Hope's in town! We're having a great time. Yesterday we hit the much anticipated Junk Bonanza. This is my 5th year going and Hope's first.
Our letter of the day was "m" so I did a little mosiac with my "m" pictures.

Another great year at Junk Bonanza! Today we're off to Creative Connection.

the day before....

Today is the day before a huge week here. Tomorrow Lowell turns 7 years old!! Hope arrives in the afternoon and will be staying with us until Sunday. We have plans to go to Junk Bonanza, Creative Connection and Scrapfest. See links to all these events on my sidebar buttons. Then my sister and my nephew arrive on Thursday for a week and my birthday is next Monday. Should be a fun filled week! Keeping up with my letter a day challenge. Friday was "g" day and it was a grey one here. I went to a fancy estate sale along Lake Minnetonka and found these wonderful bright chairs that offset the grey skies beautifully.
Saturday I was on the hunt for "h" and was lucky enough to go to a street festival that had henna tattoos. Such a beautiful design! I also went to an estate sale that had these wonderful vintage dream pets, including this whimiscal horse.
Sunday we had a family birthday party for Lowell. He wanted a curious george theme and I made these funny little monkey cupcakes. A large monkey cake is in store for tomorrow, it's in the oven now.
His favorite gift....a 300 ft. tape measure. That's my boy!Trying to get a little fall decorating and cleaning done in preparation for our special guests.

Here's to a great week!

F is for...

Of course for "f" day, I headed to the farmer's market!I was happy to see autumn squash and root vegetables. And flowers, beautiful fall flowers.

E is for...

After finishing her very first day of kindergarten today (she loved it!), Chloe and I went off to explore in the woods. After all, we were on a mission, e was our letter of the day.

big kids now....

So then it happened, our pre-school years done forever! Two kids off to elementary school. Amazing! Not before a fun filled end of summer celebration complete with surprise balls!

Serious milestones going on here.

ABC's...

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm doing a challenge where you take pictures for each letter of the alphabet, concentrating on one letter each day. You saw my apple day, how could I ever get so lucky with b's, I wondered. Well, I lucked out and hit an estate sale during the last few hours, so it was a bag sale! Filled up with old weathered books. I got about a dozen books total all the way back to the 1880's. These are beauties!

and back to school circa 1925

I had some fun with C's today, maybe too much fun! a collectible cookie jar (also from the bag sale!)
cartwheels on the beach on the last "unofficial" day of summer
Chloe's rock collection Finally, Chloe cookies we made for our little back to school party at home tonight. Tomorrow is the big day!!

An apple kind of day...

I'm participating in souvenir foto, a challenge of shooting photos each day for each letter of the alphabet, beginning with A. We happened to be going to the apple orchard today... perfect! I doubt I'll get this lucky everyday.

There was also a pumpkin patch with giant pumpkins.

Hope you're having a good weekend so far!

fair fotos....

The fair had a whole row of the most amazing old school photo booths (thanks, Jen!) We took this memorable strip of my dad and I with the kids.