Raspberry Picking

I wanted to take the kids raspberry picking so we could make homemade jam, so we turned it into a playgroup event... sort of. We went to a lady's house in our ward who let us pick some of her raspberry's and it was so fun. They have a huge garden in the back so the kids and I went to town and collected about 2 lbs. of raspberries in under 30 minutes. They were literally falling off the plant they were so ripe. Brother Talbot's showing Hallie which ones to pick.

We went with my friend, Tiffany and her kids too. Anna and Sydnee add to our bucket.

Six Months Prego

24 weeks and growing....


This pregnancy has been so much more enjoyable than the girls' were. I feel great and the best part about it is I've only gained about 16 pounds so far and it's all in my belly... woo hoo! All the running I did before getting pregnant and during the first four months seems to have paid off. Not that I'm doing much of any exercise now, I selfishly hope that my good streak continues.

I've been so busy throughout this pregnancy that I really haven't had time to think about how many weeks I have left until I walked into JoAnn's the other day and they had all the Halloween decorations out on the shelves!! I literally stopped and I think I may have had a slight panic attack. Do you know what that means? I'm due days before Halloween and now taht stores are stocking their shelves for that holiday means I'm due a lot quicker than I thought! Naturally my panic continued as I walked faster through the isles of the store collecting the fabric, thread, and glue sticks I needed to quickly finish the things I wanted to make for this little guy. I hurried home and got to work and within a few days I finally finished most of the little stuff I wanted to make:

binky straps: I'm tired of stores only having one kind that fit all brands except the one binky that my child happens to use; Yes two of these are for a baby girl that I made for my friend who's due next week but I couldn't help but post them too since they turned out so darling.

baby hats: you can never have enough of these! Again, the two girl hats are for my friend.

and these cute little onesies: saw them online and I just had to have them for my little man.

Still working on that blanket, but we'll get there some day since I think these little treasures cured my temporary panic attack for now.

On another note, we've decided on a name for this little guy and before I say what name we've chosen, you must know that this has never happened before. With our other two, I would practically beg Cam to go through the baby names book to pick a few names he likes and you'd think I was asking him to give up a kidney. So the week before I am due is when he finally sits down with me and chooses a name but only because he's literally running out of time. This time around it's been quite different, obviously since I'm only 25 weeks and we've already settled on a name! So this is me writing it down in case this never happens again. I secretly think we've chosen a name so early because Cam is so thrilled it's a boy, but I'll take it any way I can get it!

We're going to name him Bentley Cameron Voge. We just love that name and I love that it's different. Can't wait to meet the little guy.

The Fourth and Its Many Projects

G&G and Aunt Stacey came to visit us in our new house for the 4th of July weekend. It was such a treat showing them around our new city, taking them to the beach, and giving them a taste of Scooter's Dawg House's famous hot dogs (Y.U.M.) before putting them to work! My Dad and Cam spent 10 hours one day putting up a swing set for the kids in our backyard. We've been wanting one for a couple years and since I've decided we are done moving, we thought why not? So my Dad and Cam slaved away in the scorching 90 degree heat with about 95% humidity putting together the girls' new backyard adventure.

It took about 4 hours for this glider swing to get assembled to this point and it isn't even hanging yet but Syd decided she didn't care and was going to sit and wait on that thing until someone hung it for her to swing on.



The girls were so anxious to break it in so I let them eat their snack on the picnic table portion of the swing set while Daddy and Grandpa put up the rock wall part. Notice how the girls' hair looks wet? Let me introduce you to humidity. So you can only imagine how sweat-drenched Cam and my Dad were :(

Done at LAST! Way to go Daddy and Grandpa!

While the men were sweating outside, Grandma was inside carrying out my idea in putting up this awesome alphabet wall in the kids' playroom in our basement that I saw online a few months ago. Once I mentioned it to my Mom, she took off running with the idea and had a blast collecting all the letters at 4 different craft stores. She then spent time painting them and mod podging paper onto each letter and before the weekend was done, we put it up and were THRILLED with its cuteness factor. Makes you want one too huh?

As if the alphabet wall wasn't enough, my Mom still made time to sew some cute summer dresses for the girls. You see where I get motivation for my tons of projects from?

In between working G&G so hard, we did have some fun. The girls love when Grandpa comes to town because it means Cheetos are in the house.

Grandpa is Syd's favorite person and every time we talk to him on the phone she always asks him, "Grandpa? Where ah you?" To which Grandpa replies by laughing since Sydnee uses that more as a greeting than a question she wants answered. So now that Sydnee is a little older, my Dad asks her the same question sometimes and Syd just looks at me and laughs since she now gets the joke. Mmm, I could just eat her cute face.

And of course Cam being the pyro he is, he insisted I go find some fireworks we could set off at night. Come to find out, every firework in the book is illegal in Ohio (BOO!) so I bought what I thought was a cool fireworks pack of different fire crackers and fireworks but come to find out it was all smoke fireworks. What a let down. It made us miss the Winter's 4th of July fireworks pretty bad :( And living in Indiana where all fireworks are apparently legal.



Can you guess who taught this newborn pyro that if you use your sparkler and light a pop-it with it it'll explode a little more with a little more "oomf"? No? Let me give you a hint... it starts with a "C" and ends in "ameron."