Levi turns 10!

Levi turned 10 last weekend!  (This silly face is because his aunt was making him laugh.) 

Who'da thunk we'd be having 80 degrees and a picnic on his birthday?  I'm all for it! 

Levi had a new little helper this year to help him open his gifts.  

 Since Levi is almost as tall as me, he needed a new bike!  Unfortunately, he saw it stored at the neighbors' so he wasn't surprised.  Shoot.  Have to be sneakier next time! 

First swimsuit!

Dressed Mya in her first swimsuit today.  It's in the 80's after all!

 

She loved the squirty water thing...

...but is NOT a fan of crawling in the grass.  She adopts an ape crawl in the grass!

Gram and Mya

Gram DeVisser 92, Mya 9 months

Mya's Bath-do...

This is Mya post-bath...

"You gotta problem with it?!"

Allendale Sky

Here's what our sky looked like west and north around 5:30 pm.  Eek...

 

 

Maple Syrup

Everyone knows my husband needs more to do....;-)  So, he took up yet another hobby--making maple syrup.  This is just the final product.  It takes 40 gallons of sap to get 1 gallon of syrup. He's been boiling it mostly outside, but finishes it in the house.  (You should see my stove after it boils over and burns on...!) The sap season will be done in a week or so. 
 

 

 

Footstool Redo

I should have taken a before picture. This was an orange velour footstool from the dark ages, I think.  It stunk like smoke and looked pretty bad.  I got it free from a neighbor's garage sale.  The kids have enjoyed using it as a trampoline, but I decided to try my hand at reupholstering it and actually using it in a productive manner.  Here's the final product.  The original had a skirt that went to the floor, but I decided to omit that part.  This is far from perfect and it's a bit wiggly on the edges, but once there's snot smeared on it, and dirty feet have left their mark, who's going to notice?!