Loving Life

I love how it doesn't take much to amuse my kids.  It's been hot and dry here for the past while, so the girls are really enjoying playing with their little dolls outside.  Add a little water and the day turns into great fun! They dug a small hole in the lawn and filled it with water to make a little swimming pool for the dolls.  At least part of my lawn is getting watered and looks a bit greener than the rest. Of course, playing in the mud makes one very dirty.  Abby usually is the dirtiest one of the two as she can't seem to keep her dirty hands off the rest of her body.  Ana isn't quite as bad with it.

I turned 33 yesterday.  I enjoy my birthday celebrations each year.  I don't need lots of parties or hype - mainly just a time to be with the people I love the most.  Aaron took me out on a date on Saturday night to celebrate my birthday.  We decided to dress up nicely for once.  Aaron even wore a tie for the first time in a very long time.  Here we are as we dropped the kids off at their friends house to spend the night there. We didn't have a super exciting date by many people's standards, but it was by mine!  We ate out - that right there is all I need to be happy.  Eating out is such a treat for me, we rarely do it.  We also went to my new favorite frozen yogurt place.  Aaron didn't swoon with love over it, the silly boy.  I still was enamored with it.  And since we were already in town and the night was still young, we did the romantic thing and stopped to pick up a few things at Walmart that we were out of (milk, bread, eggs, etc.).  Came home and enjoyed a quiet

In history this week, we are starting off learning of the fall of Rome and that will launch us into the Middle Ages for our study this year.  So we decided to pretend we were Roman soldiers for the night (not very authentically, Aaron might add).  I sent some scouts out ahead of us to find us a good eating spot for the night while I made hobo dinners.  I had also made some dark rye bread to be torn apart as we ate our supper (without silverware, because it wasn't invented yet!).  We did use plates to hold our food to help keep hungry/curious insects away.  The kids all brought out their weapons so that they would be ready to fight at a moment's notice.  Ana really gets into these things and stays in character the entire time. It was fully brought to my attention on day one of school that Ana's preferred learning style is completely different than David.  David easily fits into the traditional public school style of teaching, which makes it easy and comfortable for me to get

Well, we survived day one of school!  It was a mostly good day, with a few challenges along the way.  I'm doing lots of new things this year in terms of scheduling so there may need to be adjustments made along the way.  As of right now, this is our weekly schedule. Last week, we found three monarch caterpillars on a milkweed plant.  We brought them inside to watch them grow up.  It's been quite fascinating to see their rapid growth and the amazing amount of food they eat (not to mention the amazing amount of poop they produce). We provided a nice little habitat for them so they could go into their cocoon.  Here is one getting set up to shed his skin. Friday morning however, a caterpillar had gone missing.  I searched around for it, but couldn't find it.  I thought perhaps Joey, our cat, had gotten it as he was interested in them the night before.  In reality, the caterpillar had just eschewed our hospitality and decided to find his own little place to cocoon.  The kids fo

So I have pictures of things to post and share, but don't have the time right now to put them up.  Just wanted to let you know that today is our first day of school!  The kids are excited and I think I'm ready to go.  I like the beginning of a school year.  This is going to be a good year.  I'll post more once the day is done.  Have a great day!

Yesterday, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed by my to-do list.  But then something magical happened.  These two strangely dressed creatures arrived at my house and without speaking began to clean.  I had something like this happen last year.  It was amazing.  They wouldn't speak to me, but just went about silently cleaning.  I managed to convince them this year to stick around for a little snack as a thank you.  They even let me take their picture this year. Ana and Abby arrived right after the cleaning fairies left.  They said they had been outside playing.  They were surprised to see the house so clean.  But they were disappointed when they asked for a snack and I had to tell them that I gave their snack to the cleaning fairies.  The cleaning fairies visit definitely brightened up my day.  We also went to the city yesterday and stopped off at the library.  I got our first round of library books for school (which will start on Monday!).  Ana was excited about reading them.  The st

Yesterday I was congratulating myself that I was down to one and a half bowls of tomatoes.  They apparently were busy overnight doing something.  I think these will get made into some pasta sauce in the very near future as well as some salsa.  Yea for canning! David continues to read in awkward positions.  He informed me the other day that he thinks he wants to work in a library so he could be near more books.  Unfortunately, our little local library does not have volunteer opportunities for kids right now.  We were disappointed.  However, if he is to work at a library someday, he will need to learn to read in not such random positions.

