From Our Garden....

 I think I have posted this picture before, if I have...I don't care!  This was taken about a month ago. My lavendar is in full color now and the raspberry bushes are peeking over the fence.

 Delphinium

 I bought 3 starts last summer and these are going crazy!! They're huge!! Once a week I cut a bunch for vases.

 I was walking around the yard early one morning (without my camera!!!) and saw this butterfly roaming around so I ran inside to grab my camera and was lucky enough that it was still there!

 Have I mentioned how much I love my camera!!!!

Yarrow

Day Lilies

 I have 32 daylilies in about 12 different colors. My roses look like crap right now because of the heat, but my daylilies are in full bloom.

 Check out Aubree's arms and Austin's stomach!  (They just don't have any fat on them so everything shows! I do feed Austin I promise!)

 We went to the Gateway to play in the sprinklers and ride the trax and twin bro tagged along. My kids are finally to the point where we can go somewhere and enjoy ourselves.

 BELOW: Austin was way to into his Italian ice to look up.

Raspberries

This is my favorite thing in my garden right now is our raspberry bushes. We have 3 raspberry bushes and 2 blackberry bushes. I pick raspberries every morning and (sometimes at night if I want a snack!). I've been getting 2 1/2 cups every morning from just one bush! The other one is just starting to send out new berries. You would think I would be making a ton of jam, but between Aubree and I, there is never any left over! The white dish is my latest antique find from our local antique shop (which I have complained about in the past because I didn't like how the owner set up his store, but he has been forgiven...mainly since I found some GREAT stuff which I will later post about...because you know me!)  The lavender is also from my garden. I"m trying to fill up a cute tin with dried lavender that is taking me longer then I thought!

Senior Pictures Photo Shoot

My first photo shoot! I was asked to take some senior pictures and I'm gradually getting my name out there. I'm still really nervous about it (I had a really bad experience a couple of years ago and I'm still scarred from it!)

Latest project and DI find

 I took these pictures a few weeks ago and have recently bought a new table for this area so this is a little outdated.

 Love this tea pot!!!! I was at DI and just happened to glance over my shoulder and the DI worker was putting it on the shelf so I snagged it. And the best part?! On the bottom it says ITALY. YEAH! And what was even better?! It was only 75 cents!!!

 I also got these seashells for $5 and it also came in a cute metal tin that I'm going to put my dried lavender from the garden in. The egg crate was $5 also from DI and their were 3 of them. I even had to scrape the poop off from the chickens!

 I wish I would have taken a before and after. The frame was an actual Thomas Kincaid frame for $10 and it was GOLD!

I didn't clean the frame really good apparently since the paint cracked but it was the affect I was looking for so it works!!

 This is what we have been doing the past 2 weeks. My kids LOVE swim lessons and were so sad when they were done! Aubree has been swimming in deep water since she was 3 and is my fish. She has one more level to go and then she wants to try out for the comp swim team. Addie could not swim in deep water before these lessons and now she can!! And Austin is going to be just like Aubree. He would get so excited when we would turn the corner and he could see the building. Everyday he would scream"There it is Mom!!! Theirs my swim lessons!" His teacher wrote on his certificate: "Already swimming underwater and diving!! Awesome swimmer!"

Miniature Roses

 We had a huge space on the side of our house that we didn't know what to do with and my father in law suggested miniature roses. It was in the dead heat of July but we decided to do it anyway. We planted 10 bushes and 5 new ones a couple of months ago and I love them! They're so cute! What I love about roses is they are full color Spring-Fall.

My Roses

 Ebb-Tide

 Sexy Rexy

 Madri Gras

 Black Magic

 Dream Come True

 Julia Child

We have topped off with a total of 37 rose bushes this year! All of the caines died last winter so I had to cut everything down all the way to the bottom! We added 4 new mini's, 3 shrub roses, and 2 flora-bundas.

I was checking out my garden early one morning and felt something brush up against my leg and totally freaked out! So for the 4th time in 3 1/2 years of living in this house we have kitttens in the windowwell...again! This time the kittens are older so they have been our "pets" for about 6 weeks and we didn't even know it. I called animal control (I should get them on speed dial) and we had a really hard time getting the kittens. The mom was pretty tame, but once she figured out what we were doing we couldn't keep her in the box so sadly they had to take the kittens without the mom...I don't really care!