Summer Birthdays

 For Tyler's 22nd birthday, {July 25} I made him brownies... from scratch!  I  Dallas had ZERO faith in me and thought that there was NO WAY my brownies from scratch would be fit to eat.  He was wrong.  They were fantastic!  Tyler worked on his birthday. {Welcom to adulthood. ;-)}

Mary turned 5 on July 26.  The last year or so we take the party to Grandma & Grandpa Dale because they really want to see the kids on their birthdays and can't travel.  Grandma made the cake, Corah & I decorated it.

 On July 29 Mary got to have her first  friend party.  Of course, when a girl turns 5, she loves princesses!  So we had a princess party.  Above is the guests with Mary in the middle.

 This was the princess dance competition.  The girl in the middle by the piano {Eden} won!

 Party time!  A chocolate princess cake {of course}.

Princess Mary Elisabeth

For Dallas' birthday on August 2nd, I made him a big breakfast with an omlet & French toast. Banana cream pie was in place of a cake and we celebrated before  he left for work.

We have so many birthdays in a row, it is hard to do each one justice, but we try to make them special, anyway.  Sorry, guys, but the princess party was by far my favorite!  What girl {of any age} doesn't enjoy a little royal treatment once in a while?!

Signed,

The Queen 

June 12-18

Well, this week we mainly did one thing.  Paint.  This is Corah & Mary & Leah's wall before.  We had never painted in the 11 years since our home was built.  I am not much of a DIY (do-it-yourself) but I actually did most of this.  It went a lot better, however, because Dallas was on vacation so he was home to help!  Corah helped with painting the furniture.

 Grafitti: "Joseph ZADER" ;-)

This was our growth chart.  I  copied it onto a long piece of rolled paper.

Monday we moved furniture and stuffed a lot of things in the closet.  The girls slept on their mattresses in the living room for 3 nights.

We painted the walls, the bed, and a bookshelf.

the  bookshelf

TA-DA!!!  The finished product!  Isn't it cute?!  I NEVER would have picked these colors, but the girls love it!  Notice, Leah is in the bottom bunk.  {That means Mom & Dad get their own room for the first time since.... I don't know, its been a while!;-)}  Oh, and I might add that it really looks like this, too.  I didn't have to shove stuff out of the view of the camera or anything! {And if you believe that, I have some ocean front property for sale down in Arizona...}  Ha-ha!

Let's see, what else did we do this week?  Dallas & the boys fished... a lot! {While the paint was drying, of course!}  We went to the drive-in movie Friday night, "The Green Lantern" and "Kung Fu Panda 2".  The kids had their last homeschool softball game with a picnic on Saturday.

{Ain't he cute!}