pink swirls {my new favorite place.}

I'm an ice cream fan.

So it's no surprise that we had an awesomely fun time at a funky little frozen yogurt shop in OKC called Pink Swirls.  

I seriously want to franchise one of these stores and open it in and old building in downtown Shawnee.  

Miles and Ella LOVED it.  

Please don't tell anyone that this was their dinner.

We'd been shopping for tile and bathtubs for hours.  They had been so good.

I can even justify it a little bit...

1.) DAIRY GROUP - In fact, it's live culture frozen yogurt (sounds healthy, right?.) 

2.)  FRUIT GROUP - There was fruit on the toppings bar.  So what if we had chocolate chips and sprinkles on top of our strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and mandarin oranges!  

3.) MEAT GROUP -  I made Britton stop at Chick-fil-A on our way and get a few chicken strips.  We snuck them in between bites of ice cream.  

But the bottom line is this:

Every once in awhile, it's ok to have ice cream for dinner.

I think I'll start sticking to this life rule a little more strictly.

We had a really fun time together.  

" head lock."

Even E turned on the silliness.

All the way home.

summer favs {grilling.}

Pork chops.  Smoked jalepeno sausage.  Zucchini from the garden.

fun at the rodeo {IFYR 2010.}

We took Miles & Ella to the rodeo.

It was HOT.

They lasted about 30 minutes, which I was completely glad about.

They were the cutest people there.

I tried to get Miles to wear his cowboy boots. 

We tried them on but they were "too tight Momma".  

It's cause he's used to the way these fit...

Oh-well.

The hat was authentic cowboy.

The boots were authentic Miles.

Kinder Gardens Entry {Week 15.}

Round 2 of the garden is upon us.  Most recently, we pulled our green beans (they were no longer producing) and planted some more pumpkin seeds. 

Super Miles watered them in like a pro.  He loves that part.  

Our okra is really starting to take off! 

"It's so et-citing!"

And have you ever seen such a crazy cucumber?  

"Momma, hahahaha, that cucwumber looks so sil-yee!!  Hahahahaha!"

When they work together in the garden it's serious business. 

They stick out their tongues like....

And can I just mention that gardening with a 3 year old means...

Don't dress him for the day until the watering is done.  

My mistake.

We have about 5 little watermelons.  

I noticed on of them was cracked (*sad face*), so I opened it to see what was inside. 

Sure enough, it looks like a watermelon.  

I hope the others make it the full journey so I can eat them!

Even smaller is this cantaloupe.  

Who knew they were fuzzy?  

I'll leave you with this for Week 15...

How do you like to eat butternut squash?  

Got any good recipes to share?

How do you store it?

How long does it keep?

I could google these answers, I just want a real life person that I know to share their expertise.

Happy Gardening!

Go check out what other contestants are doing this week at:

THE INADVERTENT FARMER'S

KinderGarden's Contest

summer favs (big 'ol sunflowers.}

mowing {it makes you thirsty.}

When Britton got on the mower the other day, Miles declared...

"I'm need to go help Daddy mow, Momma.  

I need my Thomas boots, and my cowboy hat, and my Super Why cape and my sunglasses, Momma."

"Mowin' shoore does make me firsty, Momma."

E's new favorite place {to sit.}

I cracked up when I found E sitting like this...  

She thinks she's so big.

And M's big red chair is her new favorite place to hang.

Kinder Gardens Entry {Week 14.}

Ta-Da!!!!

We've been waiting all summer for this.

Our sunflowers.  

Sunflower....in my garden.....makes my happy... 

(doin' my best John Denver here people)

It makes the munchkins happy too.

It's like having a big flag flying out of the center of the garden. 

Like our crowning glory. 

I never dreamed they would actually get that big.

And it just blows my mind to think that what started on a cold day in March...

Has taught this little boy about planting seeds...

Nurturing them...

Watching them grow from this...

 To this.

And what a proud boy he is to now have it in the big fat center of his garden.

He placed the seed there all by himself.  After we planted some in a row along the back fence I let him put seeds wherever he wanted.  It's been funny to see where the sunflowers have popped up.  This one's right in the cucumber bed! It's by far the tallest and healthiest of them all.

 And to make a good week even better, this morning he discovered...

"There's another one, Momma!!!  Another sunflower!!  See it!? Right 'dere!  

Dis is sooooo et-citing!!"

Go check out what other contestants are doing this week at:
 

THE INADVERTENT FARMER'S

KinderGarden's Contest

lindsay lohan, michelle obama {and me.}

Can you guess what these three women have in common?

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We're all featured on the homepage at aol.com today!  

(Though some more prominently than others.  Mine's just sub-story and I'm pretty sure it rotated off pretty quickly, but IT WAS THERE FOR SURE.  B & I saw it with our own eyes.)

Jaime Derringer, a contributor to AOL's ShelterPop site, contacted me a couple of weeks ago to do a feature on the church pew.  You can check out her story HERE.  

And if you're stopping by because you saw the feature, WELCOME!  

salsa {fresh. salsa.}

To brighten up my rainy summer day.

Kinder Gardens Entry {Week 13.}

There are two garden stories to tell this week for my KinderGardens entry.  


STORY #1:


Monday, some friends of ours came over to spend the day.  We snacked on tomatoes and cucumbers....ALL DAY.  It offset the ice cream that we also ate all day.  My heart was glad to see that Titus (5 years old) was actually lovin' produce from our garden.


Tuesday morning, his mom messaged me this:


Fair Warning: T is making cookies right now to bring over in his attempt to haggle for tomatos and cucumbers "grown from the ground".  


Let me just tell you, as much fun as it is to give away your produce to grandparents and neighbors, there's a whole other level of joy in having a 5 year old ask if I might be willing "to trade some homemade cookies for some more tomatoes and cucumbers from the garden".  


So out to the garden we went.  Miles had prepared a sack for Titus to fill...

***Please excuse my child who never seems to be wearing any clothes.  My excuses are 1) he just got up from a nap, 2) we're still potty training and 3) it's 90+ degrees outside.***

Miles (3), Titus (5) and Duke (1) had a blast filling their sack full of loot.  Too bad Ella was snoozing.  She would have enjoyed it too. 

I'm pretty sure Titus has plans for a garden next summer.  

Another couple of cute kiddos playing in their garden sounds like a winner to me.

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STORY #2:

I don't know much about cucumbers.  

But when we pulled this one out from it's hiding place yesterday, we all cracked up.  

It's ginormous.

And you wouldn't think that in a 4'x8' raised bed you could hide much, but....

...There was another one.

Happy gardening!  

**Head on over to The Inadvertent Farmer to see what others are doing in the contest this week.**