Weekend Favorites: Craving Some Summer

I woke up on Friday morning with a craving for summer.

Yellow flowers, watermelon, BBQ chicken, and potato salad, to be exact.

So I headed off to the greenhouse with the girls, in search of some yellow flowers. And a few other colors. Our deck is still under construction, so I wasn’t going to bother with flowers this year, but when one wakes up craving yellow flowers, it seems reasonable to satisfy that craving, as quickly as possible.

When Ben came home, he jumped on the summer bandwagon, and hauled out the brand new BBQ, which needed assembling.

Sadly, our girls have not learned to appreciate the wonders of potato salad, but perhaps we will make that a goal this summer. If you eat something often enough, you can learn to like it….

Fortunately, they have no problems in the watermelon department.

And all of this has gotten me thinking about being intentional this summer. I loved Ali Edwards thoughts on a Summer Manifesto. This is her summer of summers.

Summer fills up so fast, you have to be intentional to make the good stuff happen. (Except for the spontaneous good stuff – that’s important, too.)

What good stuff needs to happen this summer for us? Ben and I made a list yesterday. There are so many things we haven’t been able to do with our girls, because for the last five summers, we have been at camp, and summer is just camp.

It’s been fantastic. But now it’s time for waterslides, and some camping, and maybe even a road trip, if we get really crazy.

Or maybe we’re just crazy already….

What’s on your list for summer? I think this summer calls for a Manifesto…

Things She’s Into

1) Pork.

The other day, I was cleaning out the fridge, and Kaylia started playing with containers and stuff while I was working. I let her keep playing, until I suddenly noticed that she was sitting there with an apple in one hand, and a hunk of pork in the other, and was chewing away at it. The pork was supposed to be Ben’s supper, so I had to take it away.

2) Water.

Kaylia loves water. In the tub, in the sink, in Grandma and Grandpa’s fountain, or…in a glass of water.

The other morning, Anika and I were busy with school stuff, and Kaylia was very quiet. When I checked to see what she was doing, I found that she had lifted a glass of water off the table and set it on the floor without spilling it, and was happily splashing her little hand inside. She splashed it all over herself and was extremely entertained.

3) Walking.

She can do it all by herself, but she still likes it best if she can hang onto our fingers. She loves walking along this little wall in Ben’s parents’ backyard:

4) Jewelry.

She loves putting on necklaces. Fortunately for her, Anika loves making necklaces, so we’ve got a bunch around the house for Kaylia to wear:

5) Watermelon.

This is by far her most favorite food right now. And we have watermelon at every meal at the lodge, so she’s in luck! She doesn’t really eat it – she kind of inhales it. She starts shoving in a large piece, and never takes it away from her mouth – she just keeps mushing it in until she gets to the rind. If we don’t take it away, she eats the green part, too.