Get ready for more construction!!!

Now that we are done traveling for the summer, Chris is determined to build the girls a tree house before he goes back to work at his school.


This is part of the yard that it will reside.

I keep having visions of Hagrid's Hut.

Or Hogwart's Castle

I think I spent too much time at Harry Potter World.

Stay tuned for construction/tree house updates.

I'm driving my 12 year old nuts!!

Emma can't quite understand why I continue to decorate my Christmas tree and it's nearly August. So far this year it's been a Chinese New Year Tree, an Easter Tree, a Paris-themed birthday Tree, 4th of July Tree and now my sunflower/summer tree.

As her mom, I am taking great pleasure in driving her nuts.


I realize it's nearly August but I keep finding new things (thanks Michael's...I love your 40% weekly coupons) to put on my tree!! I was serious when I said we didn't have room for it since we completed the downstairs renovation and eliminated our storage. Just wait until Halloween. This tree is going to be filled!!!

Getting back to normal...

As much as I thoroughly enjoyed all our sweaty adventures in FL and GA, it's good to be home again. We really missed our kitty (thank you Aunt Jean and Aunt Marion for taking such good care of our Penny). I'm not sure how much she missed Josie's LOVE but we certainly missed our furry family member.

Emma has been enjoying the company of her best friend and catching up on the latest happenings.

Josie is trying to get into a groove with sleeping ALONE in her own bedroom again. For the past couple of weeks she had gotten used to sharing a bed with her big sister or Mommy & Daddy and she's been having major crying fits before bed and then throughout the night. Gotta love separation anxiety!

However, you know things are getting back to normal, when I can sneak off with my mom and sister to the monthly Allegan Antique Market. Woo hoo!!

I picked up a few bottles...one of them is in the shape of clock. I'm hoping to turn a few of them into Halloween potion bottles.

I also found a few toys which I'm going to give makeovers for Halloween. I might frame the Casper board game or display it on my fireplace mantle. The dolls are going to be turned into little witches.

I just loved the graphics on the bead box and have it displayed in my craft room.

The girls regularly use my record player in my craft room so I couldn't pass up the Frances and Frog & Toad albums at 50 cents. I hope you are enjoying all that summer has to offer. I can't believe it's nearly August.

How does your garden grow?

Our vegetable garden is doing really well (thank you neighbors for watering our plants while we were away for nearly two weeks).

We even have evidence of our first pumpkin (insert squealing here)!

Can you imagine how fun it will be to carve our own pumpkins for this year's Halloween festivities!!
On Saturday, Josie and Chris had fun pulling weeds and picking produce in the garden.

With our HUGE zucchini, I decided to make lemon zucchini muffins.

This muffin recipe comes from Cooking Light cookbook.

2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 teaspoons grated lemon rind
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 cup shredded zucchini
3/4 cup milk
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 large egg, lightly beaten
cooking spray or paper liners

1. Preheat oven to 400
2. Combine flour and next 5 ingredients in a bowl
3. Combine zucchini, milk, oil and egg; still well. Add to flour mixture, stirring until moist.
4. Spoon batter into 12 muffin cups. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes or until muffins spring back when touched lightly in the center.
5. Remove muffins from pans immediately; place on wire rack.

Calories: 148

Yummy!
The lemon and nutmeg have a nice way of hiding the vegetable taste.

I'd love to get a few new vegetable recipes.
What have you planted this year?
What favorite vegetable recipes do you have?

Vacation laundry can wait one more day!!

When I got up this morning, Chris reminded me that I technically still had one more day left of my vacation from work and that we really should do something fun. Heck, any excuse to avoid finishing up the rest of the vacation laundry and I'm all over it!! We ventured to the Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture park to enjoy the Chihuly glass exhibit. Wow. Unbelievable.





Of course no trip is complete at the Frederik Meijer Gardens without a visit to the Children's park to play in the water.

After a day of playing, I guess I'm finally ready to finish up that vacation laundry.

Bouncing & Baseball

On Tuesday, we took the kids to work off some extra energy. There was lots of bouncing to be had...hence very blurry shots!!

During the evening, the adults indulged in a Braves Baseball game. We had seats in the Suntrust Suite. Unbelievable. Truly a once in a lifetime experience to be so close to the playing field.

Thank you for an amazing time in GA. We miss you tons.

PS. Anyone want to help me with laundry?

Having fun in GA!

The kids are having a ball and the Brown family couldn't be more gracious.

PS. We've been so busy that I haven't had a chance to catch up blog reading. I promise to check in on all of you when I get back to MI later this week. Now, we're off to have more fun...including a Braves baseball game later today!