A Month-and-a-Half of Fun!!!

This is a glimpse into our family's fun together at home and around town this last month and a half! I have not had as much time to blog this month, because we have been blessed with visits from both sets of grandparents, Salt Sunday, a beach trip and a camping trip all in the last six weeks! Its been an incredible summer and we are enjoying all of the fun!

(NOTE: This is one of the longest posts I have ever posted, I thought it would simplify my life if I just compiled all the "random" photos from this past month-and- a-half in one post!!! However, I had no idea how many photos I had to share with family and friends (and this is with my "weeding out" a lot of the repetitive and "okay" photos!) Also, my thanks goes to my husband who gave me my new tiny camera for my Mother's Day gift;  I keep it in my purse all the time and have been loving it!)

A mini-house made with books! 

Little Bennett with his big sister Annie came over for a play-date. Anna had fun showing Bennett how to play with her favorite toy.

Anna giving me smiles and kisses through the window! 

Faith as Belle, Jillian as a Polynesian Cubbie Cowgirl, and Annie as Sleeping Beauty

Anna rocking on her caterpillar

Anna looking outside at the rabbit(s) who frequently visits our backyard to eat clover.

Our former friend, Mr. Rabbit! We were "friends" with the rabbit until he started to eat our newly planted petunias. :-(

At Sofia and Sascha's Birthday Party: Jillian and Sofia became friends at Gaithersburg Presbyterian Preschool when Jillian was in the three year old class.

Jillian won 1st place for putting clothes pin into a milk jug and received a Disney princess stamping set as her prize! Yay Jillian!

Another old-fashioned game. Jillian and another child used their straws to blow the ball across the table trying to make a "goal".

Birthday Cake time! 

Sofia and Faith eating their yummy cake. 

The next day (the same as Salt Sunday), our friends the Elliott's came over to hang out and have Subway for lunch!
Then that night, the Pull's came over for game night! The girls looking at the pictures of a book together. 

Then we let the girls watch a brief movie about Princess Gigi (by Sheila Walsh)! 

I love having a house full of girls! :-)

Anna waking up so happy after her nap! 

Its summer! And not only that, artichokes are in season! Hooray! Jillian was holding onto my artichoke as though it were a bouquet.  She is practicing her slow walking to be a flower girl in Uncle Daniel's wedding this August! 

The girls and I made yummy Fruit Loop bracelets together.

The girls decided to give their bracelets to little Anna! Anna greatly enjoyed the "fruit" of her sisters' labor!

One of the fun events I had this last month was going to the Hoopla for the ladies at our church! I had so much fun and really enjoyed the fellowship with other ladies and not only that I won some really nifty things! 

Every lady is given $200 of pretend money to bid on items that everyone brought from home. I bought with my money a candle set that I now have on my dining table and some blue plastic oven mitts.  And my friend Michelle had some extra money and wanted to get something for the girls and bought this puppet for us! The girls were so excited when they discovered their surprise the next morning and Brad is a pretty fantastic puppeteer! :-)

Anna has been mesmerized by the clown puppet! She loves it! 

Oliver and Madeline came over during their mom's prenatal appointment for "Ruby". And once again Anna is charming a little boy with her fun toy. ;-)

"Hey, my hand fits perfectly in this hole!"

Julie, me and Vicki about to begin our putt-putting adventure together! 

I did not play all that well but on one of the holes I almost made a hole in one! 

A picture opportunity with the penguin! After putt putt, we went to 16 Handles for some frozen yogurt. I loved our girly time together and can't wait to have our next date! :-)

Anna is still an adorable teetering walker! It is so fun to watch her. 

After our church's Salt Sunday, we had some left over ripe bananas, so we made some banana muffins with them.  The girls are great help in smashing bananas. :-)

All three of the girls in the princess tent! 

The girls ready to eat Daddy's Saturday morning waffles. 

Faith and her beloved friend, Andrew/ "Buddy"! 

Jillian made several beautiful finger paintings; this one was of a flower. 

Faith did some modern renditions :-) in her finger painting.

At Montgomery Mall for Family Fun Days on Wednesday Morning:

No matter what face Anna makes, I think she is adorable! It must be a mommy thing! :-)

Faith, Jillian, and Sofia all had their faces painted with a butterfly or a flower.

The girls crumbling the tissue paper to decorate their teddy bear and my friend Susan holding Anna for me! :-)

A tender moment with my sweet girl Faith. My thanks go to Jillian for taking this photo of us. :-)

Faith ready for swimming with her lap-top and "Cotton Candy", or "CiCi" as we sometimes call Anna's teddy bear.

