4th of July Goodies, Crafts and Printables

With the nations birthday quickly approaching, I wanted to share some of my favorite Pinterest finds with you. We will be out of town this year, so decorating isn't really on the agenda for me...but that shouldn't stop y'all! All of the links for these projects can be found if you hop on over to my Pinterest page here. Sorry....linking all of these up right now just isn't in the cards right now!!

Thoughtful Thursday

Summer List: Take Swim Lessons

One of the activities on our summer to do list was for Sally to take swim lessons. Yes, I know she is very young. I have been reading that the earlier your put your child in swim lessons, the better.  We did our last week with Miss Shelly Copeland. Here website is here. The prices were great, the location wasn't too far and we were all very excited. Joe had to work some of the days so we agreed that it needed to be consistent on who took Sally each day. Yay! I was the lucky one :) The lessons themselves were short...only 30 minutes each day with a few super short play breaks built in. We taught the little ones how to go under without freaking out, blow bubbles, kick their legs, and work their arms. We also practiced jumping off from the edge, turning around, swimming back to the edge, and climbing out of the pool. Can Sally swim by herself yet? No way! Swim lessons are something we will probably do each summer for the next few years. I was very glad that we went. Now I know the things that I can be practicing on my own with her at the pool. Sally had a blast! She is my little fish and LOVES being in the water.

Here is Miss Sally on the last day...sucker in one hand, participation ribbon in the other hand. She was a happy girl, my friends!

My brother used to be a lifeguard and teach swim lessons, so when he was in town this past weekend, we went to a friends pool and worked with her some more.

Also, these are the swim diapers that we have been using. So far they have worked really well!

www.splashclass.com

Weekend Wrap-Up!

We had a great and fun filled weekend. On Friday night, my brother and his wife came in town and stayed with us. I made dinner for everyone! I set the table using my "summer" chargers from Pottery Barn.

 I also filled my wooden box with fresh cut hydrangeas from our yard.

For dinner I made baked shrimp scampi from Barefoot Contessa, salad and french bread. 

For dessert, I baked the sinfully delicious turtle cake from Cafe Latte.

On saturday morning Michelle and I headed downtown to the Farmers Market with Miss Sally. I got flowers and tortilla chips from las delicias!

I came home and put my flowers ($3) in an antique blue mason jar....it's the little things that make me so happy!

 On Saturday night we all headed back downtown to run the Gibson Guitar 5K. It was so frickin HOT!!!

My brother and his wife, Michelle

Me and My Brother

Me and Joe :)

 Me and Michelle

Joe and My Brother

On Sunday we took it easy....took my dad out to lunch and picked up dinner for me and Joe. He wasn't feeling so good :(

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend and fantastic Father's Day!

Our Seventh Anniversary!

On June 10, Joe and I celebrated 7 years of marriage. It sounds crazy even as I type it that we have been married for 7 years! You can read about our wedding here. 

In our first several years of marriage, we celebrated by going on a fabulous trip.  

We celebrated with a honeymoon to Greece and we have been celebrating with adventures every year since.

For our first anniversary, we spent a week in Disney World.

For our second anniversary, we drove the California Coast.

For our 3rd anniversary, we went on a week long Eastern Carribbean cruise out of San Juan, PR.

For our 4th anniversary, we were supposed to go to Costa Rica, but ended up in Charleston. Read about that big adventure here.

For our fifth anniversary, we went to an all-inclusive in Mexico.

Last year we had Sally so we kept it low key. This year we decided to do the same....we have a trip coming soon with just the 2 of us though :)

We debated going to fancy restaurant here in Memphis (there's always time for that later ), but in the end we decided to just spend time together doing the things that we love doing....

eating on the patio of our favorite Mexican place, las Delicias

getting ice cream at Ben and Jerry's

and seeing a movie. I had passes to the screening and y'all, this movie was crude and totally inappropriate and we loved it!