Catching up!

We haven't been blogging much lately, because, well, it's been a busy summer! The proof is in the pictures! :)

I don't think we've mentioned it before, but we've spent our Fridays this summer (I mean EVERY Friday we were in town) working at the farmer's market. I know I've said something before about our church being a new mission church. So in order to get involved in the community and get our name out there, we've been selling homemade ice cream at the market. It has been a ton of fun really!

There is usually a band or musician to dance to....

...and a juggler/balloon artist to watch....

...and plenty of food (this is Sadie with her little boyfriend, the Pastor's son, Malachi)...

When I say there is plenty of food, I mean it! I think we've all gained about 10 lbs from eating so much ice cream this summer! Yum! This Friday is our last Friday, and my waist line won't miss it a bit!

With all that eating, Daniel and I have been shredding it with Jillian Michaels ("Isn't it, buddy? Isn't it?" ha!) for the past couple of weeks. I know, I know... this is a girl workout video, but Daniel has been doing it with me 1) to keep me motivated (I mean, let's face it, I'm the one who had a baby 1 1/2 years ago and still have 10 lbs to lose!) and 2) because it really is that hard! We just don't make the time to go to the gym anymore and lift weights. So the Shred video has been great! I haven't lost any weight, but I can feel it working. I actually can feel my ab muscles for the first time since being pregnant. Sadie likes to get into too.

We've done the video twice while she was still awake, and she loves to particpate! I wish I had a video of her doing squats with us. Hilarious!

Last weekend we went up to Bass Lake with our friends, the Picketts. We didn't quite get the weather any of us we're hoping for though. It was cold, as in 60 degrees cold! So we never even got our bathing suits or water toys out of the car. :(

It was so cold, and we were so unprepared for how cold it was, that we had to borrow clothing.....

blue jeans for me and a jacket for Sadie

It was still lots of fun to play and visit.

Their family has such a cute lake house for them to all enjoy, and the little kids all seem to have such a good time with each other and the neighbors.


The day we left it was fortunately (or unfortunately because we were leaving and didn't get to enjoy it) alot nicer already. You can kinda see the lake in this picture hopefully and see how pretty it is.



Alot of the lakes in Indiana are natural lakes, which neither Daniel or I had ever been to a natural lake before, only reservoirs. Our second summer here, we got to go up to Lake Wawassee for Daniel's company trip, which is a natural lake. They are so different from Texas lakes or man made lakes. They're shallower and without cliffs. They're basically depressions in the land. Very interesting, I think at least! The average depth of Bass Lake is 6 feet with a range from 0 to 30 feet (I think that's what Libby's dad said). Here's a little trivia for you....Texas only has one natural lake. I'm pretty sure it is Caddo Lake, though I don't know if that is how you spell it or where it is located. So I probably should do my research before putting that info out there!


Here are a few other pictures from August....

at our church summer picnic

These are for Papaw because he wanted a picture of her eating a watermelon....

And PIGTAILS!....

Sadie goes to Mrs. Jane's on Thursday mornings to hang out with her old cronies, and Mrs. Jane fixes her hair! Sadie thinks these are "pretty". I agree!

That's all we've got for August. See you in September! ha!

Yeee-haw!

Last week we took Sadie to the state fair. It was a cloudy day with some spotted showers. So there wasn't a huge crowd. Lucky us! Here are some pictures.

and we're off.....

One of my old coworkers gave these boots to Sadie and we have just been waiting for her to fit into them. Now she does and they are SO cute! We put them on her before we left that morning so we could get a picture of her in them to send to him.

Can anyone guess what this display is of?

It's in the State Fairgrounds "Pathway to Water Quality" exhibit and is a comparison of pervious and impervious concrete. It's my favorite part of the fairgrounds. :)

We aren't sure whose horses these were, but they looked awfully important. So we took Sadie's picture in front of them! She was pretty interested in them, though they didn't seem to notice her. They must get alot of visitors since they're so important and all.

piggies.....

Can you believe they were showing live pet neutering operations??! I didn't take a picture of the actual operation because we didn't sit down and watch it, but this is a picture afterward, and you can see some of the spectators still lingering. Very odd display in my easily-grossed-out opinion.

Daniel and Sadie won a Red Gold cookbook for me! Forget the teddy bears at the midway, a cookbook is the way to my heart! For those in Texas that don't know what Red Gold is, it's an Indiana grown/based tomato company and a big deal around here. I had never heard of it before moving here, but I probably had never paid alot of attention in the tomato aisle at the grocery store either....I'd just pick up my Rotel and move on right?! ha!


The cheese sculpture....

Sadie wouldn't cooperate with her dad who really wanted her picture in front of the Indiana Pork pig....

and we finished the day off with a milkshake. Really Sadie finished off the milkshake. We had gotten it to share because they are HUGE, but Sadie ate about 2/3 of it by herself!!! She looked cute though, since her dressed matched the cup! :)

Step Right Up!

....to a circus shower! This past weekend I helped host a cute little circus themed shower for some friends at church. It turned out so cute that I wanted to post some pictures of the details. It was a ton of fun to plan, as you can probably see, and it couldn't have been for a more deserving, sweet couple!

My wonderful mom was here last week, and we made these flag banners. Get this, my mom actually had most of this fabric already. She had decorated her classroom many years ago in a circus theme and had saved all the fabric. So I snatched that up back in the spring when we first started talking about a circus shower. Then we added a couple of other fabrics to play up the three main colors we wanted to focus on...yellow, blue, and red.

The food table

More decoration

We tried to do a grown up interpretation of carnival food (kinda) plus things that matched the decor (circus red, yellow, and blue).

Teeny weenies instead of corn dogs:

chicken skewers with cherry tomatoes

fruit kabobs with red, yellow, and blue fruit:


a little extra decoration on the food table, popcorn cupcakes:




chocolate dipped pretzels:



and the oh-so-time-consuming-but-turned-out-oh-so-cute clown cupcakes:

We also had a popcorn bar complete with popcorn, a choice of seasonings, and bags to take your seasoned popcorn home in as the party favor.

The drinks (sparkling lemonade, cucmber water, and sweet green tea, plus some mint leaves to add to your drink):

The mommy-to-be

The hostesses with the soon to be mommy:

and Sadie enjoying a cupcake after the party was over:

Playing at the park

Daniel had a good birthday (I think!) last weekend with steak, Shiner Bock, and a German chocolate cake! That just screams Daniel's food love language. So he was happy. We also went out to eat for breakfast and to the park that morning and just had a lazy day around the house (and town) the rest of the day. Here are some of the pictures of Sadie playing at the park to celebrate her daddy being old. :)

Happy Birthday D!

Happy 30th birthday Daniel! We love you OLD man!

xoxo,

Sadie and Amanda