Painted: Love Grows Here

It's not an unknown fact that I love art.

And not only do I love it for fun, but it's a great stress reliever for me.  These past few weeks have involved some ups and downs for us...meaning that I got to work on a little painting project.

I compiled a bunch of things that have recently drawn my attention (flowers, this sea foam color, that quote) and came up with this (painted on some random wood I found lying around here)...

It's my hope and prayer that my little family would continue to grow in love for God and for each other daily.  A good reminder to have hanging up, no?  I'm currently working on one for someone else (I so love projects like this!) and I'm praying the same for her family as I paint away :)

Backyard Shenanigans

I'm not going to lie to you all, having our own backyard has been the bomb diggity.  Like straight up awesomeness (yep, I just went there ;)

But really, we've been so very thankful to have a backyard we can just pop in and out of all day long. We definitely missed it living in a high rise apartment and sharing a communal area with many others (though that was a blessing in many ways too...).  It's been nice to have a place the girls can go out into freely and I can watch from the window, if need be.  

Mostly, however, we've enjoyed being out there as a family and with friends.

And doing things like...

...making classic Nora faces and exploring the "fort."

...conquering the monkey bars (with lots of help from Daddy).

(perhaps a new fav or our big girl)

(Mama went too...but I was way too tall, ha)

...and admiring God's handiwork in our own backyard.

Awesome. Grateful. 

Picking Those Berries

These are from a few weeks back when we went berry picking.  We ended up with some baskets of blackberries and blueberries...excluding all the ones that Nora ate.  That was little girl's self-imposed task:  dominate the blackberries and leave with a full belly!  Elise was perfectly content picking berries galore...until the end when she had a heat-induced meltdown.  Oh well, so it goes with two year olds.

Overall it was quite fun.  Check it below ;)

Their First Fourth

I finally dusted off my beloved camera (it'd been far too long...this moving-cross-country transition has caused me to live in the moment and bringing out the camera just hasn't been priority).  The girls had really cute, festive outfits and we wanted to go to a local park for a "hike," so that seemed like a fitting time for a photo op.  (I know, I know, "hiking" in dresses, haha).

These were all shot in manual and are completely unedited...but I just wanted to get them off the camera and on the computer.  I mean, I know I'm their Mama, but SERIOUSLY!? These girls are stinkin' cute! ;)

Their first Fourth of July celebrated in America...success :)