dean's countdown!!!

Noah Baker was ready for some Mommy & Daddy time this weekend. The kiddos painted pictures, we took a very long walk, Noah slept in a bear cave during nap-time, Sam/Madeline went with Grpa/Grma to see 'Annie' out at NW...and much much more!

Sam's turn with the easel...Madeline 's turn...Noah with his blues & greens.Time for some bad-guy-costume creating.Rob-"Now Sam just wait, hands off for a minute...I come from a long line of costume makers."
A few last minute adjustments....
Putting on their best bad-guy-faces...
Heading out for a walk. Remembering that its June, 82 degrees outside & the only one appropriately dressed is Noah. Evidently you can't be a bad-guy unless you have on dark clothes, long sleeves, and a disguise. I knew that of course...but I was wondering how long these disguises would last once we started out for our long walk. Gave them a quick reminder that they will quickly want to shed some of their bad-guy belongings & that I won't be carrying their baggage, as I had Murphy & the water. With that said, we headed for the court house, & had lots of smiles & waves

from folks passing us by. After the court house we headed towards the elementary school, got a little side tracked and ended up at Beal park by the pool. It was a long walk & the older two ended up holding all their bad-guy paraphernalia....which turned into a very whiny lesson in having to carry sweaty bad-guy gloves, masks, and jackets themselves. All was forgotten though once we started playing on the new equipment at the park; it was a fun afternoon & everyone slept great!

Time for some ukulele playing!

The countdown is ON! Only 24 more days until Jackson Dean comes to stay with Aunt Amy. I.........can't..........wait!

6, 4, & 2...no longer. Officially 7, 5, & 3!

I wonder what I will wish for...Birthday flowers for my room!

Madeline-5 & Amy-33

Madeline & Daddy adding some mini-M&M's to the batter...Talk about a team effort, thanks to Grandma Ellie's old Pyrex bowls the lady-bug looked like well, a real bug! Big bowl for the body & little bowl for the head. Then, a TON of frosting keeping the two together. Rob used rope-licorice to outline the body/wings for me; I'm so glad I had a guide once I was frosting, it would have been really tricky to stay-in-the-lines without the licorice. This was not something I would have been successful with, if I didn't have the help of my amazing design team; thank you Rob Ferguson! Madeline working very carefully on the lady-bugs spots. We used junior mints for the spots on the cupcakes & peppermint patties for the big lady-bug's spots. Mini-M&M's for the eyes on the cup-cakes & big M&M's for the lady-bug cake-with a little help of some extra frosting as glue.; and 1/2 a peppermint patty for the cup-cake head. (Thank you Google!)

Ta-DA!
The reveal...She hadn't seen it all put together, the mommy lady-bug with her babies, the grass (coconut) & with the peonies (from the back yard). She was so very pleased; & big brother Sam was so sweet to be truly excited for her.

I am so totally a 5-year-old-Kindergartner!!!

'Green acres is the place to be'

So it's about 6:55 in the morning & I take Murphy out for a potty break, Sam happens to follow me out to the back porch & we see our neighbor in her garden. She waves over Sam & tells him to pick his mom a salad for lunch. He runs back into the kitchen to grab a bag (like a kiddo who has picked a few fresh veggies before) and then ran quickly across the lane & started picking lettuce, spinach & radishes. All of course before the 7 o'clock hour, and all of course, in his batman suit. He was in mid-story when the neighbor called him over after all...

Yum!

In the mail Sam received this super fantastic award from his 1st grade teacher. For the entire school year he didn't have his 'card pulled'...not even once! I mentioned to Rob that with the second kiddo going into Kindergarten this next Fall I would like to encourage her teacher to pull her card, just so we can get it over with. Sam will be crushed when the inevitable day comes that a card pulling has to happen. I am just hopeful Madeline can get it out of the way in the big K...so it's not so daunting. Rob assured me he didn't think it would be a problem. :)

This was the night before (Madeline is sick now-tonsillitis-, we are hoping the antibiotics kick in before we have to cancel her birthday party on Sunday!!!).

She got a birthday package from Grandma Millie. It was pink, perfect & full of great girly things! She LOVES her new spy-note-book, "with blank pages!".

:)