This is Summer

More library activities... Chase decided he didn't want to make a ladybug hat :P

My creative little girl:

My mom got her this awesome coloring book for her birthday and she's been working hard at it!

she amazes me...

Jumping on the soapy, slippery trampoline:

The kids thought this was the most fun ever.

Look at that smile!:

Playing roller hockey:

I was working with Katy trying to teach her how to ride her bike.  Poor thing has been neglected when it comes to bike riding lessons.

Katy was doing pretty good, she steers pretty well and will petal for a while but then she forgets to keep moving her feet forward and stomps on the brakes.  I thought it was funny that she kept getting distracted by the sun shining on her sparkly shoes and steering off into the wall or net :P

Trying new things in the kitchen... I'm attempting to make my own tea mix this year.  I drink a lot of hot tea now (no coffee for me anymore!) and thought it might be neat to make my own dried tea from things in my garden.  On these trays are Yarrow and Bee Balm leaves.  I also went to a friends house and cut some mint leaves to be added and then this fall I want to try and harvest the rose hips from my bushes.  If anyone has done that before I'd love to hear some tips!

I also had some beets ripen up and so made some more beet leaf chips with them.  I cooked two trays of them and didn't even get to put them in a ziploc bag before the kids gobbled them all up!

Joanna and I thought we'd try to dye some yarn with the beets this time but it didn't work at all.  I must have cooked the beets too long or something because the juice turned kind of yellowish brown.  and then after 2 hours I went to rinse out the yarn and all the color rinsed out with the debris!  I think I also need a natural fiber yarn, not acrylic. 

I was using the beets to make a Lancaster county staple, red beet eggs, but while Ricky says he likes them, they seem to upset his stomach so it looks like Joanna and I will get to try dying yarn again.  I'll have to do some more reading on the subject before hand though.
Our Kholrabi is pretty much all done now and we're so disappointed.  We definitely have to plant lots more of it next year!  This recipe for it was sooo good!

My $5 bouquet from the greenhouse:

A couple Sundays ago it was beautiful weather so we decided to go to the State Park.  There were so many neat dragonflies buzzing around.  Joanna kept spotting them and yelling for me to come take a picture :P

We found a nice little fishing hole back in the woods and I played fetch with Peaches some more.  She's still not too into the water.  I'm starting to wonder if her swimming will get any better or not.

Chase fished some...

The girls and I hiked down the trail a little more and found a huge downed tree to climb on.

We drove around the park a little to find a picnic spot, it was 4th of July weekend and the park was REALLY full.  We were able to find a nice secluded place though and eat our lunch.  Joanna found a plastic golf ball and was very serious about playing a game after she ate.

Katy was not happy about having to finish her whole sandwich.

After we ate we let the kids play at the awesome playground before heading home.

I was very impressed with Chase's monkey bar skills!

Since it's summer my crochet shop business has been pretty slow.  It's been OK though because that means I get to experiment and create new items to list in the fall.  This one is from an alpaca blend wool and I am obsessed with this huge button:

This one is 100% new wool yarn...

Ricky REALLY disliked the color but I think he's crazy :P
The most recent thing I've been working on and am really excited about are these kids' butterfly/fairy wings.  Joanna and I read this story from the library and she begged and begged me to make her some wings.  It took some thinking and tinkering but I figured it out and made my own pattern!  Two wire hangers bent into the shape that we wanted.  I wrapped the middle part in tape after this picture.  Wire is definitely not something I'm used to working with, after making a few pairs of wings my hands were hurting!

Crocheting around the wire is a bit tricky too...

Some double crochet here, a few half double crochet there, a treble crochet or two there and there... and a couple hours later:

She obviously loves them :)

Of course Katy needed a pair too.  I love the colors she picked out for hers.

Joanna's face cracks me up here. She had a mouthful of venison snack stick...

I added pearl beads around the edges and changed out the ribbon for wrapping paper ribbons:

I had fun getting some pictures of the wings for my etsy listings...

I just need to figure out a good/inexpensive way to ship them now.