… and we are struggling to keep up, big time. It feels like we are doing so much but at the same time we are never getting anything done. The to-do list is mounting, the time is ticking by and our little one is about to have her first birthday!

She actually just had her first swimming experience this week, during our first play date. We went to a community pool with our neighbor, her twin boys, another gal and her son. Everly had a good time and it was nice to get out of the house for a bit.

I am kind of disappointed that the swim vest we bought her didn’t work out. She just hated the feel of the thing pressing on her neck and face. She cried and was scared the whole time she wore it. But when I took it off her she was happy as can be. Luckily the pool was shallow enough for her to wade holding on to the sides. She loves the water.

Mommy learned an important lesson in the spray pad too! Time to carry a first aid kit in the diaper bag. Miss E skinned her big toe real good crawling (and dragging her foot) along the concrete in the spray pad area.

Over the weekend we did a trial run with the blow-up splash pool we bought for E. The plan was to have it going for her birthday party but since it was partially a blow-up we figured we’d test it out in advance. Everly loved it and we thought it was pretty cool too. Great for those hot summer days.

We also took a trip out to Stonewall Farms to pick up our June meat share and our eggs. Our share consisted of: Pork link sausage, smoked bacon, sugar cured smoked ham, chuck roast, 2 packages of pork chops, sirloin steak, minute steak, 2 packages of ground beef, beef kabobs, a whole chicken, cut chicken and 4 dozen eggs. Not bad huh? What is better is they are grass-fed, pasture raised animals from a local farmer!

That night we enjoyed grilled beef kabobs and they were AMAZING! We haven’t had anything else from the share since the kabobs because we need to use up all the stuff we had first. I am excited about the ham. Once we have a nice ham dinner I’ll be able to use the bone and ham leftovers for navy bean/ white bean soup. Everly loves bean soup with ham! Plus I can also use the bone and leftovers to cook up some of the collard greens growing out in the garden.

I’ll be able to get 2-3 different dinners from the whole chicken too. I’ll probably make salt crusted chicken one night, then we can use the leftover chicken for quesadillas or enchiladas and the bones and meat remnants I’ll cook down to make chicken noodle soup or chicken and dumplings.

I’d say the meat share we got is easily more than enough for a months worth of meals and it is a great variety of meats. We are very pleased.

Looking ahead, we are anticipating Father’s Day this Sunday. It will be N’s first, although he almost had a Father’s Day baby since my labor started the morning after. She was 25 hours away from being born on Father’s Day.

Next Wednesday is Everly’s actual birthday and we are going to have her open our gifts to her, next Friday her McGrams and GJ fly in and her birthday party is Next Saturday. OMG, where has the year gone?