Okay. I guess it's time for an update. We've been really busy lately! Between house hunting, getting everything ready for the baby (only three weeks until the due date!) and trying to keep my apartment clean and my little family fed and happy (increasingly difficult due to swollen feet and aching spine) things have seemed kind of crazy around here. It seems that the second Adam gets home from work we're rushing off somewhere. Hopefully everything will calm down soon.
Anyway.
Our Fourth of July weekend was really great. My dad, my sister Evie and my niece Ashley were all born on the fourth, so it's always a pretty festive weekend for us. Adam had the fourth off, so we were able to sleep in a little (yay!) and then we headed out to my parents house for lunch. After lunch we made zucchini bread, cheesecake and brownies and watched a movie. Then we moved the party outside and let the younger kids break open a piñata, spent an hour filling and tying water balloons, and then had a five minute water fight. (It was totally worth it.)
We had a delicious BBQ chicken dinner, and then headed out to see the fireworks. Nobody felt like driving into St. George for the fireworks, so we just went and lay out on some blankets at the Leeds park. (Leeds does their own fireworks now, how crazy is that?) It was actually a pretty good show, and so relaxing to lay out under the stars instead of sitting uncomfortably on some cliff in St. George. And Sienna, Kaycee and Anicka had a great time playing with some glow sticks that we bought for them(The kind that you can make necklaces and bracelets out of).
I had my camera with me all weekend, but I was having so much fun that I forgot to take any pictures!
After the fireworks we went over to Shane and Dusty's. We spent the night there to avoid spending any more money on gas than was absolutely necessary. I tried to get some pictures of their kids playing with sparklers, but my camera doesn't have a fireworks setting, so most of them came out pretty funky. Here are a couple that turned out kind of cool.
I tried to get a picture of Ashley, since she was the birthday girl and all, but somehow her face always ended up being covered.
Saturday we had a great time playing board games (Settlers of Catan! Best game ever!) and chillin with Shane and Dusty and Dusty's parents, Kevin and Lana. That afternoon my mom and sisters picked me up and we went out to shop the sales at JoAnne's. I got some really great fabric to make those babyslings, and Evie got some crazy patterns and funky fabric so that she can make herself some Evie-ish dresses. She has such a unique style, I love it. Then it was back to Leeds and dinner at Dusty's place. We didn't leave there until almost midnight. Luckily they have a bed that Anicka can sleep on when we're there, so she always goes to bed on time.
Sunday we were back out in Leeds for our usual Sunday Dinner ritual. We watched Spiderwick, which was kind of a cute movie, and got about a million apricots from my parents. Last night we made about half of those into Apricot-Pineapple Jam, my favorite! I've never made Jam before, and it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, just time consuming. We got seven jars of jam out of the batch we made. Don't they look scrumptious? I had some on my toast this morning, it was fantastic. Mmmm, homemade jam. Now I just need to make some bread to go with it.
Like I said, we only used about half of the apricots, so tonight I'm going to make an apricot pie that I found on-line, and then cut up and freeze whatever is left to use in smoothies and such. Delicious.
Well. I spent entirely too long writing this, and I have a million things to do. So.
Hope everybody else had an awesome holiday!
Also yesterday we went out to an awesome new park in Bloomington Hills that has a huge playground a splash pad. Anicka had tons of fun playing with her cousin Ben (Alias: George).
