A normal summer day.

The other day Megan and I could not stay inside any longer. We had been staying inside to avoid the evil mosquitoes, but on this day we decided to risk it. Megan had her long sleeve painting clothes on, I used a fogger and sprayed us down with bug spray in hopes that all of this might help keep the bugs away for a bit. Then I set up Megan activity area so she could play/paint while I worked.

I don't know why I didn't think of this scenario before I saw Megan in the middle of this mess. But when you put a sandbox 5 feet behind a table with water colors, it's only a matter of time before the two things become one. I least she was in paint clothes!

Our beetle friend that Megan and I followed for a long time. He couldn't figure out where he wanted to go and Megan thought that was funny. He kept crawling from one side to the other. He was green so he blended in with the grass but he was bigger then a quarter so once Megan started to look for him, he was easy to find (not really sure if that made sense). She loved this beetle, it was cute.

Here is the project that I have been working on since the beginning of spring. I'm adding a flagstone path from our driveway to our back gate. It is taking me forever and I'm starting to question why I ever started this project. It's not hard to do, but the rocks are heavy and in the middle of the mosquito breeding area. I can only work about an hour at a time before I go crazy. But my fingers are crossed that the last few nights of cool weather have killed some of the bugs, so maybe, just maybe I can get this done over the long weekend! Oh and you can also see our new fence in the background. Love it!

Fun Springy Pictures

I have a friend that is kind of crafty and I asked her to make Megan this adorable headband. Megan was excited to get her headbands (she also has one that is brown/teal/lime green) so when I asked her to pose for a picture she actually said "Okay" So naturally I had to pose her next to the pretty flowers growing in our yard.

Just a pretty picture of the pink dogwood tree. I know nothing about trees, but everyone has told me that the pink dogwoods are very hard to grow in our area. Since people mentioned it to me I then started noticing that Adrian had lots of white dogwoods, but not too many pink ones. So I wanted to take a picture of ours before the leaves started to grow. Plus I wanted to brag a little that this is the view I had from my living room all spring :)

Poor Baron. Megan wanted/insisted Baron to wear her headband. She put it on, he shook it off. She pot it back on, he shook it off again. She put it on once more, Baron gave up and just went back to sleeping. He is such a good dog, no matter what Megan does he just let's her do it. Not sure if it is because he loves her, or he is just too lazy.

The "snow" in our yard from our neighbors cottonwood tree. I have never lived near a cottonwood tree so I expected a little bit of white stuff flying around, but wow, we could have shoveled it! It collected around the playground, behind the grill and all over our driveway. So between this fluff and the mosquitoes flying all over the place, I was going crazy. Luckily, the cottonwood is done shedding/molting??? now I just need to get rid of the mosquitoes...any ideas?

And last but not least, Megan's first ear of sweet corn for the summer! It was grown in Georgia, but it was yummy. Sweetcorn always makes you feel like summer is here :)

You might have noticed the random pictures that kind of relate, yep I'm out of pictures. Couldn't believe it myself, but really I have been horrible at taking pictures. I know we have been doing things, but not really picture worthy. I guess from now on I will just take pictures of everything and then "edit" as I look for blog topics. I'll try to get better, I promise.

Bubble wrap is awesome!

I don't think I ever posted this video on the blog. If I did, I'm sorry I will blame it on the fact that I an doped on Benadryl at the current moment. Megan is wearing a diaper, so I know I filmed it awhile ago, but I'm not sure if it made it to the blog. But here is the story to explain the video. We had new lights delivered for our kitchen and they all came wrapped in bubble wrap. Megan has only ever seen/played with the small bubbles. But the bubbles on this bubble wrap were the big, fun to pop bubbles. I opened the box and Megan grabbed a sheet of the bubble wrap, carried it up stairs and told Mark "Look what we got."

Mark then asked, "Did we get anything else? Any lights?"

Megan answered, "Nope, just bubble wrap!"

By the time I made it upstairs Megan had the bubble wrap laid flat on the floor, and was laying on her back rolling over the bubble wrap, giggling and saying "This if fun!"

I grabbed the camera and this was the next adventure with the bubble wrap. Hope you think it is funny. Oh and did I mention I was doped up on Benadryl, so sorry if this doesn't make any sense (evil mosquitoes!)

Picking Strawberries!!!

A couple weeks ago on a wet Saturday Megan and I were invited to join the Olsaver family to go on a tour of a local farm. After learning interesting facts about the farm, we decided to take some fresh picked strawberries home with us. Come on, who is going to pass up picking locally grown strawberries in the middle of May, and in Michigan no less!?!

It didn't take Megan too long to figure out what strawberries were ripe and ready for picking! Side note: If they make a very loud "pop" noise when you pick them, it means they are ripe and will be perfect!

Yep, that's one big strawberry!

