Made Me Smile Monday

{a  snapshot from my week. with or without words. something exciting. something ordinary. something special. something silly. just something. that made me smile this week. a memory to brighten my day. to make me smile again. even though it's MONDAY!}

soooo proud of his dirty knees.

he finally got to slide into base. 

he's been waiting for his chance all summer!

Made Me Smile Monday

{a  snapshot from my week. with or without words. something exciting. something ordinary. something special. something silly. just something. that made me smile this week. a memory to brighten my day. to make me smile again. even though it's MONDAY!}

boys devouring a fresh stack of books from the library

always good stuff

hope your week is off to a terrific start!

How to completely exhaust an entire family....

.....in one week or less.

Start with a trip to the Ballgame on Monday. Make sure it is at least an hours drive, maybe two, and doesn't start until little people are starting to show signs that it's almost bedtime. Arrive back home sometime after midnight.

So it rained and they lost but what did we care, we were in the best of company! (And besides all that, we got free bobble heads. Yippee! please read that with a heavy dose of sarcasm. one would have been plenty, we got 6!)

If the final week of school is still in session, the craziness that is parties and field day and desk emptying will speed up the process. Of course we were up and at 'em and ready to meet the bus at 7, why not?


Squeeze in a picnic on Tuesday evening, just to hold you over till the weekend.

When the last day of school FINALLY arrives, try to do 2 days worth of work in 3-4 hours and then head off for a sleepover with the whole fam. In less then 24 hours include all of the following activities....
picnic supper feasting...

building lego creations...sandbox adventures...swimming...

general craziness...campfires...marshmallow roasting...

running..bike riding...tractor driving...

 
outdoor movie night on the big screen (er, um, side of the barn. and yes, that means the movie only started at 9 p.m.)...6 little boys sleeping out in a tent...airplane rides...

picture taking...wrestling...ice cream making.........

massive coffee consumption...catching up and reconnecting.


Getting up early for Yard Sales with the sisters is a must! A successful morning indeed!

 ***Bunny trail....My normal policy is not to buy things just because they're cheap unless I have a pretty good idea what I will do with them. But I made an exception for this treasure. She begged me, pleaded actually, to rescue her from that pile of stuff, to save her from an embarrassing end in the thrift store pile.  I just couldn't leave her there. Any suggestions how to do justice to her beauty? What would you do if she had adopted herself into your home?

Early morning excursions will leave your stomach grumbling for a big tasty brunch before everything is packed up, cleaned up and hauled back home.

Just in time to prepare for another dinner party on the lawn. Again with the best of company and plenty of special treats for the visitors from afar.

Dash sweaty, dirty, little people through the bathtub long after bedtime so they're ready for as much church sitting as you  dare to brave before a sleep deprived melt down is inevitable.

Squeeze in a little nap and then head off to help Celebrate Uncle Mike's 40th birthday.

I'm guessing by now you've figured out why I haven't been blogging much lately. So much fun to be had and so many memories to be made while my brother and his family are here for a few weeks before the go back to Ghana.

We're laying pretty low today. It's our first official day of summer vacation. We stayed in bed until after 7! I'll do a little laundry, if I feel like it. I'll rock an exhausted little girl to sleep. I'll serve leftovers and cold cereal. I'll figure I still have 3 more days to cook, pack and organize before family member fly up from Florida and we head off on our next adventure.

How does your garden grow??

It happens every year. It's kind of becoming a tradition around here. The first warm days of Spring/Summer roll around and my inner gardener crawls out from the deep dark place where it's been hibernating. Off I head to the greenhouse to pick up "just a few" flowers to brighten up around the yard. Two hours and an empty wallet later I return, my arms loaded with bright cheery blooms. I plant them, carefully planning the red and yellow pattern and making sure the taller ones are in the back and the shorter ones near the front. I dream of how nice the place will look when the grow and spread, of how they will be full of beautiful buds that I will pick to enjoy on my kitchen table.

