Obama on fatherhood

Mr McGregor and More...

So I got a new sewing machine from my parents for my bday. Here's my first attempt at following a pattern. I made Emma a sundress. It took me 6 hours. It was a lot of work. It turned out a little big big for her in the side, but not TOO big. She loves it. :)

Here's pics of the girls playing dress up. They were so cute...


Here's their new swingset. They LOVE playing on it. Emma's finally learned how to pump her legs

PopPop came over for dinner the other night. We grilled hamburgers and hot dogs and went to the park. We got Emma a helmet and knee pads so she could ride her bike and practice. She wants to ride her own bike next time we go to the shore. We usually rent bikes and she wants to ride it herself. So I told her if we practice all summer, by the end of the summer we usually go labor day weekend so she'll be ready to ride it by then.

So my garden is coming along quite nicely now...however I've had some critters visiting. I decided to get a higher fence. Well, that probably helped with the groundhogs, but we have rabbits too. And apparently they're jack rabbits b/c that little thing jumped right over the top of the fence which is at least two feet high. I felt like Mr McGregor chasing Peter Rabbit... Here's my Corn plants..getting so tall now. They're up to my shoulders. My Tomatoes..see one growing?

Zucchini plants getting bigger too

These are cherry tomatoes..mmm..can't wait...These are my carrots..Peter Rabbit was munchin on the tops of them....

Weeding...

So, I was in my garden tonight, weeding. If you've ever weeded a garden, you know how tedious and time consuming it is. I mean, I was in there at least an hour and I got maybe quarter of the way finished. I admit, I haven't quite kept it up as much as I should have. But anyway...since I don't have ear buds for my phone, which is my mp3 player, I was sitting there weeding, and thinking...First, I still am amazed how awesome God is. He takes this little itty bitty nothing, a seed, and has everything it needs to make it a beautiful plant that produces fruit. I planted those seeds with my own hands and now I have corn stalks almost up to my shoulders. So as I am gardening, I continually think about how our lives are like gardens. You have your Creator aka Gardener who can take a plot of nothing and make it "Something". The spot where I picked for my garden didn't have anything growing there...not even grass... It was useless...at the time. But through some hard work, I gave it a purpose. I planted lots of little seeds, and even mapped out what I had planned for it. Hmm...sounds a lot like God to me...He takes us, who without Him are 'nothings' and 'useless' and he plants these seeds. First, we're exactly like the seed. Everything that forms us is known from the beginning. Before we're this huge fruit/vegetable/whatever producing plant....we start so small. So anyway, then I'm in there, weeding...and let me tell you, a weed is such a pain in the rear. You can pull the top of the weed off no problem, but the problematic part is the root. That little bugger just holds for dear life into that dirt. But the useful plants, they come right out. Hmmpf. Wonder why that is.... But think about it, what in life is the hardest to get rid of? Our "weeds" in our life....jealousy, anger, gossip, sarcasm, negativity, bad language, ....etc... Sure, we can hide them, just like pulling the tops off the weeds, but the problematic part is still there....it's the root...the weed will just come back if the root isn't dealt with. It's kinda like God is there, and He's trying to weed the bad stuff out of our lives and we are too stubborn and are holding on to those weeds. Or maybe we just let him pull the tops off and it just comes back. And the bad thing about weeds is they over run the garden and take away from the good stuff going to the good plants...or good parts of our life. So anyway, I'm not sure my point, but all I know is I see such similarities in gardening and life. God is awesome and can show you little things in everything we do that may just be your "ah ha!" moment. Thank you Lord for your continual weeding...and seed planting.. :) You're Awesome!!

Father's Day Weekend

Here's Elizabeth in Emma's old outfit. I love this outfit.

Here's Emma when she was two in that same outfit

This weekend, we decided to go to the Jersey shore to celebrate Father's Day. We normally go Memorial weekend b/c it's my birthday usually, but it was too cold this year. Jer took half a day on Friday and played golf with Pete, which I was glad about because he LOVES golf and hasn't played in a long time. Then, after work, we headed down to Wildwood. We didn't get there till about 10:30. So the girls were exhausted. Here's them trying to sleep in the same bed.

Then we woke up early and had a quick breakfast and headed down to the boardwalk for a bikeride. We rented a surrey. I don't think Elizabeth knew what was going on at first....no smiles...but I think she warmed up to it by the end.at first she didn't know what was going on, with her bare feet in the sand, so she squatted for a long while. Emma was so excited she couldn't contain herself. She loved every minute. Daddy had a good time celebrating Father's day. He's the best!!Elizabeth was pretty tuckered out so she took a nap on the towel. Then Emma and I went and flew a Barbie Kite, we had a lot of fun... That night, after naps we went to Cape May to the Lobster House and had a really delicious dinner of crabcakes, shrimp and lobster tail..mmm...actually the girls stuck with the same old chicken tenders. I had the yummy dinner :) Then we headed back to the boardwalk for some fun. Then we woke up and gave Daddy his cards and gifts and the girls played 'Horsey' with him. We had breakfast and headed home, we got sunburn and were ready to head out. We had a very nice weekend with Daddy and Mom Mom and Pop Pop. We were exhausted by the end though.

This is emma dancing in the surf

To see more pics of June 2008 click here and you can see my kodakgallery slideshow. I have about 200 pics :) Only a few made it in the blog.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=ap2ksmf.7y0jpy17&x=0&y=-4sa29b&localeid=en_US

July 5th: Festival, Concert and Fireworks at Penn's Landing :: gophila.com - The Official Visitor Site for Greater Philadelphia

July 5th: Festival, Concert and Fireworks at Penn's Landing :: gophila.com - The Official Visitor Site for Greater Philadelphia

Update...

We got one of those kiddie pools for the girls to play with. Elizbeth wasn't a happy camper at first..
Emma loved it as long as there weren't any bugs..

We went to Pete and Angela's on saturday and got together with some friends and their daughters. This was the first time all 5 have been together.

From Left to Right (not including the grownups)

Macy, Elizabeth, Galadrielle, Zoey, Emma

This pic wasn't easy to take... 5 kids under 5

In order from youngest to oldest:

(Macy, Elle, Elizabeth, Zoey, Emma)

Emma and Galadrielle

We brought our sprinkler because it was such a hot day. Emma was the ring leader of course...Zoey actually went in the sprinkler a little and even Elle, but they were all still kinda little to enjoy it a lot.

Here's the garden before. this was taken June 1.

Here's the garden as of yesterday, June 11

We went to Rita's last night with Mom Mom and Pop Pop and got water ice..mmm..

Elizabeth enjoying her last days of binkies..we threw them all in the trash last week....