My sleeping princess, she was tuckered out and fell asleep on the couch. Faith (as you can see from our photos) dresses up nearly every day in her princess gowns.  She wakes up every morning and wants to know if she can dress up! 

Last week, a friend from church had us over to her house for a day of baking.  We arrived at her house at 8:30 AM and didn't leave until 2:30PM. It was a full day of making divine cinnamon rolls with caramel and pecans, banana muffins, and homemade sour dough pizza dough. The girls were watched by Michelle's daughter, Lindsey who is a teenager and did a fantastic job entertaining the girls with doll house fun and marbles too!  

That night the girls and I finished our pizza with marinara sauce, mozzarella cheese, sausage and pepperoni! It was delicious! Brad could not make enough "Oohhs and Aahhs!"

This summer Michael's is having fun passport activities 3 times a week. Julie and I took the kids to make a craft for Germany. It was a lot of fun and I am looking forward to attending some of the other craft sessions for other countries too! Here the kids were making a traditional German hat.

'
Jillian did a great job following instructions while I was helping Faith and Anna make their hats! I was so proud of Jillian! She is growing up and is a sweet, responsible little girl! 

'

Buddy was having a hard tim keeping his hat on his head! 

:-) But in the end, he got it to stay on there! 

Another favorite make believe activity we play at our house is birthday party! I make a big deal of my girls' birthdays and their parties are something they look forward to all year long.  :-) "Happy Pretend Birthday Faith!"

Thanks for sharing in our family's fun! 

Paradise Valley

"An Amish settlement in Ohio has run afoul of a law requiring their children to attend public school. Caleb Bender and his neighbors are arrested for neglect, with the state ordering the children be placed in an institution. Among them are Caleb's teenage daughter, Rachel, and the boy she has her eye on, Jake Weaver. Romance blooms between the two when Rachel helps Jake escape the children's home. 

Searching for a place to relocate his family where no such laws apply, Caleb learns there's inexpensive land for sale in Mexico, a place called Paradise Valley. Despite rumors of instability in the wake of the Mexican revolution, the Amish community decides this is their answer. And since it was Caleb's idea, he and his family will be the pioneers. They will send for the others once he's established a foothold and assessed the situation.

Caleb's daughters are thrown into turmoil. Rachel doesn't want to leave Jake. Her sister, Emma, who has been courting Levi Mullet, fears her dreams of marriage will be dashed. Miriam has never had a beau and is acutely aware there will be no prospects in Mexico.

Once there, they meet Domingo, a young man and guide who takes a liking to Miriam, something her father would never approve. While Paradise Valley is everything they'd hoped it would be, it isn't long before the bandits start giving them trouble, threatening to upset the fledgling Amish settlement, even putting their lives in danger. Thankfully no one has been harmed so far, anyway."


My Review:
I am a big fan of Amish fiction and have read at least dozen books in the genre over the past few years.   So, when this book first became available, I was very excited to get to read something unique and a little different than the ordinary stories set in Lancaster or Holmes :-) county!  However, I discovered I am NOT very interested in the "western motiff" of Mexican bandits and such.   It took me a lot longer to get through the book than it ordinarily takes me because I just wasn't that interested in knowing the outcome.  I did however appreciate reading about a period of history that I knew nothing about and thought Dale Cramer was an excellent author.  I have already bought another of his books and I look forward to reading a more traditional Amish story by Cramer.


I was provided a complimentary copy of this book from Bethany House Publishers for review. I was not obligated to provide a positive review. The opinions in this review are my own. 

Our Kitchen Tent

These photos were taken a while ago (before the "hot-wave" in Maryland) but I couldn't resist sharing them anyway.   My girls are constantly finding new ways to make tents and houses for themselves (and of course their baby dolls too).

Here is one of their many tent creations:

Jillian creating the tent with two kids chairs and a big blanket!

Faith and Anna both anxiously awaiting their time to crawl into the tent! 

Anna is not so sure about this after all, but Jillian and Faith can be very convincing big sisters! 

There Anna goes...

All three of my girls sitting in the "tent"! 

Peek-A-Boo! 

The girls go back into their hiding place!

Anna is ready to do a peek-a-boo again! 

"Alright, this is taking too long." Anna crawls out of the tent.

But then she decides to go back inside again!

Hooray for home-made tents in the kitchen! 

I am hoping that all this practice the girls have had with tent making will be a BIG help this next weekend! We are going on our very first (hopefully not the last, but we will see!) camping trip at Deep Creek State Park. :-)