Fishing at the Farm

While Josh and I were away watching John Mayer (AMAZING concert, by the way!), Eli stayed with Zue-Zue and had so much fun. One of his favorite things they did was go to B and Mr. Tim's farm to fish. Eli had never fished before, so this was a big adventure for him. He even caught his very first fish! Of course, he wouldn't touch it to take if off the hook, but he'll get there!

Eli had so much fun on his first fishing trip that we made plans with B and Tim to do it again. This time Mommy and Daddy came, too! Daddy wanted to fish and Mommy wanted to take pictures :)

Eli and B caught the first and only fish on this trip-a huge catfish! 

Eli wasn't going anywhere near it. I didn't blame him!

We ended our night with a ride around their land to look for deer. Eli was really excited when Mr. Tim let him drive some. We didn't get to ride around too long though because the weather started to get really bad. We hurried back to our car and left before it started pouring. It was such a fun day at the farm. We can't wait to go back!

July Summer Fun

I posted all the fun we had during the month of June, so now here is our July recap. At this point in my life, it's probably easiest to just do bullet points. My poor blog is so behind. I've got about 10 drafts of posts I need to blog about, but I just haven't had time. I'm going to make time this weekend though because I'm ready to see something different when I go to my blog's homepage. 

1. We had a bumper crop this year of beans and peas. Oh my goodness. I had lima beans and purple hull peas coming out of my ears! This was the Instagram picture I snapped after my first picking of the lima beans. We planted 3 rows of lima beans. This was just from the first row! I picked the other two rows the next day and then had to leave to go to Dallas for the John Mayer concert. My sweet mother-in-law shelled and put up every single one of those lima beans for me. That's love right there, folks! 

2. Eli and I loved going to the library each week to see all the special guests. The last guest this summer was the Snake Man. He came to the library last year, but Eli was just a little too young to make it through his entire presentation. This year, Eli did much better. I learned a lot about snakes in my area and more importantly, Eli learned what to do if he ever saw a snake. Here's hoping he never has to use that little bit of knowledge!

Clayton and Eli with the Snake Man

3. Eli spent a weekend in July with my Mom and Dad to spend some time with them before school started. He had so much fun! I'll say it again...I'm SO HAPPY they live closer to us now!  When we picked him up, Josh gave Eli a surprise-his new LSU hat. Shortly after getting in the car, this is how I found Eli. I snapped this and put it on Instagram with the caption "This is how you know your baby had a great time with his Grammy and Pop."

4. Well, we are now two time champions of the Yard of the Month club :) I never thought when I was growing up that I'd ever be excited about seeing that little sign in my yard, but I truly am. Keeping our flower beds looking nice and taking care of them are something I really enjoy doing. Every year I learn more about plants, what grows best for us, and how to take care of our yard. I'm by no means an expert when it comes to flower gardens, but I do enjoy it and take pride in keeping my yard nice and weed free. Maybe next summer we'll be three time champs :)

5. Little Miss Tinsley had her one year pictures taken this month before her big party next month. It's hard to believe this little girl is already one. She is such a fun baby and I'm in love with her! I also secretly LOVE the fact that everyone thinks she could be mine :) I can't wait to post about her first birthday party. It was over the top CUTESY!

That's July in a nutshell. The only other thing I could probably add would be that I spent a lot of July going to my classroom for a couple of hours at a time trying to get my room ready for the first day of school. Whew! That was a lot of work, but somehow I managed! I have more to post about later, but for now I think this is a good start. Stay tuned!

Playing in the Fountains

One of our favorite things to do in the summer is go down to the riverfront area and play in the fountains. One bright, summer morning that's exactly what Eli and I did. Eli had such a fun time playing and splashing in the fountains. Afterwards, we found a covered swing and watched the boats go up and down the river. These are the kinds of days I'm going to miss when school starts back all too soon! 

Fourth of July-2013

For the Fourth of July, my family came to visit and spend the day with us. Diane, Josh, and Hannah also stopped by to visit for a little bit. We had lots of fun grilling, swimming in the pool, and spending time with each other. I got to love on my sweet niece, Tinsley, too! It's hard to believe that she's going to be one next month! Where did this year go?? 

Eli and Hannah had a chicken fight rematch. Eli won the first game and Hannah won the second. 

Then my crazy husband decided it'd be fun for us to chicken fight Josh and Diane. I'm always up for some fun so I climbed on his shoulders. The Hargons were scared though and didn't take the bait. Haha! Since we didn't chicken fight, Josh thought he'd scare me to death instead and got out of the pool with me still on his shoulders and JUMPED OFF THE DIVING BOARD! You can tell by my face that I was scared for several reasons:

1.) That I was going to fall off his shoulders and break something. 

2.) That we were going to break the diving board in half.

3.) That I was going to get a concussion from hitting the diving board when we jumped in the pool.

4.) All of the above or something worse.

Thankfully, none of those things happened and Eli now thinks we're pretty cool parents :) If he ever decides to do what we did though, I'm pretty sure I'll flip my lid!

Josh's next pool trick involved Eli. Basically, Eli gets into a very tight little ball and Josh throws him in the air. Eli flips like Sonic the Hedgehog and does a perfect landing in the water. Eli LOVES it and always comes up smiling from ear to ear. Scares me to death every single time though...

Josh and Hannah tried it and Hannah was great, too!

I love these two little daredevils!

Tinsley really wasn't having a great day. She was cutting teeth and not feeling all that great. (Andrea found out a couple days later that she had lots of fluid in her ears. Poor baby!) We went inside so Tinsley could eat her lunch before we ate ours. 

Josh manned the grill this day and did a FABULOUS job! Everything tasted wonderful!

After lunch, Tinsley and Eli played a little bit together with some of Eli's toys. I kept back some toys of his that are really too young so that when Tinsley visited she'd have something to play with. What ended up happening though is that Eli rediscovered these toys and wanted to play with them. 

We spent a couple more hours playing in the pool and having fun and then they all had to leave. It was such a fun Fourth of July. I'm really glad my family is so close now! I love that we can be together for holidays and other special occasions. 

After my family left, we rested and had some down time and then got ready for the annual fireworks show down at the river front. The only negative was that it started at 9 PM. Oh well...it's summer! The fireworks show was great but the best part was sharing it with my boys. I'm so thankful for them and I'm so thankful to live in a country that's free. Thank you, God, for all my many blessings and for the men and women who fight for those blessings every single day. Happy Fourth of July!