The new, improved and expanded playpit is done! I haven't been blogging as regularly as usual (and hearing about it from my baby sister in Nashville :) We've been busy and Francie & Maisie have been fighting off colds and an ear infection each, no fun. But we are glad to be done with one phase of the Great Backyard Makeover (this is what happens when you buy a playhouse too big for your backyard) and enjoying the summer heatwave. Here are a few pictures I haven't blogged with a little of what we've been up to.

Francie has been really into art projects lately. Maisie can't wait til she can jump right in.

We've been in the backyard as much as possible enjoying the fruits of our labor! Most of it is done but as always we have a few projects in line for this weekend (one of them putting our BBQ back together after it was dismantled for the playhouse move!)

We've been hosting friends...

and playdates...

torturing the dog...

and the chickens...

and trying to keep Maisie happy (tough job)

We've been lucky enough to have Emmy for a few hours a couple times in between school and soccer!

and as usual she took a couple great pictures of the girls

Silly Sansie

More working in the backyard...

while the girls play

"I'll get her back one day."

We "let" Daddy go back to eastern Nevada (or "Nazada" as Sansie says) to give that bow another shot to fill the deer tag. He was only gone for 48 hours this time but went BY HIMSELF so we were very glad to have him home safely. He promised me he would be extra careful and took his GPS tracker- but as the crazy bow hunter he ran into on the mountain said "Woah. You are hard core." (Heff filled me in that the camo face paint might have tipped him off. I didn't know about this part of the hunting attire... he is crazy!) No deer this time either but he loved his solo hunt and was probably the first guy to use Vibram FiveFingers while on a mission to kill a large animal :) Here is his 80+ pound pack he hauled around on his back, OUCH.