Today was pure summer

I loved today. Today tasted like summer. Today smelled like summer. It was long and full and fun, and I ate and laughed and ran around and threw rose petals in the air. After a sweet little lunch at Heidi's and a turn about her garden, I went to Strongsville to pick up three cheeky monkeys. Instead of staying at their house this afternoon, we headed back to Medina to hang out with Myles. Here they are, having found the box of musical toys that my wonderful friend Jill dropped off yesterday. Thank you Jill, for all the noisy toys. Really. I can't thank you enough. It was so thoughtful.

My cheeky monkeys:

They are fascinated by my garden, especially the herbs. We walked around, rubbing leaves between our fingers, smelling lavender ("It smells like froot loops!" Ben insisted.) and sage and lemon balm ("It smells like candy!" Emma exclaimed.) Then, eyeing my crazy climbing roses, Emma asked in her most innocent voice, "Allyson, can we pick some of your flowers?" I grabbed my trusty clippers and started dead-heading the bush. I handed the big, full-blown, luxurious blossoms to each child in turn, who then joyfully rubbed them against their faces, pulled off all the petals, and threw them into the air, shrieking. Olivia declared that she was the bride and Emma was the flower girl. Ben just liked the throwing part. Since we were having their mommy and Aunt Heidi and Uncle Frank and Jordan over for dinner later, we decided that we were decorating the driveway as a welcome present for them.

They liked playing with the roses too. There is something decadent and indulgent about having huge roses to just play with, to tuck behind ears and study and inhale. I tried to explain to them how rich they were, to have all these roses. They're still children, though, and see it as part of their birthright.

When the porch was sufficiently strewn with blossoms, we headed inside to make signs for the impromptu dinner party.

Olivia's menu explains bread for appetizers, salad, and Swedish meatballs, plus wonderful chocolate ice cream for dessert. Wonderful chocolate ice cream is right, but we'll get to that in a second.

Ok, the ice cream. We got an ice cream machine yesterday! And today, I made some for the first time. Oh. My. Goodness. I started laughing, it was so good. It was ridiculous.

We got a little involved with getting every last bit.

We all agreed, though, that Olivia was really the winner of the Rocky Clean Plate Award. Heidi gave her a prize.

Oh look, those noisy toys again.  Ah, it was a lovely day. Expect to see some more ice cream posts in the near future. I think it's my new favorite thing.