Ingredients for a perfect summer night

This is the story of our first camp fire, marshmallow roasting, and sleepover all wrapped into one fabulous night filled with lots of love and laughter and sticky hands and hair.

Step one: Assemble the fire pit that we just bought. It was about 97 degrees on that day and I felt kind of silly buying a fire pit and being so determined to build a fire (but everybody went along and respected that I had a PLAN for the night). The guy at the checkout looked and me like I may have already had a heatstroke.
Anyways, this is my main assistant - my darling husband - and assistant No. 1. Guzer (he primarily just wanted to take a look and position himself in a way that nobody can see the screw holes).

Assistant No. 2, my crafty Vidor, who actually lined up and tightened all the screws.

Step Two: Getting firewood. The boys were eager to help with the unloading.

Guzer carrying his small pieces.

Now that's one big pile of wood. Proud of his accomplishment, Bendeguz just loved the sight of all this manly stuff...

Step Three: Taking a little water break. In the top right corner are Vidor's swim trunks, therefore he was absent from this picture. Lutza and her lovely sleepover friend shared all kinds of new tricks with Bendeguz.

Step Four: Get out the guitar. Okay .... this was just too bizarre - because we never talked about the connection between guitars and campfires. Apparently Lutza and Vidor saw a cartoon where the characters camped out in the backyard and played the guitar (I assumed with crossed legs - which shows Vidor's sensitivity to details). So the guitar/ukulele became one of the most passed around item of the night.

Concentrating .... and peaking from the corner of his eye.

Step Five: Enjoy the goodness.....

Stuck in hair, on clothes and any possible place they touched.

Oh, the classic bite.

And sweet friends sharing the fun of a special summer night.

"And while she plays the guitar, I will keep my eyes on my marshmallow ... just in case."

Step Six: Scrub four children clean and get ready for the night ... and it was a night. With being so hot, the two giggling ladies stayed up till 11.00.

Finally something is happening

After all those dark and gray days of June, we finally get to enjoy some sunny summer weather. And our garden does too. The children and I have planted all kinds of goodies in the spring and we were all anxious to harvest something finally.

There is nothing better than eating peas from the vine or picking your own zucchini and green beans for dinner. Lutza and Vidor truly enjoy harvesting but they don't particularly care for eating the veggies. Bendeguz, on the other hand loves to eat the stuff he picks. He takes a handful of pea pods and we have to walk to the front steps to eat them. I can see that he is quite fond of those little green tubes and it is so sweet to watch him enjoy every bite.

Can't wait for our garden to turn into a pumpkin patch and to be able to make at least one apple pie from the apples growing on our tree...

Raindrops = Movie morning

In our house the weather plays a strong determining factor in what we do on any given day. If the sun is out and it is warm, that's the only time the kids want to eat pop sickles. If the sun is out, regardless of the temperature, we can go barefoot. When it is raining, we have to eat pop-corn and watch movies.

We woke up this morning and the kids spotted about five raindrops on the ground. Now on this 'rainy' day I was imagining us eating warm blueberry pancakes and maybe cleaning up the playroom. But not my darling children .... I should have learned it by now. They wished for pop-corn and a movie. Now at 6.20 you just CAN'T turn the TV on and skip breakfast - in my point of view. Good thing that I have a lovely husband who helps me see things differently: 'pop-corn is whole grain and with a cup of milk it is just as good as any cinnamon toast or blueberry pancake'.

So the kids are watching 'Sword in the Stone' and eating their whole grains ;o) at 7 a.m.