Family photo shoot

This morning before we left Shelby's house we decided to do a little photo shoot.  Shelby and I had grand plans for this photo shoot but Ainsley was tired and a little fussy and my Dad was anxious to get on the road so in the end we were happy that we got any pictures at all!

This picture is actually from last night.  We had pizza and ice cream cake to celebrate two birthdays-Brock and Shelby!

PaPa Bob with Brock, Ava and Ainsley. 

This is from this morning Ava, Brock and Ainsley.  Poor Ainsley Brock and Ava fought over her all week.  The both wanted to hold her all the time!

Sisters with their girls!

Vicki, Ainsley and Shelby

Ainsley and Ava!

Brock, Ava, Ainsley and me

 We had a great time visiting our family!  Thanks Shelby and Ryan and Dad and Vicki for your wonderful hospitality :) Tomorrow morning we head back to NY!

our week at Shelby's!

Monday morning we left my Dad's house to travel to my sister's house in Iowa. We were excited to see Ainsley and to see their new house!  Warning-this post contains A LOT of pictures-ha ha!

Ryan, Ava feeding Ainsley and Brock

Brock feeding Ainsley.  Ainsley is just like Shelby and LOVES to eat. 

I love this picture of Ainsley.  Shelby always has the cutest bows in her hair. 

This is the best picture of Brock and Ainsley!  He looks SO happy and she loves hanging out with her cousin Brock!

Brock was so good with Ainsley he loves holding her and playing with her.  Brock and Ava fought about who got to hold Ainsley all week. 

One day while Shelby was at work we took Brock on his first college tour at the University of Iowa.  The campus is beautiful!  Here is a picture of the old capital on campus.  It  was 100 degrees on the day of our tour.  We decided that in the future we will only visit colleges in the spring or fall when it's cooler!

After leaving campus we headed to the mall to eat lunch and do a little shopping.  While we were there Shelby and Ava took Ainsley on her first carousel ride!

I love this picture of the three of them.  Ava looks SO happy to be holding Ainsley!

Ava on her horse!

Brock, Vicki and Dad

Here is Brock, Ava, me and Shelby

We also took Brock and Ava ice skating.  Ava didn't really like it but Brock loved it!  Here is in on the ice!



We have had a great time visiting with my family!  We still have a few days left before we head home.  Brock is getting his tonsils out net week so we are trying to squeeze out the last bit of summer fun before his operation.  Happy Friday!! 

Visiting Family!

This week Brock, Ava and I have been in Illinois and Iowa visiting my family.  It's been fun to spend time with them.  We have been doing a lot of eating, shopping, hunting for antiques, swimming and loving on little Ainsley. 
Here are some pictures from this fun week.

These are pictures from when we visited EIU. The University where my Mom, Dad, Shelby attended and where Shelby and I met our husbands!  It was fun to go back and see all the changes. 

Graig couldn't come with us this time but he asked me to take a picture of Brock on this hill at EIU that Brock loved playing on when he was a baby
As you can tell Brock is thrilled by taking all of these pictures!

About 5 seconds after this picture.  Brock tripped Ava and she fell down the hill.  They drive me CRAZY sometimes-ha ha!

We also visted Taylor Hall where we lived when Brock was born.

Here is Brock and Ava by our old front door

Here is Brock peeking in his old room.  They are doing construction on our old apartment and no one is living in there now so it wasn't creepy that he was peeking in.

These pictures are all from last Sunday and Monday.  I will show our pictures from Shelby's tomorrow.
Have a great night!

Ava's ballet camp

For the past two weeks Ava has been spending her days at ballet camp.  Friday was her last day and the studio put on a little show so we could see what the girls have been learning at camp.  It was a cute show but SO hot!  There is no AC in the studio and it was about 95 degrees outside on Friday.  As soon as the show got over we got in the car and I turned the AC up to high and we drove to get ice cream right away to cool down.

I took about 50 pictures using the action setting on my camera.  Ava knew I was taking her picture and didn't want to smile-ha ha!  She is such a stinker sometimes!