And then, as predictable as the sunrise, I get busy with other things. School is out, the laundry is piled up, there are picnics and ballgames and who knows what else. And I loose track of how long it's been since those cheery blooms were watered, 'really, it's been 2 weeks since I did that, seems like 2 days.' I promise myself that I'll get to it tomorrow but then they say we might get some rain so I'll wait. I'd much rather let the good Lord do the watering, He's much better at it anyway. You get the picture. And so, by the 4th of July I have a few weary looking, droopy, stems scattered here and there, as the weeds, hearty as ever, fill in in between.

That would be a silly face, not a tantrum. Just in case you weren't sure!

And that's when I admit to myself (again) that flower gardens and I were just not made for each other. My 'green thumb' is completely MIA. And the best of intentions never get me anywhere. I promise myself that next year I will not spend good money on those things just to give them over to a torturous death. I mean, really, I should know better by now! Maybe someday when I don't have little children any more I'll have pretty gardens but not now.  But.....(see first paragraph! :)

Actually, last year I did pretty good. I bought just a couple of things to put in planters on my porch, that's it! And though they never got what I would call, bushy and full of blooms, they did kinda survive most of the summer.

 

This week we finally borrowed a truck and got a bit of mulch for the flowerbeds around the house. After all the cleanup, weeding, whacking and projects we've done outside, it finally starting to look like somebody cares. The mulch added such a nice finished touch, I just couldn't resist putting some color to it. So off to the greenhouse I went.

Only time will tell, will this year be just like all the rest? or will my resolve hold on for 3 weeks instead of one. Ha! I do have two very willing little waterers now. Jobs that involve water always seem to be more of a hit. But they also require a change of clothes and possibly a mop on the kitchen floor by the time they are finished. And my experience with little boys is that the job they beg to do today they whine miserably about next week. Maybe this is unique to my house??

I LOVE flowers, I do, and maybe someday I will have time to water and weed so that my gardens will look like the ones in my dreams. But for this summer, I'll settle for 'hey, at least a few of them made it!'

Or maybe next year I'll stick with this  ^^^ kind of decorating.  Nothing to kill.

While I was planting I discovered I little nest in one of the bushes by the front porch. Poor Mama bird may be regretting her choice to reside there. I've come to the conclusion that we will scare each other, she and I, every. single. time. I go out past there. She flutters out to a nearby tree and squawks at me until I move away from her territory. It would be fun for the boys to watch little birdies hatch though, if she doesn't get freaked out enough to abandon it.

Since this....

....is fast becoming our Sunday evening entertainment of choice, some bright bushy blooms would add and nice touch to the atmosphere! Don't you think??

 
 This is what has been keeping me busy this week. Almost 70 lbs. picked (with a couple of good helpers!) 27 quarts in the freezer for smoothies, 20 pints of jam and one tasty shortcake (so far!) Mmmm! With the hectic summer of moving we had last year I didn't do much canning and freezing, knowing we'd have to drag it all with us.  So it's great fun to watch the freezer begin to be restocked!

Made Me Smile Monday

{a  snapshot from my week. with or without words. something exciting. something ordinary. something special. something silly. just something. that made me smile this week. a memory to brighten my day. to make me smile again. even though it's MONDAY!}

 *soil*

 *seeds*

*sunshine*

& happy little helpers!

What's Happening

Visiting Great Grandma and resident birds. (I just love the little tip-toes.)

What to do with little boys who are exhausted on a rainy day. Too bad that whole idea that, perhaps they will fall asleep didn't happen. At least it was a mostly whiny free hour.

First refreshing mint tea of the year. Mmmm! (I must find me some to plant here! Once upon a time I had a huge patch but all of our moving and shuffling means I haven't had that luxury for a few years now. I miss it!)
 

A shiny new kitchen faucet. Thanks to DH for his installation efforts. It was not an easy project. There may or may not be a new nick in the already battered kitchen floor from a flying wrench. But several hours and 4 trips to the hardware store later, I now have a faucet which expels water only from the appropriate place and not in a run down under the cabinet fashion.

An experiment with grilling asparagus receives much better reviews from the crew than I imagined. Even the Little Miss (who seems to have an aversion to all things green and healthy) requested seconds.

The end of a spring flag football season offered by the local high school. Fun times for the boy and a 4 and 1 record for the team.