Every year, I get a surprise from my garden.  The surprise of the year always starts growing in my compost pile.  I see it sprout and let it grow to see what it will develop into.  Last year, I had a bounty of acorn squash from my compost pile.  Here is this year's surprise.  The compost is at the very end of my garden.  You can see it growing towards me and taking over everything there as well as growing up into the lilac bush behind it. Here's a close-up of this year's surprise squash.  I'm not sure what kind it is.  I don't recall eating anything similar to this.  Does anyone know?  Right now they are still kind of small in size - about the size of a softball.  I'm hoping they are edible and not decorative.  I don't think I had any decorative gourds given to me last year, that I can remember. But the bumpiness factor makes me wonder if it's edible.  Here they are up in the lilac bush.  They look like little squash ornaments dangling from the branches

Guess how many pictures I took of David's birthday party?  TWO!  Aren't you impressed?  I took one at the beginning here and one at the end.  We took one of his buddies to an indoor play place that had mini-golf and a play set thing like they have at McDonalds type places, except on a much larger scale.  Here they are playing golf. I LOVED it!  I sat there indoors for two and a half hours and read a book mostly uninterrupted.  It was so delightful!  The girls had fun playing while David and his friend alternated golf and then playing on the jungle gym.  We picked up a few more kids on the way home and they all had fun playing one of those games I despise.  The type where you have to conquer the world and each turn takes approximately 2.5 hours.  Here is picture number two - blowing out the candles on the pathetic castle cake.  It was attacked by cannons during the night before, so I had to do some quick repair work to get it set up again.  I'm definitely not a great cake m

I love the month of August.  It's the time of fresh tomatoes and corn on the cob.  I finally got my first taste of the season of corn. If I had to wait much longer, bad things may have happened.  I also love August because it's my birthday month!  My birthday isn't until the end of the month, but I've taken cues from my dear husband and declare a "birthday season" for myself.  Aaron was born 10 days before Christmas, so his birthday is always getting lumped together with Christmas, so he solved that problem by giving himself a whole birthday season.  It's basically an excuse to do all sorts of fun things for yourself in the name of your birthday.  I fought the concept with him for a number of years before giving in and going along with him as long as I could have my own season as well.  It's been a great thing.  I must admist, he's on to something. So last Thursday, my Mom and I kicked off the official start of my birthday season together.  We sp

Since I seem to have lost my ability to take pictures again - I think taking so many pictures during our vacation did me in - I will now give you post of random questions and answers all about me.  I know you've been dying to find out these little bits of randomness about me, so without further ado, here are the twelve most pressing questions you have all wanted to know. Q: What did you have for supper last night? A: "Summer Stomach" was in full swing last night, so grilled chicken salads it was.  Also had a glass of freshly made lemonade - I decided it was time to turn my lemons into lemonade.  Yum! Q: What would have made your supper perfect? A: Corn on the cob to go with my salad.  Sadly, I have yet to eat a single ear of corn this summer.  I'm nearly wilting from my longing.  I need to find a roadside stand very soon, or just move to a house with a huge yard so I can grow my own field of corn. Q: What is your favorite time of day during the summer? A: Har

So I had meant to take pictures of my latest summer garden creations so you could drool and feel jealous, but apparently I couldn't control the urge to eat it all before the camera made it out.  So you'll have to imagine a fresh peach pie piled high with whipped topping - made from peaches off our own tree.  Then I realized that I had everything ready in my garden to make some fresh salsa.  I used home-grown tomatoes, peppers, jalapenos, onion, and garlic.  I didn't have any cilantro on hand, so I had to use store bought along with some lemon juice and salt.  YUM!  I LOVE fresh salsa and could eat a lot of it.  That's why there is no picture of it.  Because I did eat a lot of it.  And then Aaron ate the rest of it.  Today is grocery getting day as we are out of most staples.  I don't think I've gone grocery shopping since before we left on vacation.  The cupboard/fridge pickings are pretty bare right now.  Time to restock!  My question for you: How frequen