Summer fun

I can not believe that June is almost over!  Summer has been zipping by and we’ve been busy having fun!

Memorial Day Weekend

We kicked off the summer with a trip to the lake.  While there we fished, swam, and played with worms.  {smile}  Well, the little ones played with worms while others fished.  I’m sure the fish swimming below the pier enjoyed the worms being thrown into the water. 

Swim team

This summer, Bryce, our oldest son, competed in summer swim meets.  Grant was also going to compete but ended up with a broken collar bone after a Memorial Day weekend bicycle accident.  He was, however, at every swim meet to support and cheer on his older brother through all of the competitions.  I’m very proud of my boys!

 

Birthday sleepover

Emma turned nine and had her first ever sleep over with a few friends.  We took the girls to Cracker Barrel for supper, swam in the light of tiki torches, made ice cream sundaes, hosted tea parties, and played & crafted.  I think we all even slept…a little bit…

Gone fishin’

We headed down to a local park to do a little fishing.  We didn’t get any fish because we got there a tad too late and it was too hot.  Or we may not have gotten any fish because we skeedaddled out of there after we saw the alligator foot print in the mud!

 an alligator this way comes

Splashing in the water fountains

The city’s water fountains provided cool relief on a hot day.  During our last visit there, Emma and David ended up being interviewed by the local news station.

Add to the above activities:  daily swimming in our backyard pool, working in the garden, wrangling chickens & a puppy, learning about Jesus at Vacation Bible School, and having fun with friends.

I think I know why summer is flying by so quickly…because we’re having so much fun!

 

Blog construction and busy bees ~

We have been busy bees this past week.

We had a week of Big Apple Adventure during VBS this week.  I got to teach the music and it was so fun!

We had a blast at Family Fun Night! 

We had the first salad that was fully grown in our garden ~ a tomato/cucumber/purple onion salad.  It was yummy!

 

We spent the entire day Saturday doing yard work and garden work.  Today I spent the entire day on the couch because of back pain.  I refuse to admit that I may be getting old.  But the rest did me some good…I needed it. 

You may notice that the blog looks a bit different.  I anticipated making a few small changes tonight.  Those changes however left me with many others that need to be made.  Please excuse any weirdness around here…it will be fixed soon. 

The first week of summer ~

 

We just finished our first week on our summer schedule.  It went really well.  We did not do school every day but the days we did…well, let’s just say that the pool is a very motivating factor in helping children finish up math & reading.  It has me wondering how to keep our pool open year round.  {wink}

The kids made their summer to-do lists this week and I was given permission to share it on my blog.  I thought it would be fun to get a peek into what they look forward to this summer.  By the way, they LOVE our summer to-do list.  I have added a few more educational goals than I previously listed but they don’t seem to mind at all.  They keep saying,

“We get to do all of that this summer!” and “We’re gonna have so much fun!”

And that is my goal…a fun but purposeful summer.  {smile}

The girls decorated my hair with wildflowers while I weeded the strawberries. 

Now on to the kids’ summer to-do lists…

Bryce’s list (13 year old)

• learn how to play guitar
• jog a mile
• hold my breath under water for a minute
• go swimming almost every day of summer
• read the whole Bible
• go through a whole day without playing my DS (video game system)
• go through a whole day without watching TV
• draw abstract drawings of animals
• get the chicken eggs
• work on my blog some more
• spend time with daddy and draw with him
• go on the youth mission trip
• cook gumbo
• go fishing

Grant planted random sunflower seeds throughout the garden without me knowing it.  This one is HUGE!  It makes me smile every time I see it.

Grant’s list (11 years old)

• go to Magic Springs and Disney World  (he’s my dreamer)
• go to the fountains
• ride bikes
• paint
• go to the lake all week long
• drive a car
• drive a four wheeler
• get a water melon and have a seed spitting contest
• play football
• swim all day
• go to friend’s house
• get the chickens’ eggs
• go to children’s camp

Emma’s list (8 years old)

• swim
• paint better
• go to the zoo
• learn about animals
• ride horses
• petting zoo
• cook a meal
• shop with my birthday money
• get ice cream from the ice cream truck
• play with my friends
• go to children’s camp

Mom’s list 

I decided to keep my list kind of simple this year. ~

• Read the Bible everyday
• Read books for homeschool encouragement
• Read one classic book this summer (still need to pick it out)
• Lose ten more pounds before my birthday (in August)
• Clean out the closets
• Learn how to make salsa verde (growing tomatillas this year and I LOVE salsa verde) and learn new recipes to use my garden produce
• Write a preschool curriculum to use with Baby boy next year…still thinking about it and planning in my head…not sure if this will be accomplished
• Make activity bags for the little ones for the school year (a friend and I are going to work together on this)
• Organize the school areas
• Sew something for myself

I hope your summer is off to a great start.  Have a blessed weekend! 