Pillow fights are so last year....Bring on the sock fights!! Crazy brothers + laundry day  + wrestling = good times!! They seriously played this together for close to an hour. (And they are back for round two this morning.) It's so fun to watch them build close ties and brother memories!

"Hycle" ridin' Cutie. Next trip to the hardware store will be for a chain and lock. This girl is a little Wild Child!

Another baking project for me today and then hopefully time for some sanding and paintbrush magic. Stop back later for details! What's on your to-do list today?

Happy Wednesday!

Please Pass the Salt

It's a dreary morning here. The forecast said sunny and warm for today. This is NOT what I pictured. But it's okay. I hadn't told the kids that I was thinking it would be a good day for a picnic in the park, yet. So they have nothing to be disappointed about and I'll enjoy my second cup of coffee (it really should have a sweet pastry something to accompany it but apparently the baker around here has been busy somewhere else. too bad!)

We participated in our first School Fundraiser Auction over the weekend. Since it's our first year at the school we didn't really know what to expect or where to plug in with our volunteering. We (Garry and I) decided to each sign up for one time slot, he choose the Chicken BBQ on Friday evening and I decided I could probably handle a couple of hours at the bake stand. (Note to self--Good choice! Selling whoopie pies and homemade bread requires a lot less energy at 7:30 a.m. than serving up made-to-order omelets. Additional note to self--Get there in time to enjoy one of those omelets before your volunteer shift next year.)

part of my contribution to the bake sale

One of my goals for the weekend was to use this chance to get to know some of the other patrons. Since T is in 5th grade there aren't a lot of parent volunteer opportunities in his classroom and I haven't been able to meet many of his friends and their families. The Bake Stand turned out to be a great chance to do just that.  I got to work with a few of the other Moms and since we weren't all that busy it gave me a chance to get to know them a bit. Plus I got a chance to meet lots of friendly shoppers. If I had a dollar for every person who came up to me and said something like "Hi, you're our new neighbors aren't you? We live just up the road and we see your kids get off the bus," Or "Aren't you the people that just moved in close to us? We saw you out working in the yard," I could have bought one of those delicious looking strawberry pies I was selling to everyone else.

ongoing yard project--mentioned above--I think they'll have plenty to watch for a long time

So it seems, that we are being watched. Yeah, that's a little unnerving but we do live right along the road at a fairly well known intersection in our little town so I guess it's to be expected. And then after the auction on Saturday my hubs came home to mow our needs-it-badly yard. We've been having all sorts of trouble with our mower this spring and he spent the whole afternoon trying to get it started again with no luck. Finally about 5:00 the neighbor across the street came over with his very nice John Deere mower and offered it to us. His words "It's been 2 weeks, it's time to get it mowed now." Wow, I didn't realize there was a lawn code in the neighborhood, or that they were keeping track for us. :o) Don't get me wrong, it was a very kind offer and much appreciated for sure!  But it's made me realize just how much we are being watched. Not just how my yard looks but how my children are behaving (or not) while they are playing in the yard. And even more important how I am dealing with those children when they are behaving or NOT.

 Are we as a family "salting" our little part of the world? Are we preserving kindness, honesty, integrity,  'treating others as we want to be treated,' patience, love, joy and the like, around here? Are we flavoring our neighborhood with a good flavor? Or have we lost our "saltiness?" Have we forgotten what's really important in life? Have we left bad habits take over and unchecked responses slip out? Am I  too busy with the urgent (weeds to pull, dinner to make, laundry to finish) that I forget to take time for the important (swings to push, little 'helpers' who make things take twice as long, patience to teach and not just correct.)

The chorus to a song I learned as a child has been spinning through my head all week.

Somebody follows you, Watching the things you do.

Walk in the Light and be pure in His sight.

Somebody follows you.

It doesn't matter where you are, who you are, or what stage of life you're in. There is always someone 'following' you. Someone watching to see if your walk and your talk are gonna add up. Maybe even someone who wants to be 'just like you.' Remember to guard your heart, watch your steps and keep your salt shaker ready!

You are the salt of the earth. Matthew 5:13