Farmer Fun & Blue Bell Babies

On Thursday we went back to Brenham to visit the Farmers. Our girls had not met, and we needed more time to visit. Ava fell in love with Nellie all over again. She was still a little timid around the sweet doggy when we visited at Spring Break, but they were old friends on this trip.

Ava tucked Nellie into her bed. We found out later that Ava also decorated Nellie's bed with one of Robyn's Willow Tree Angels and a glass doorknob. Too funny!

The boys starting dinner

Josh and I had planned on cooking dinner for the Farmers, but after asking where a thousand things were they decided we needed some help.
It ended up being more fun that way. Nothing beats cooking with good friends.

Who's the cutest baby around?

Happy girls wait for dinner.

Ava spent a good portion of the trip embracing Arabelle...

and smooching her.

Eating lunch at The Funky Art/The Pomegranate with the Farmers.
THE BEST FOOD EVER!

"Ava please smile and look at the camera," beg Daddy and Mommy.

Oh well.

What do you do when you're in Brenham and the temperature is 110?

You head to Blue Bell Creamery!
In front of the thousands of cartons I found my favorite flavor.

Three Locketts at the ice cream counter

In front of the little creamery truck with her Blue Bell hat

Positioning

The hat is on, quick snap the picture!

We are big ice cream fans!

Mmmm...mint chocolate chip

So happy to be with her friend

Checking out the other flavors.

After a long nap our girls are ready to go eat dinner.

Thank you Robyn for the gum!

Josh and I have not sold our house yet. We've gone through a range of emotions and have prayed about what we should do. The whole time there has been a housing option gently tapping on our shoulders. Whether we sell our house or not, we've decided to live on campus in graduate student apartments. The location is ideal, (next door to the childrens center where Ava and I will be, and accross the street from the law school), and the price is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. The thought of not having to stress about selling our house and worry about finances while Josh is in school is so refreshing. Pray that our application is processed quickly! We're still praying that our house sells too, but it's not a life-or-death issue now that we're not depending on it for a down payment. Thanks to all of you who click on our little blog, I know there are more of you than I realize. We'll even accept house prayers from blog stalkers...you know who you are:)

Just another week in June

Last week Josh and I drove to College Station to pick up our diplomas from the MSC.
These are not our diplomas, we of course began the trip with lunch at Freebirds.



We were thrilled to finally have our diplomas framed!

When Josh and I were first married we lived in a parsonage in Independence, Texas (rather ironic place to start out your lives as adults, huh?). We drove through Independence to visit our friends, the Farmers, in Brenham.

Josh and Matt have been friends since 6th grade. Now they share more than a love for Ninja Turtles and Paper Football League. They've both been wrapped around the fingers of their sweet baby girls. Here's a picture of Josh meeting Belle.

Dinner at Royers

On Sunday afternoon we headed to Dallas to see Sarah and Brandon.
After some much-needed chiropractic adjustments we grabbed brunch at Le Madeline.

Daddy shares his Quiche Florentine

We went to visit Aunt Sarah. She is a nanny for a precious family, who just happen to have an Ava too. Here are Sarah, Ava and Ava.

Excited to go play

Caleb, Kristen, Ava and Ava, hot and tired after playing.

So we headed to Bahama Bucks for snowcones...the best shaved ice anywhere.

Discussing serious snowcone issues

Smooching Aunt Sarah

My new favorite picture, it just looks like summertime.

My girl

The kiddos sat in these colorful chairs, just a conicidence that the colors perfectly matched their clothes.

Happily cooled off after our snowcones

Resting

We talked the Avas into wearing pigtails for this too-cute pose.

Helping Aunt Sarah water her city tomato garden

An Ava sandwich at dinner

Loving on Uncle Brandon after her bath

Does it look like Ava is just standing on her hand-washing stool holding a tube of Benadryl cream?
Guess again.
She drug her stool all over the house while Josh and I were preparing dinner (Antipasta Night - a dinner made up of our favorite Cooking Light Italian appetizers, so fun). She was "painting the house". Her imagination is incredible these days. She pretends to pluck airplanes from the sky, releases them, and watches them intently as they "fly away" out of her hand. She lays on her tummy and pulls herself around, pretending to be a bug. I know she'll be an amazing writer someday.

Mamaw, Ava's great-grandmother, was scheduled to come and have a playdate on Wednesday. I was thrilled to have a day to cook, sew, and catch up on laundry. Imagine my surprise when I found a full bag of cherries in the produce drawer of our refridgerator! Using my favorite crust recipe (from one of The Peach Tree cookbooks) and a filling recipe from the most recent Williams-Sonoma (double the recipe) catalog I made a cherry pie.

Close-up view of my top crust. I decided to try something a little different. After mixing up the dough for crust, refrigerating for 30 minutes, and rolling it out I cut it out with a heart-shaped cookie cutter. Then I layered the pieces to cover the cherry filling.

Side view
It's hard to mess up a pie in this amazing Pampered Chef stoneware pie plate.

Is there anything better than baking a cherry pie in a homemade apron? This apron was my second sewing project, and I'm pretty proud of it. My first project was a "hooter hider", but a sweet friend had some hooters that needed hiding. I'll post a picture of the next one I make for Kristyn, soon-t0-be nursing mama of a baby boy!

Josh and I are prayerfully moving toward a housing solution for our move to Norman. Please join us in asking for His guidance as we try to decide what is the best spot for our little family. Updates as soon as we have a firm answer!