What we’ve been up to and whole bunch of pictures

Hi y’all!  I sort of disappeared on you all, didn’t I?  I thought that I’d do a quick catch up post.  Here’s the short story on what’s been going on the past two weeks.  It’s been a tough few days and my brain feels a bit slow tonight so the sentences may not be complete or even that coherent.  But there will be pictures…lots and lots of pictures!  :)

• Family Reunion

Fun times with the cousins, good music, and good talks

• Busy times as we prepare for school to begin

(More about that on the homeschool blog)

• The modem went out and we had no internet access.

(And I didn’t even have withdrawals!)

• We received a new modem and got internet access again but I was too busy to get online.

Then I realized that I did miss it! 

• And the internet quit working again for some unknown reason! 

(But all is well now. :)

• Somewhere in the midst of all of the offline time, Baby Boy demanded coffee or “hot foffee” in his words.  He loves coffee.  And black only, please.  Do not give the boy milk and sugar in his hot foffee.  It will not be well received.

 Baby Boy waiting on his hot foffee.

 Enjoying a cup of joe, watching some early morning cartoons, and loving his Thomas PJs  (Thank you Uncle Chris, Aunt Mariann, Ellie, Woody, and Jack!)

• Taking pictures of the few things alive in my sun-scorched, drought-ridden garden…it’s bad, really bad

But we are finally getting a break from the hot temperatures.  It’s only in the low 90s this week!  Much better than low 100s, any day! 

• David had an interview and was given a promotion!!!

That was a much needed answer to prayer for this family.

And on that same day, he had jury duty and was chosen to serve as an alternate on the case. 

That makes me smile… a job interview, a promotion, and jury duty all on the same day.  I have no idea why but that makes me laugh!  How often does that happen?

• The cooler temperatures have brought more time outdoors so the kids have built a shooting range.  Their guns are rubber bands on sticks.  I’m thinking this one needs a post all of its own!

 What looks like a mess to me is tons of fun for my children!

I love seeing children’s imaginations at work.

I think that may be all of the past week or so with the exception of some school posts which will show up soon on the homeschool blog. 

I hope you all are doing well!

 

Weekends ~

I love the weekends.  It is a time that David gets to be home with the kids and me. 

We spend time together as a  Family.

Not too long ago though, weekends made me tense and uptight.  We were too busy.   We had no time together except in passing and so David & I made the decision to slow down and spend time Together.

In order to reclaim this time together, I have to work extra hard during the week especially on Friday.  Actually, we all have to work together as a family in order to make time to be still and enjoy each other.  We’ve also had to learn to say no.  That is a hard one for us but we are learning that we can not do it all.  (But that’s a whole post in itself.) So for the past few weeks, I’ve tried to make sure that I’ve got the housework  & laundry as close to done as possible before I go to bed on Friday night.  By doing this, we’ve been able to spend our Saturdays together with an errand or two here and there if needed.   For the most part though, we have been able to work alongside together at our home or even just relax, play, laugh, and connect. 

This weekend, we are enjoying a special treat that I’ll share this coming week when we have pictures too.

I’ve seen this on other blogs and I love it so I’m going to borrow it:

Weekends are for…

celebrations

new experiences

nature

thrills

family

and

fun

What are you doing this weekend?

I’ll share our weekend with you soon!  I hope you have a blessed weekend!

To see some of our past weekend adventures, you can click here!

Garden update ~ July 9, 2010

There is a lot going on in our little city garden.  I like to plant in succession and replace finished plants with new ones.  Actually, I have rows waiting right now to be planted with more zipper cream peas and some rows waiting on fall planting that will start in a few weeks.  I can not believe that it is almost time to start planting for the fall around here!   

~zipper cream pea blooms~

We have been getting a lot of rain here lately.  This week the rain made me smile.  You see, last week I didn’t have to water at all due to the rain.  This week it was looking like I would need to water because it did not rain for a few days.  So I got up and watered early one morning.  Of course, that afternoon the rain rolled in…and a good one at that!  I thought to myself, “If you want it to rain, water the garden”!

 

A while back, I posted about some volunteer plants that I had found around the garden.  I thought they were perhaps watermelon and dug them up and moved them to their own little spots in the garden.  We were surprised to find this little bitty baby this past week:

And more to come…

 

I love those kind of surprises!

~Speaking of surprises~

A few weeks ago, the kids were eating watermelon while in the pool and they were spitting  the seeds outside of the pool.  (Yes, we are quite refined, thank you.  ;)  Anyway, I found these sprouting around the pool.  Obviously, we can’t weed-eat next to the pool so I may let these grow and see what happens.  It’s kind of like a little science experiment!