Ava's "cousin" Eliza came to the show to see her.  Ava was thrilled that she and her mom Sabrina  were there! 

After her recital we had to go up to campus so I could go to a reception.  Ava went with me and she was THRILLED when she saw her favorite student Marissa!   Marissa is an education major and is SO good with Ava.  She always makes her feel so special.  They have fun together!  I love this picture of them. 

 We are visiting my family in Illinois and Iowa this week.  I love, love, love being in Illinois.  Even though we have lived in NY for 12 years I still feel like Illinois is my home and I am so happy to be back!

A new table

A few weekends ago I went to a yard sale and found a beautiful old table for $10.  I wrote about my table in this post.  I left it on our deck for about a week and then I decided to bring it inside because it was just too nice to be outside.

We have an office with a computer desk but Graig and the kids use that desk all the time.   I decided that I needed one of my own so I put the table in our living room and made it into a little desk for me.  I think it's just perfect in our living room.  I already LOVE having my own desk and space to work on projects and write my blog posts. 

I also have another little table in our living room and while I was putting my desk together I decided to do a little rearranging on that table too.  I just love the succulent plant I got at Lowe's. 

We're off to Illinois today.  I can't wait to see my family!  Have a good weekend.

Recipe Time!

It has been hot, hot, hot here.  It's been so hot that Brock's baseball game scheduled for tonight was cancelled due to the extreme heat. 

Yesterday was the second hottest day of the year and Sabrina, Allison and I thought it would be fun to make the jelly recipe that I posted last week.  We sweated like crazy but the jelly was easy to make and 1 recipe made 6 jars so we each got to take home some.  I tried some of the jelly tonight on a piece of toast and it was delish!!  I'm SO going to make this again!

We had these cute little jelly jars that we put our jelly in, I think these would make cute gifts!

I have been going to farm stands to get fresh fruit and vegetables.  Last weekend I got some zucchini and I wasn't sure what to do with it so I looked and found a weight watcher recipe for zucchini fries. The recipe is here. They turned out so good and they were really easy to make!

I buy fresh eggs every week from my friend who has chickens.  Fresh eggs are delicious!!  I have been making Kimba's (A Soft Place to Land) french toast at least once a week for a few months.  Brock and Ava love this french toast!  The recipe can be found here. 

Next week we are going to be traveling to Illinois and Iowa to visit my Dad and my sister Shelby.  We leave on Saturday and can't wait!  Shelby and I want to try to make home made baby food for this little cutie.  

Have you tried any new recipes this week?

Milk Glass

This weekend was busy, busy, busy!  Brock had 3 baseball games, 4 basketball games and Ava had ballet practice and went to a water park with our neighbors.  I spent a little time on Saturday morning at garage sales with Allison and Sabrina.  I got some cute plates, platters and a little table.  I got one milk glass vase and it inspired me to change my whole dining room hutch around on Saturday night. 

I have seen beautiful displays of milk glass that others have done and I wanted to see how my collection would look all in one place.  Here is an  entire website devoted to milkglass.  I just found it tonight and it was very interesting to look through. 

I have gotten every single piece of my milkglass at garage sales.  When I see a piece I always buy it and I've never spent more than $3 an item.  Usually it's $1 or less.  I know  that some of my pieces aren't real milkglass and I'm OK with that.  It's just a fun collection that I like. 

What do you collect?

Cute or ugly?

Wednesday night Sabrina, Allison and I got together for a craft night.  I love getting together with these two we always have so much fun!  We decided to make rag wreaths using different colored ribbon and scrap fabric cut down to 6 inch strips.  We tied the strips around our wreath forms.  I didn't take a picture of this step but you just tie your strips to the wreath.   We used all different colors and patterns.

I can't decide if I like it or not.  Sometimes I look at it and think it's the cutest thing ever and sometimes I'm just not sure.  What do you think?

Here it is hanging on the mirror in our dining room.  This mirror was the first craft project Sabrina and I did I talk about the mirror project in this post. 

And this boy is always cute!   Brock LOVES  baking here he is licking the spoon after making brownies-ha ha!  

Have a good weekend!