Lots of Stuff!

We've been extremely busy for these past few weeks, but I'm not sure with what?! :)

We decided to make homemade ice cream where you shake it in a bag.

It actually worked really well.

It got very solid, but I added a little too much vanilla in Elizabeth's, so her ice cream was not the best.

Ben's was really sweet and good, especially with chocolate on top!

We had our neighbors over for dinner and the kids played some dance wii after dinner. It was so cute!

There are 3 kids Elizabeth's age and one other boy Ben's age. The little boys didn't play, they hung out on the couch and watched.

I don't remember when this was, but they had either just woken up or were about to fall asleep, and I caught them holding hands. I thought it was so sweet, so then they wanted me to take their picture!

This is a warning for anyone who has a carbon monoxide detectrthat plugs into the wall!! Bn was sitting in the hallway swinging his sister's chain necklace around while I was in my bathroom blow drying my hair. I heardBen crying and Elizabeth ran into my bedroom saying that all the lights went off in her bathroom. I run out to the hall and see all the black on the wall by the plug and instantly I think that Ben has electrocuted himself. Luckily, that was not the case. While swinging the necklace he let go of it and it landed right on the prongs that were plugged into the wall, causing the fuse to blow. He cried because he then went to pick up the necklace (why he was touching something so close to an electrical outlet I don't know - we had a major talk about that) and the heat on the burned necklace hurt/scared him and that was why he was crying. He had no idea what a dangerous thing had just happened. Needless to say that we will be getting a detector that uses batteries, not one that needs to be plugged in. We are very lucky that Ben was ok!

(This paragraph is a little crazy - my typing is going kind of crazy and when I delete or type in the middle of the sentence it is just writing over the next letters - I'm sure that didn't make sense either, but that is why it is a little crazy!)

Our cute cousin, Lexi.

Josh waiting his turn.

Ben's not the most polite eater :) I think we need to work on our table manners!

Elizabeth has this cute bed for her bitty baby - and baby Campbell fit perfectly inside it!

Oh my gosh he's so cute!

Elizabeth and the girls got hair feathers put in.

It's the "new thing" to get feathers, so we thought it would be a fun thing for all the girls to do.

(Elizabeth, Maddie, and Lexi)

We got ice cream afterwards so the boys would have something fun, too.

Grandma B had an adorable back to school party for the kids. She found these cute alphabet crackers so Elizabeth had fun making words.

Ben spelled his name - guess he didn't notice the E was backwards?

What a cute party!

There were also presents!!

I also went with a few neighbors (the one right next to me is Laura and the one right in front of me is Melanie) to a painting place - Painting with a Twist. They gave us food and wine, and we had 3 hours to paint. They walked us through step by step how to do each step of the painting so it was actually pretty easy!

We had such a great time!

The other night Elizabeth asked me for a tablecloth, and I wasn't quite sure why. She then set our entire table. She got everyone drinks, silverware, and even made us all place cards! It was so neat to see her so independent!

Very proud of her work!

Last we had a playdate at a Splash Pad. The kids loved it!!!

Elise looked so cute all wrapped up!

So that's some of what we have been up to! School starts in less than a week, I can't even believe it!!

Some new Stuff...

I have been getting out my sewing machine and for the first time decided to try a pattern, and I made Elizabeth this dress!
I was pretty happy with it, even though I had to redo lots of it, many times! :)

I think she was excited to be wearing a dress that her mommy made her! :)

While Tom's family was here we got a picture of all the siblings who were in town, we got 7 of the 10! Pretty good!

Tom and his siblings, with their parents, John and Carole. I actually got my camera out when we had dinner at Maria's house. The kids had fun playing games inside,

and out.

Our group, hanging out.

Maria and Craig even had a slip n slide for the kids to play on.

Ben didn't want to play on it ?? but Elizabeth had a great time.

Tom's younger brother, Mark, and his wife Annie recently found out they were having a baby, so we had a little mini baby shower for them.

We also got this fun thing! Not really fun, but exciting for me! :) It's a safe room/tornado shelter! It has worried me for many years that we didn't really have a safe spot to go with the kids when the tornado sirens went off. It took a lot of twisting Tom's arm to get him to agree to get this :), but luckily our county was offering a rebate for half of the cost of shelters, so that helped finish the twisting! We're ready for storm season!! (Now hopefully we just won't ever really need it!)