I bet you were wondering how we could pick strawberries in mid-May, we they were grown in a greenhouse! The white planters in the back were awesome. Each planter held 16 plants and were on a drip feeding/watering system that allowed you to turn them to pick berries on all sides without moving or bending over...awesome!

Rosemary and Megan after picking their strawberries. I think they ate just about as many as they put in the container, but they loved the tour. It was fun and can't wait to go back in the fall when the jams/jellies and salsas are ready. Not to mention the apples and peaches...yum!

Big Girl Weekend!!!

A couple weekends ago it was Big Girl Weekend at the Schutte house. Megan had been sitting on the potty for a year and yet she was still in diapers. So I randomly picked a day on the calender and said, "This is big girl day. Do you know what that means?...It means you get to wear big girl panties and no more diapers." So I grabbed a blue sharpie marker and wrote it on the calender. It was also time for Megan to have a hair cut, her first hair cut! (yes I know 2 1/2 and her first hair cut???) So I lucked out and was able to get her hair cut the day before Big Girl Day and so I decided to really play things up and Big Girl Weekend was created!

Our friend Kelly Castleberry was nice enough to cut her hair for me. Megan has met Kelly before and Kelly loves kids so the hair cut went smooth. Megan held my hand for a few minutes and sucked on a sucker and there were no problems. I think what made her nervous was sitting on the little bench over the chair. But nothing that a huge tootsie pop couldn't handle!

I think she likes her hair cut (more like a trim really) But whatever Kelly did, her hair doesn't fall in her face as much so I'm happy. And Mark, who didn't want her hair cut, could barely tell, so he is happy that she still looks cute as ever.

Helping to play up Big Girl Weekend, Grandma Berthold got Megan some new pj's and a new kid size blowup matteress for when her cousins come to stay the night. Or when she has sleepovers with grandparents/cousins. She was so excited, to have a place for her cousins to sleep that she just had to test it out.

Lucky for her, it was nap time! She helped pick the spot for it to go and she thought it was cool to watch it blow up. And I think it took her about 15 seconds to fill it with all of her stuffed animals! She slept on here for a week and then I had to take it away from her to get her back in her bed (the week prior she slept on a different mattress on the floor because her cousin Kelsey slept there on night)

Oh and just in case you are wondering, Big Girl Weekend went great! Megan is only wearing a diaper to sleep at night and a pull-up when we are out running errands. She is about 90% there so I will take to rare accident over diapers any day! Yay, Big Girl Weekend!!!

Finishing the playground.

When it came time to build the playground we "invited" a couple friends over for pizza and beer. The moms played with the kids and the men, Larry Halloran, Grandpa Berthold and Mark, played outside figuring how to build this massive thing.

After a few hours the men got the last major piece in place before calling it a night. But with all the heavy boards/posts in place Mark could finish the rest on his own. (well I guess I did help one night to get the freakishly heavy twirly slide in place...not fun)

Megan testing the swing for the first time and she giggled the whole time!

Ta-da! Here is it the massive playground we promised Megan when we moved. Ok we didn't promise her a massive playground but once we bought this house and talked with our neighbors, we knew it was going to be hard to grow grass in this section of the backyard, so why not just get a bigger playground to cover the mud :)

If you look close, Megan is sitting on the swing to kind of give you a scale as to how big this is. According to the instructions this can hold up to 14 kids at a time. So far we have had 9 on it at one time and they all had fun!

Testing the twirly slide. It took Megan a few days to convince her to go down this slide, but now she loves it. We still have a couple more things to add to the playground, but nothing this summer. We have stuff to add a rock climbing wall and at some point we want to turn the area underneath into a little playhouse/store/fort/hideout/etc. The brand we bought has lots of accessories that are easy to change to keep things exciting. But for Megan it will take her a long time to get bored with this. She has played on this everyday! Even if it for 5 minutes between rain storms, she can't get enough of it. So I'm sure there will be lots of pictures of this over the summer so I apologize now. Oh and if you are in the area, stop by anytime it's fun for kids of all ages (but both slide are super fast!)

Phase 1 of the playground

We promised Megan a playground when we first started looking at new houses. It got to the point that when we walked through houses she would see a playground in the next yard and say "Is that my playground?" So she was very excited to shop online for her playground. Once it was delivered, we needed to do some prep work before it could be built. First we needed to level the ground so keep things safe.

Megan was adorable and "helped" Mark move every load of dirt from the back of the yard to the area we were going to build on.

She is a little worker! Notice the shorts and t-shirts...

...because 2 days later Megan was in her monkey suit and wearing a froggy winter hat. Yep, Michigan weather went from close to 80 degrees down to 45 degrees in a matter of days. But since Megan had already been in shorts she would not put her winter coat on so this lovely fashion statement was our compromise.

Megan watching Daddy drill the holes to secure the landscaping timbers to the ground. Megan wanted a tool, so she went in the garage and found her rake.

Alright, she has her eye protection now we can build! More pictures coming soon...