Random Bits

I love these snapshots of my sweet little summer baby. She loves her swimsuit and flip-flops or "sanals." She rarely wears any other shoes and has the cutest little tan lines from them. She has grown up so much lately. She talks tons and her hair is super long. It's back in a cute little bun in these photos.

We have a new form of freedom: a second car!! I have loved being able to go out during the day, any day I need/want. It has been so great to make it to my exercise class every day, make appointments when I feel like it, visit friends on a whim, etc. It has been so heavenly. It's not so fabulous having double the insurance and gas receipts, but I'd say it's about worth it. Oh yeah, it's a Chevy Impala for anyone like me who doesn't know their cars. Apparently we have a thing for "cop cars" - a Crown Vic and an Impala. Oh well, they run well.
We have had so much fun working in the yards. Like I said in our original post about the house, it hasn't been taken care of for the last year or so, but it has great potential. Here you can see a before and after (different parts of the same flower bed) weeding. We're pretty excited to get it all cleaned up. It has taken some time and we have to be picky about hours so we don't get overheated in our 110 degree (including heat index) weather. I have never sweat as much as I have in the last few weeks. I'm dripping, literally, in no time at all.

We're pretty excited about a fantastic yard sale find (thanks Zach!). Only $20 and it's solid wood. It's a little bigger than we had planned to get for the baby, but we're happy with it.

I planned a small surprise birthday party for Matt and invited a few friends over. We had a great time - an international potluck, cheesecake, a round or so of Mad Gab and relaxed chatting. I'm so glad to have such a wonderful husband and great friends to help us celebrate.
He really was surprised, by the way, a great feat for me. I told him after we dropped Hailey off at the sitters' that I forgot my wallet at home. Our friends had gone to the house while we were out. I ran in to "look" for my wallet, set up the camera and ran back out to ask him to help me look for it. He walked into the house and saw my bag hanging on the weight set. He was shocked and jumped when we all yelled "surprise!" I laughed all the way through the birthday song.
Random order, I know, but this is what Matt's legs looked like after mowing our "lawn" in the back yard. It's more dirt than lawn in many places. Even so, it looked so much better after several bags of leaves/twigs were raked and what little grass there is was mowed. We're just so happy to have a quiet place to play. Right now with the heat we don't spend too much time out there, but we're looking forward to it when the weather is a little more tame.