a puppy party

Caleb turned 6 in June, but his mommy's a little slow in the blogging department!

Just follow the paw prints to all the fun!

Caleb in his dog house

puppy snacks

Happy Birthday, Sweet Boy!

little ballerinas

The girls danced in their first ballet recital on Saturday. It was precious!

Gracie is the second little ballerina from the left.

Lily is second from the right.

Lily, doing her curtsy after the performance

Gracie, doing her curtsy

Lily, walking to the car after the performance with a devoted fan from the audience

outdoor art exhibit

bye bye butterfly

We took our butterflies out to the garden today and let them go!

Saying goodbye

The girls were a little apprehensive.

The boys, on the other hand, wanted to make sure our butterflies had enough flowers in front of them at all times.

One of the butterflies landed on Caleb's toes and stayed there for awhile.

We had five butterflies. Some flew around our garden for awhile and some flew over the fence right away. Jared told them, "Go see the world!"

The kids hoped a few would fly back to visit. Wouldn't you want to come back to this little garden to see these sweet faces?

Lily finally spotted one and Gracie said, "Well, I guess this one only wanted to see half of the world."

I noticed Caleb sitting on the bench all by himself holding out his hand. He was quietly saying, "Come fly over here if you need a nice hand to rest on."

Sweet, sweet boy.

a work in progress

We've been working on fixing up our patio area. Phil built this great pergola last summer after our metal patio roof collapsed two Christmases ago. Phil made our picnic table last year and stained it this past week. It looks so nice!

Last year my sisters gave me a Pottery Barn gift card for my birthday. I picked out this extra long, red tablecloth that looks great on the picnic table.

We'll but these candle sconces up on the pergola beams.

We purchased a few hanging baskets for the pergola on clearance at walmart last fall. I'm planting red geraniums in them.

And here is one of my favorite features of the make-over--we hung these oil lamps over the picnic table. Phil found these scroll-like metal hangers in the shed and they're perfect for hanging the lamps from the pergola! I found the oil lamps just yesterday at Pier One Imports. They were 20% off--about $6 apiece.

break-a-thon

We had so much fun at the boys' Taekwondo Break-a-Thon today! They did great!