Lately...

We've been busy enjoying our summer round here, and trying our best to beat the heatwave. In our humble opinion, that is best done with lots of swim lessons and swimming, summer reading programs, free bowling, mornings spent with a library book or sewing machine, new Phonics workbooks, evening walks/bike rides, and Nutella s'mores on the front porch.

Side note: Last summer, Little Sister wanted nothing to do with s'mores, citing they are too messy. It's true; following this photo op., we all promptly washed marshmallow out of our hair. But she now understands the worthiness of the s'mores' mess.

This is what 8.6 pounds of the world's greatest chocolate chip cookie dough looks like. That is not an estimate. Legen-waitforit-DARY! My mixer got quite the workout with this load.

Our FRG just had it's first spouses' night out event, shortly followed by our 2nd meeting. I am currently serving as FRG leader (yikes!), and after bragging on the awesomeness of the recipe at the night out, decided to back it up with proof at the meeting. Some 5 dozen large, amazingly soft chewy perfect cookies later, I proved my point. Bake sale dominance, I tell you.

Hubby's birthday festivities included going to our fave local microbrewery for beer cheese and pizza. The girls decided we should get gussied up, so they painted their toenails and I curled their hair. Our sweet little ladies.

For the 4th we hosted a potluck BBQ with close friends. The weather unexpectedly turned overcast and breezy (THANK YOU, GOD!), friends brought the most amazing loaded baked potato salad (greek yogurt in lieu of mayo::I might have eaten the rest for breakfast the next morning) and spinach dip, and I made a yummy lemon cake with cream cheese icing for Hubby's birthday cake.

As it turns out, if you take a quilt or lawn chairs across the street to our park, you can see the fireworks from 2.5 miles away without any noise, crowds or traffic. !! It was a simply fabulous evening, and we intend to do it again next year.

I finally made myself an apron, something I've been meaning to do for many years now. I came across the vintage recipe fabric in a St. Vincent de Paul store awhile ago, with the intention to make more fabric grocery bags... and then there the fabric sat. Recently, I came upon this apron tutorial while simultaneously having navy polka dot fabric leftover from some teacher appreciation gifts, and it's a coordinated mismatch made in heaven.

And as you can see, our tomato plants are almost taller than me and starting to bear deliciousness.

Hope your summer is lovely, too!