Red, White, and Boom

 Red, White, and Boom! 

Fourth of July has become a tradition for the Ready family over the years. We spend the whole day swimming, playing, and eating before we end in a firework show in the driveway. The kids could spend the whole day in the pool if we let them, but they do get out for golf cart rides and slip and slides :) I hope their memories of the fourth with their cousins are always fond and happy. My favorite part of the day was looking over at Ewan during the firework show and seeing his huge smile, as he whispered "these are so cool!"

The kids made little lanterns with Nana to use at night.

If this isn't the most Illinoisan picture you've ever seen, I don't know what is. The corn, the swing, the sweaty kids... I love it :)

Catching fireflies has also become a tradition. 

Before that, to ring in the Independence Day celebrations, we visited Lincoln's New Salem with some of our friends. We loved learning about America during the Civil War era and got to see a few demonstrations like weaving and muskets firing. We even heard a reading of the Declaration of Indpendence. Meanwhile, Eleanor spent the day with Nana and Pop Pop, preparing for our own Fourth of July celebrations. 

That's kind of our big hoo-rah to start July, but in other news, we've been enjoying all things summer as June has come to a close.

The garden is in full bloom! Every day we are bringing in baskets full of produce. The kids love to help me with the fun things like shelling peas and washing carrots. I'm doing my best to use every last bit of produce, either in our meals or in preservation through canning and freezing. It feels good to grow food for our family. 

This was our first time growing celery and we all agree it tastes way better than anything from the store!

I have had to get creative with uses for zucchini. I have about one million zucchini out there and you can only eat so much zucchini bread and roasted zucchini. Fritters were a hit!

They are always out there hunting for some kind of little snacky.

Isla hit the jackpot finding a purple carrot!

Fortunately for me, I am in good company. A lot of my mama friends enjoy gardening too. Some of us went to an herb and mocktail class at the horticulture center. We were the youngest people there by at least 30 years, but we had so much fun learning how to use herbs in different drink recipes following a tour of the grounds and a chance to plant our own mini herb garden. I feel so lucky to have a lot of likeminded friends. You know you've reached the end of your youth when a night out is spent comparing basil varieties and sharing pruning tips haha!

We liked the recipes so much, I came home and declared we'll be making garden mocktails all summer! The kids weren't upset about that and enjoyed their first one of cucumber-thyme-lime :) Our next one was a blueberry-mint smash :)

I never doubted my kids would walk and talk when they were ready, but I often doubt things related to school. With that, Ewan has recently expressed he wants to do school and start learning how to read. I should have known that when his brain was ready, he would just soar! So we have started school back up... for him this time! He loves learning his letters and sounds and really enjoys math. So we started a new school routine up and I guess we're back in the swing of things :)

But lest you worry, we are still doing all the summer things! We seem to spend more time in the water than out of it lately. We love swimming. Ewan has started going under water without a floatie, which he is so proud of, and Isla can swim in the deep end and jump of the high diving board at State Farm Pool. They are little fishies :)

Oh and the highlight for everybody is the new slide Pop Pop got for his pool!

Of course, with summertime comes icecream treats. And there's nothing better than icecream with friends.

When we aren't swimming or eating icecream or in the garden, you can find me in the kitchen (especially as canning season begins!). The other day Michael told me I make 3 course, gourmet breakfasts for the kids every day and that's the reason it's hard for us to get out the door in the morning. I didn't agree with him until I saw these pictures and realized... oh maybe I do make a little too elaborate of breakfasts. Oh well. Cooking is a way I show and share my love :) (Now that I think of it, maybe I could do a blog post on just breakfast recipes haha)

And apparently gourmet lunches too...

And because lately our summer has been too dang hot and I'm sick of dealing with tangly-pool-hair, Isla and I decided to get our hair chopped! Originally I was hoping for a longer cut, but when I found out I only needed 1.5 more inches in order to donate my hair (making a total of 12 inches!!), I went shorter. It's a little too short, but it sure is nice to not carry around a dead animal on my head in the heat of summer.

Something fun we got to do was take a short ride in a Volkswagon bus that our Nana's Great Aunt bought in 1963! The bus ride was fun, but the lack of air conditioning was not :)

This summer we've picked strawberries, then cherries, and now blueberries! The whole family went and we were all a hot, sweaty mess. But we made it home with 6 pounds of blueberries! I also had Michael pick me up some fresh Georgia peaches off the peach truck that comes through town. And with that I think the canning season has officially started!

(guarding the door while Isla took a break haha)

We stopped at a mega farm store on the way home, mostly so I could freshen up my canning supplies. This will be my third summer canning, although last year was my first serious year. I think there is really something cool about preserving home grown/picked food. It is freshest on the vine and as soon as it's picked, the nutrients start depleting. Sometimes the apples you get in stores have sat in storage for up to a year. The fruits and veggies we get from the store are not the same nutrient-rich fruits and veggies our grandparents ate, especially with all the preservatives, chemicals, and long-term storage needed to mass produce fruits and veggies. So growing our own food and preserving it as close to fresh as it can get is important to us. And learning to be self-sufficient is an added bonus!

Canning is not hard, it just takes a lot of time. But to me, it's time well spent. Just look at all those goodies for the year ahead!

Our days seem to be so full lately. One day our good friends spent the whole day with us while their mom and dad worked on packing their house up. They are getting ready to move and so we got to keep the kids. We made yummy drinks, played, attempted to make icecream, went fishing, and did our best to entertain seven kids ages 2-10! I think everyone had so much fun. After they went home, we went to the Cornbelter's game, which is a minor league baseball team in town. The kids had so much fun... eating snacks... and really couldn't have cared less about the game :) And this is what I mean by "full" days. They're full, but they're fun!

Summer nights are for catching fireflies. One night as I was reading on the back deck, Ewan sneaked out in his jammies to sit with me. We started catching fireflies and running around as the sun set. It was the littlest moment, but one of my favorites :)

We finished our library summer reading logs and now we get to spend the rest of the summer cashing in all our prizes. Our library does a fantastic job with their summer program. There's even one for adults! First prize to cash... DONUTS! And our second prize was free smoothies!

I'm trying my best to soak up all their littleness and all the summer I can. Both things are fleeting. Life is just too short, so I try my best to find joy in the small things.