paint cut paste

happy summer solstice! the solstices are special to me, as my birthday is the winter solstice and our wedding anniversary is the summer solstice (on the years when solstices fall on the 21st.) so this (legitimately HOT day in the bay area – whoo hoo!) first day of summer was a day of celebration and fun for us!

during N’s “summer camp” in the morning, my husband and i had a breakfast anniversary date to celebrate our eight years of marriage. (as a gift, i gave him some redstone meadery juniper honey wine from boulder for old times’ sake – we lived there for 3 years, during which time we got married, and so enjoyed this mead!)

table 8 for 8 years! (that card is in the shape of INFINITY by the way

after camp was over, we hit the kiddie pool in the backyard! i’ve been obsessed with making lemon juice ice cubes that i saw on one of my favorite blogs, salt & chocolate. what a simple idea and yummy for summertime water, lemonade, tea, and arnold palmers. i bought a bag of organic lemons (i’m not one of the lucky ones with fruit trees in my yard) and N helped me wash them…

then with lemon squeezing…

i froze them in ice cube trays for later… (note: this bag yielded 2 cups of lemon juice, and i added about a cup of filtered water to it to fill 2 ice cube trays.)

…which made me think about making sun tea! what a perfect day to let the strong summer sunshine do its thang brewing some delicious tea!

as all of this was going on, N grabbed a paintbrush from her play shed and randomly began water-painting on her little (freecycled) picnic table and on some driftwood.

N also made “nature soup”

we noticed that the mama bird who made a (pimped) nest in our play shed had three more babies, and she was teaching them to fly today, which we got to witness firsthand! here’s a baby bird standing on the ledge of our shed shelf… which he did for HOURS while watching mama flit around inside the shed.

look at that little cutie!

we had a beautiful day together, soaking in the rays — and, of course, blocking the harmful ones with mad amounts of sunblock. we finished the day with a yummy glass of lemon-iced sun tea.

and an adorable homemade (and sounded out) half-birthday sign from my favorite little artist.

happy summer! happy soltice! happy half-birthday to me! and happy 8 year anniversary to my special sweetheart!

we are anxiously awaiting WARM WEATHER over here in the sf bay area, and all of the fun things it entails… but i just could not wait any longer to make fresh squeezed lemonade with my little lady. i must forewarn you that this is a photo-heavy entry… lemons just provide so much eye-candy (and other senses, too!)

it was super-easy and fun to do! here’s whatcha need:

• 2 cups fresh squeezed lemon juice (we did this with 12 lemons)
• whatever tools you wanna use to squeeze lemons dry
• 1.5 cups raw sugar  (we used organic raw turbinado sugar, so ours looked more like tea)
• 1 cup hot water
• 1 gallon cold water
• one sliced lemon & fresh springs of mint leaves for garnish

let your little one take sticker off of and wash each lemon.

have fun squeezing all of the lemons to get the juice out any way you can!

enjoy all of the sensory experiences that come along with lemons!

scent

taste

in a 1 gallon container or pitcher, place the sugar and hot water and stir until sugar dissolves. add the fresh lemon juice and cold water to fill the remainder of the container or pitcher.

we cut some peppermint sprigs for garnish. (note the cute plant tag!)

chill the lemonade and serve over ice (uh, but we don’t make ice in our house, so we just had to chill it longer.)

nope, it's not tea. that's the color of the raw sugar.

i had a hard time parting with the lemon rinds, so i put them in some water with cinnamon sticks and cloves and simmered it on the stove to make the house smell awesome for the day.

then N was inspired to make lemonade art…

i think we’re all set for a lemonade stand… if the weather would ever get outta the 60s and the sun would come out around here… come on memorial day weekend, bring it!