Okra flowers are so beautiful!  I love those colors.

My friend, Mackey, gave me some yellow pear tomato plants and I am now harvesting them.  They are so pretty.  It’s kind of odd eating a yellow tomato (it tastes like a tomato but the color tricks my brain every time)… but it’s fun too!

I started an eggplant from seed this year.  Well, I actually started a few but only one decided to sprout.  This is my first year to plant eggplant so this is a learning experience for me.  I don’t have an eggplant yet but just blooms.  I’d love for my children to get to see an eggplant growing. 

Those little ants probably aren’t supposed to be there, huh?  :) 

This is what I’ve been working on this week: 

So far, I’ve got a few jars of fermented pickle relish and cucumbers soaking in a salt water brine.  Today when I get some more dill, I will hopefully have a few jars of dill pickles too.  And since I am still picking cucumbers, I will probably have some bread & butter pickles too! 

A friend on Facebook left me this link after reading my status about an overabundance of cucumbers.   If you click on cucumbers, there are over 800 recipes!  I’ve printed out a few to try since I’m definitely rich with cucumbers!

We have a new sunflower friend that opened up its sweet little face this week.  We sure do love sunflowers around here.

Our older sunflower is working to become some yummy seeds.  Soon the race will be on between us and the birds.  Who is going to get the seeds?  (Probably them - they are much quicker than we are!)

  

Now is the time to start thinking about fall planting.  If you live locally, I have been using these two guides for fall planting times. The Louisiana guide even shows a year around gardening plan.  The Texas guide also has some good information.

Louisiana planting guide

Texas fall planting information

That’s what is going on in our little summer garden.  We will soon be beginning to plant for the fall.  Wow! 

To view other gardens, please visit:

~a sunny day with my children~

I just spent the morning helping my older two boys pack for a week of camp.  Their daddy took them to camp as I stayed home with the sleeping baby.  Honestly, I all ready miss them a little as I think over this week being spent with them away.  I know the boys will have fun and I know that they will hear some Good News too but I will miss them all the same. 

When my children were little babies and so dependent on me for everything, I really could not see what our relationships would one day be.  How could I?  This is one of those things that you can’t grasp until you are there.  I really thought that our relationships would always be me feeding, cleaning, giving, doing…and I still do those things…I always will.  But it has changed so much at the same time. 

As my children have gotten older, our relationships have transformed.  Besides just  primarily taking care of their physical needs, the emotional needs also have come into play.  They still need me to feed, clean, and do for them but now they can help me (which lessens my load and prepares them for adulthood) but they also need me to help more with the emotional needs.  They need me to be there for them.

Now I’m not the parent of a teenager yet or a child who has made it to adulthood, so I’m pretty limited on my knowledge & experience here.  But in my twelve years as a mom, I have been so surprised and astonished that as my children have gotten older, they have needed me to be there and listen to them more!  When they are little, we talk &  talk & talk to them but as they get older, it seems that they need us to listen & listen some more. 

Sure, they still need our guidance and counsel.  I still go to my parents for those two things so I don’t see that ever changing.  But they need us to listen to their words.  Really listen.  Sometimes I have to remind myself to close my mouth, be still, stop what I’m doing, and listen to them.

 

Actually the other day, Flower Girl asked me if she could say what I had been babbling on about in a shorter way.  What I had been rambling on and on about, she condensed into a one point-taken sentence.  She didn’t need me to talk at her…she had it.  She needed me to share what little bit of wisdom I may have, listen to her thoughts, let her go, and watch her grow.  When it happened, it made me laugh that she thought I was saying too much but at the same time, it was an “ah-ha” moment. 

I’ve pretty much been rambling in this post the way that I sometimes do with my children so it may seem like I was jumping around a lot.  I probably was ;).  I guess, I’m just feeling like I need to talk about my kids today.  I will miss my older boys this week.  I will miss when Hot Rod makes me laugh with his little jokes.  I will miss when Hunter Boy tells me about some new tidbit that he has been learning.  I will even miss listening about fishing & hunting trips.  I’m thankful for my children and thankful to God for the opportunity to spend these years with them before they leave to begin their own lives.  I guess this week is just the beginning of things to come one day when my older boys will begin lives outside of my home.  May I be ready for those days and may I be diligent to prepare my boys by giving them roots in God’s word as I share with them and listen to them.

~Per his request, Hunter Boy is absent from pictures on this post.  He is reaching the teenager years and at times craves his privacy.  So while I wish that I had a picture of him here, I have respected his privacy.  If you see one of my children omitted from posts, it will be because the child has requested so.~