Flash Back Repentance

 When you find a note that you asked your daughter to write years ago to her sister to "make things right." 😍

Cousin Time

As soon as our Payne cousins came back from the beach, the Fish Sticks wanted to hang out.

I sent MQ (Captain America, below) to their house...

And brought James and Reese over to our house.

The boys wanted to go camping and spent a couple days planning their meals and setting up camp.

(unfortunately I didn't take photos of their camping plot).

The girls mentioned sleeping on the trampoline but when I mentioned waking up wet with dew and bug bites, they decided to use a ton of blankets and every clothespin I own to make a canopy on the sides AND TOP of the trampoline.

Impressive!

The boys were really wanting to go mountain bike riding on the trails so I loaded all 4 bikes up in GD truck and headed to the local park that has trails (so we heard).

We got there to see that despite the sun and warm weather, the trails were closed due to rainy conditions.  Apparently the last rain had left the trails muddy.  We went home disappointed.

The following day I told them we would try again.

The boys rode the trail while Princess and I walked the path around the small lake

Then she followed the sign (below) to do all the stretches that it suggested. 😁

Here's some photos the girls took on their fun sleepover!↓

I asked the kids when the cousins left if they got enough sleep.

They all said they got lots of solid sleep.

Hmmm...for some reason I'm not buying it.

 

Yeah! A Day at the Lake

Since selling our lake house year ago, our lake visits are significantly less yet the desire is still strong.

It's one of our favorite things to do to spend a day on the lake as a family.

We were so pumped when My Man said one of the first Saturdays in June that we were headed to our beloved lake.

The weather was perfect and the kids had a blast.

So thankful for these days together.

I know they are short and I savor every one of them!

 

Patriotic Crafting

Remember my Dollar Tree tier I made in the spring?

Well, I decided to round up some more craftiness and make summer decorations for my tier focusing on this great nation of ours!

I painted another bird house from Dollar Tree, a pallet, a star puzzle, another set of terra cotta pots that I filled with patriotic floral sprigs, and painted more wood beads with a homemade tassel....all from Dollar Tree.

There was a jar of shells also with a tiny frame with red/white/blue paper inserted in it and I glued wood cubes together to display with words saying "Land I Love."

May God Bless America

 

Summer in Full Swing

For Mother's Day, we bought both mother's some pampering gift cards.

I took my sweet MIL to get a mani/pedi and then out to lunch at one of her favorite, country restaurants.

June 3 is the Family Day/Gotcha Day of my twins.

It's hard to celebrate every year since it falls the day after MQ's birthday, so this year we had our traditional Congolese meal the day after their family day.

We sure are glad they joined this crazy Fish family!

My niece of her husband both got jobs in IN and are building a house there.

They needed to store their possessions in G and G's basement so the Fish Moving Company was there to help...and spend a couple days with this great couple that we hadn't seen since their December wedding!💘

As I cleaned out all the backpacks and lunchboxes, sorting the school supplies to keep and re-use and those which we needed to trash (or those I wanted to keep in my keepsake stash), I came across these meticulously neat and perfect project pages of my sophomore who used to empty the dishwasher and store our children dishes in "rainbow order."

This kind of precision will make an employer, roommate and spouse very happy one day!

I sure enjoy it!  2 out of 9 isn't too bad of a ratio to have a neat perfectionist!😂

And now that my college adult kids are back, I find these random photos on my phone once again!

Man, I missed them!😜

My brother and family headed off to the beach and we got to keep my nephew-dog for a week.

Ruger sure did love having his buddy around to wrestling and play with ALL. DAY. LONG! 😉

He got lots of love for sure!

For my Harry Potter loving niece, I made these cute little peg people from the Harry Potter series.

I loved how they turned out and couldn't wait to mail them to her in WA.

These 2 began working in June at a local farm day camp.

They worked long, hot days and then came home to do soccer workouts together!

Now that's dedication (and these are my 2 perfectionists, neat freaks I mentioned above - so maybe this dedication isn't' all that surprising.)

 

June Two Finally Arrived

Little Princess was turning 2 on June Two (as she calls it) and could NOT wait until that day arrived.

The kids were so excited about getting and giving her gifts.

Same as last year, she wanted a Paw Patrol birthday.

(She's still obsessed!)

Morning present opening

That tongue always comes out when she has extreme emotions!

Jeshua got her a skateboard!

Mommy found a Paw Patrol tower and all the pups and vehicles to go with it on FB marketplace (via her pre-k teacher who saw it first and passed the listing on to me).

She was one happy girl!

And this is just a random act of love and kindness which is seen so often in the Fish House.

Actually, I'm lying.  Jeshua doesn't like hugs very much and so Leah makes sure to give him lots of big, hard hugs whenever she can pin him down.  She may be small and strong but Jeshua's strength will catch up to his height one of these days and the forced hugs will cease.

In the meantime, this photo above is an almost-daily occurrence. 

We invited the grandparents and Payne cousins over to celebrate with us.

Her Paw Patrol cake - made by AB!!

Happy 5th Birthday, sweet girl!  

We sure do adore you!