Catching Up!

This is the second full week I've been at home full time with the kiddos and I'm loving it. In that first week I stressed about how messy the house was and I tried to make a dent in things...unsuccessfully. I decided to back down from that daunting goal and instead, decided to soak up quality time with the family. I actually sat down and explored some old cookbooks and read a Southern Living almost cover to cover. I am trying to learn to smock and have checked a big giant how to smock book out from the library. I made my friend Jenn's famous King Ranch Chicken casserole, a delicious and hearty shepherd's pie, and made several dessert pies from recipes found in our new church cookbook (highly recommend the margarita pie!). I also started a routine of going to the library with the children most mornings, because of the wonderful activities associated with the summer reading project. In two of the pictures in this post you will see Little Philip diving in to watermelon with Poppy and Aunt Lizzy after we heard from an Olympic gold medalist in diving. The other picture is of Lily the dairy cow as Little Philip and about a hundred other children learned how we get milk from cows. We've gone swimming a few mornings at our neighborhood pool as well as accepting the kind offer to swim at another community pool with friends. We have also attended a wedding in Mississippi and celebrated at an incredible Fourth of July party here in town with Robert and Tiffany Adams. Because of all of this, I haven't had much time to sit down and post pictures and blog. I promise next week I'll have more time because we have exactly five weeks to potty train before Little Philip starts 3K on Tuesdays and Thursdays!