It's a bird, it's a plane...!

It's super Julien! Yesterday we went to River City Comic Con and enjoyed seeing several friends and browsing all the comics. We had some local artists sign our books and after it was all over we watched the Jugger match. It was a pretty great day. It makes me really happy that our little town is trying to pull together some fun local events.

Everyone agreed that Julien was the coolest kid there. I whipped his cape up the night before and I was so thrilled that he ended up loving it! He was so excited to show it off to everyone and he didn't even try to take it off despite it being SO hot. My baby's really acting like a little boy these days. 

Oh, we were in the paper too. You can find the article here. Please don't look at me in the picture, I was standing in front of a huge fan to get his cape to fly but really only my hair was flying... haha

Staycation / Peach Cobbler

We're dog sitting at my mom's this week. It's kind of like a staycation but we haven't done much of anything. Taken a lot of walks, enjoyed the luxury of a bathtub and played... Julien has 2 molars coming in and was awake at least every hour last night. He's been pretty crazy since it started... so I'm nodding off as I type this... I did want to share a recipe that Andrew and I made a couple days ago. I didn't take good pictures of it, but I did just snap one before I finished it off...

The peach cobbler up there... it was FANTASTIC and so easy! It's a Paula Deen recipe that you should try for sure...

Peach Cobbler | Paula Deen

Ingredients

• 4 cups peeled, sliced peaches
• 2 cups sugar, divided
• 1/2 cup water
• 8 tablespoons butter
• 1 1/2 cups self-rising flour
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• Ground cinnamon, optional

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Combine the peaches, 1 cup sugar, and water in a saucepan and mix well. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from the heat.

Put the butter in a 3-quart baking dish and place in oven to melt.

Mix remaining 1 cup sugar, flour, and milk slowly to prevent clumping. Pour mixture over melted butter. Do not stir. Spoon fruit on top, gently pouring in syrup. Sprinkle top with ground cinnamon, if using. Batter will rise to top during baking. Bake for 30 to 45 minutes.

To serve, scoop onto a plate and serve with your choice of whipped cream or vanilla ice cream 

(source)

Sweet Corn

 This weekend is the Sweet Corn Festival and Mayor's Jubilee. I'm pretty sure this area has some of the most random events just for the excuse to do crazy things... like walk around town with an ear of butter-soaked corn hanging out of your mouth... But even I fell victim, because who can turn that down? Especially for a buck! It was delicious too! I was going to let Julien try corn on the cob for the first time, but his first molar is coming through and he wasn't much into eating, so we did some other stuff and Papa ate his piece.

 J got another caricature done by J.D Williamson. We seem to get one every time we see him somewhere...

An old man made him a balloon hat and he thought he was the coolest kid on the block. He kept shaking his head around to make the balloons move. It was really hilarious.

He LOVED the bunnies. We tried to walk away 3 times and he ran back every time. I literally had to drag him away from them. They liked him, too, as you can see...

My grandparents from Florida made it in town just in time to enjoy all this fun with us. They'll be here for a few days before they move on so we'll be enjoying their company until then.

Enjoy your weekend!

Yard Sale Treasure | Be Awesome Today

A few weeks ago I happened upon a little yard sale and saw two huge framed paintings propped up against a tree so I had to stop. As I was scanning them for a price a girl rushed by with a stack of boxes and said "Oh, you can have those for free!"
What!? YES, PLEASE! When she returned she told me that she had seen them in someone's trash and just couldn't let them go to the dump, so she saved them, then had no place to put them... Not that I had room for them but you better believe I wasn't going to pass that up! Immediately I thought of the friend's weddings I have coming up and how I could use them in my photography... So I headed back to the car as quickly as I could and told Andrew to load them up! After assessing all the options, Andrew said we could only fit one in the car. So I took the second one back to the tree and told the girl my sad news and then stupidly opened my fat mouth with my big plans for it and after realizing all it's potential she decided to keep the other one. Immediately after, Andrew came over and said that we actually couldn't even fit one in and that we'd have to come back and get it without the car seat. I COULD HAVE HAD BOTH! So disheartening. BUT I cannot complain because I got one awesome, FREE picture frame and I even found a place for it.

I pulled the painting out of it and cleaned it up. The string is all pinned straight to the wall so I can easily pull the frame down to use at photo shoots. I have to admit, I kind of love it. 

I know you can't really make out some of the cute little things I have hanging on it, but here's a little freebie for you...

I made this a while back and printed it to hang in the frame. I can't remember where that doily brush is from, but I'll do my best to figure it out and add credit... Anyway, this is a 5x7, printed really nicely on white card stock. I also added a couple other colors... Just click the picture to find them!

My Nook

Somehow I ended up with two snoring boys pretty early tonight so I decided I'd take advantage of it and clean/reorganize my crafting area so I could actually make something. Now, to preface a little, I've been looking for a vintage buffet style cabinet all summer but haven't found the perfect thing yet so I've really been holding off. In that time my nook has become a total disaster. 

No, really... So in the process of cleaning up my area, I naturally moved to the kitchen and cleaned that up first and in that process I decided I was going to switch out that ugly little folding table with our vintage kitchen table since we never eat at it anyway. 

However, after my first project (the curtain to hide the clutter) I've found that the table is waaay too wobbly to sew on! Bummer... The buffet search continues..

Oh, also... we had a really horrible storm while I was doing all this and it woke up the boys. Thankfully the Hubs entertained Jules while I finished but as soon I was done he was up climbing everything possible...

Christy & Kyle | Engagement

I loved this engagement shoot! I have never seen so much happiness radiating through photos! It makes me even happier for these two lovebirds. Thank you for letting me capture it, Christy & Kyle!

Head over to the photo page to see more...

Oh, Home...

It's amazing how great home can feel after you haven't been there in a while. Even when there are toys all over the place and clothes on the bedroom floor... We  ended up camping longer than expected and had a good time. We didn't make it to The Melting Pot, but we did go to the zoo and went to a few of our favorite places... and saw some fantastic fireworks!

Back to the real world already... Engagement shoot this evening and it was great! Can't wait to share some photos!

Happy Independence Day!

We just started our week off by watching the Independence Day parade from our living room window.

 Now we're getting ready to head to the woods for the night and go on to the zoo tomorrow. Uncle Bubby and Aunt Syd are coming with us. We are definitely in for huge fun in the next 48 hours! Whoohoo!

The Melting Pot is on my hidden agenda but we'll see if that happens...

Baby Huck | Holly Hamrick of Amy Gentry Photography

Yesterday I got to spend some time with an old friend and her new little family! It was such a good time and let me tell you, this little mister already has so much personality! I can't wait to see this when he's a little older.

You can see more of these from the Photo View page!

Julien's Game Face

This has been an eventful week. I feel like we've really been taking advantage of summer this year and I love it. This week we've gone to the pool, Andrew and I got to go to the driving range while Jules played at Mamma Karen's and toady we played tennis with Aunt Amanda and Zach. Julien did so well playing in the pack-n-play while we played. He also enjoyed chasing tennis balls and playing with the ball containers. He's really into lids and cups right now. He loves taking lids off and putting them back on and he's recently discovered how to stack cups. The things that entertain kids...