Chuck E. Cheese

Ann and Nellie decided to celebrate their third birthday at Chuck E. Cheese.  It was exciting for us because it was Bella's first trip there.  It was also baby Nora's first trip too :)  All the girls seemed to really have a lot of fun.  I was a little worried at first because Bella was freaked out by the person dressed up as Chuck E.  As she started to feel a little more at ease in her environment, she started going from one little ride to the next.  Her and the girls were having a lot of fun riding one car in particular.  Overall, we had an awesome day.  I can only imagine the fun we will have when Nora is running around with the three older ones.  I think we will definately have our hands full.  Here are some pics from our day:

Happy birthday Ann and Nellie!!  We love you very much!

Happy Fathers Day

Bella absolutely adores her daddy!!  She wanted me to take a picture of her giving her daddy kisses.  She is such a silly girl.  Hope all the amazing dads we know enjoyed their day!!

Our Deck is Painted

In one of my prior post, I had mentioned that we finally got our deck painted.  Today while we were outside I got around to taking a few pictures.  Here they are:

It made it look so much better!!  We are definately hoping to get a few more years out of the deck now until we can save up enough money to put a brand new one up.

Bella and the Girls

I just had to share this picture.  It is so cute and probably one of the only pictures we have of all three of the girls looking at the camera!  Bella loves getting to spend time with Ann and Nellie. 

Dance Recital

Last Friday evening, Bella had her first dance recital.  She was so excited on the way there to dance.  I knew that wouldn't last long.  When we walk into the high school gymnasium, she had a bit of a melt down.  She was very unsure of all the people there to watch and didn't want me to leave her with her friends.  Luckily, she has an amazing dance teacher, whom Bella adores, so she came over and took her from me.  She walked around with her, distracting her enough to forget about the fact that mommy went to sit somewhere else.  When they got out on the floor to dance, Bella just stood there scratching her mosquito bites.  It was cute just to see the look on her face.  Toward the end of the dance though, she started to participate and even did the tumbling part they do.  I wasn't disappointed though.  I was actually very proud of her for staying out there and not running to me when she found us in the audience.  She doesn't do too well when it comes to change.  Here are the pictures we captured of the moment.  My sister also took a video so if I can get it to upload, I will so you can all enjoy how adorable she was.

Bella is going to participate in the summer session of dance too.  This only last 6 weeks though, but she loves it so she won't mind.  She should start learning some tap during this session, which I scored her a pair of tap shoes at Goodwill for $3.00.  I was so excited about it since her feet grow so fast, plus it beats paying $25.00 for a pair at Payless.  I love a good bargain!  All I can say is that Bella misses dance already and will be happy when it starts up again in a couple weeks!

Landscaping

Last year, we started redoing our landscape in the front of our house.  We got a lot of plants from our neighbors, which saved us quite a bit of money.  We had ever intention of working on the back too, but never got around to it.  Well a few weeks ago, I finally tackled the project.  I got the plants rearranged in the back corner and added a mirrored gazing ball, which I love and have wanted for some time now.  We also finally got some new landscape lights.  They look amazing at night, we may need to get a few more though.  Jason, with the help of our neighbor, went and got some field stone from a local farmer and we used that to build a few small walls as accents.  I'm so happy with how it has turned out!!

On the side of our house, we always plant Bella's garden.  This usually just consists of wild flowers that we plant from seeds and watch grow over the summer.  Well this year, Bella want to plant tomatos for her daddy.  We decided to plant them by seed as well.  I'm amazed at how well they took and how big they are getting.  It actually went better than I thought, I'm going to have to split up the tomato plants so they keep growing larger.  I have since added a potted cucumber plant. If I have success with these two, I may start a small garden next year.

Last week we got our deck painted and it looks so much better!!  I haven't had a chance to get any pictures of it, but once I do, I'll get them posted.  Really the only thing we have left to do landscape wise this summer is put down some new mulch, which hopefully will get done by next month.  Plus, we need a little more field stone to finish up the back corner.  I just love when things finally start to come together and are close to being complete!  It's such a good feeling...