School Update

I shared some of my frustrations with our 'school' at home a couple posts ago. Here are some of the things I've tried this week: dropped the sight words & booklets for Princess from Hubbard's Cupboard, and added some FREE worksheets from here to help work on writing her numbers and letters correctly. (J is still always facing the wrong way!) I've also done some of the simplest worksheets and coloring pages for Speedy, as well as picked up some color/shape/theme stuff from Brightly Beaming. Still doesn't all tie together as nicely as I'd like, but the kids are having more fun, and really, no matter what we do that we call 'school' for the day, they are excited when Daddy comes home at the end of the day to tell him about it. :)

Family quality time mowing the lawn: Honey with Daddy:
Speedy wearing the...I don't even know what they're called, but they block the sound!
And Speedy mowing while Princess runs around. She took the other two pics with her Kidizoom camera. I need to investigate if we can improve the pixel quality. Anybody out there have one and have advice??

In the kitchen

I don't know if it's the time of year, or 2nd trimester nesting, or just feeling better after my sinus/ear infection, but we've been spending a lot of time in the kitchen! Here are my three little helpers, ready to help roll out pie crust. First there was one, then two, then the littlest one carried a chair over to stand on as well. Cute, but where am I supposed to stand?? Here was our finished cherry pie--there wasn't quite enough dough for a top and bottom crust, and I didn't feel like making more, so I used a play-do cutter to make these shapes. Not blue-ribbon worthy, but I thought it worked out pretty well!
We've also made apricot jam (with apricot pulp ready to go from my Grandma); salsa; and today tackled crabapple jelly. I've never made it before, thankfully the crabapples were the biggest I've ever seen, so it wasn't too bad. I didn't have any cheesecloth to squeeze the juice from, so used an old clean T-shirt cut into a square. Then for the first time, I tried a hot water bath to seal the jars so I wouldn't have to put them all in the freezer...and it worked! Yeah! Now I have a 5-gallon bucket of apples and some pears to mess with...

Lake Florida (July 26-30)

A quick tour of our family vacation in MN--the occasion was my brother-in-law's 40th birthday, and 32 of us (I think) gathered in this 'cabin' for several days. (I was picturing something more rustic, but it was great!)
Here's the firepit where we roasted smores, did sudoku; and the hill the kiddos LOVED rolling and running down. Over and over. And over.
Hubby and Paul getting the sailboat ready to go out. It was so relaxing! Hubby and I each got a chance to steer.
15 cousins, 1 aunt, and 1 uncle heading across the lake to the candy shop (it happened to be closed).

Hubby, Princess, buddy, and Speedy rowing out on a fishing excursion. Hubby said that by the time he had one fishing pole ready to go, the other kids were bored and wanted to come back. :)
There was also tubing, canoeing, skiing, sand play and lots of sun! Thanks, G & MB!

Round-Up (July 24 & 25)

It was hot out at Latham for the Wehrman cattle round-up, but no one seemed to care. :) Our family and my sis were the first ones out to the pasture, so Hubby requested a stroll through the creek. I thought he meant wading, ankle-high. The kids had a blast, and we even saw several fish.
Princess and her 2 cousins closest in age. They found creek rocks shaped like guns. When I was unpacking at home, I found Princess' rock in our bag. :)
Latham wildlife:
Beautiful sun rays peeking through onto the corral full of cattle, ready to sort and load. It's always so refreshing to get out in the middle of nowhere, see the amazing stars; green pastures and wildflowers stretching as far as you can see...aaah.
Speedy and his buddy took a ride down the long hill with Trucker Tom. :)

Dirty Mouth?

The ongoing saga of Honey and her oral fixation...eating and wearing dirt at Latham with her cousin...
...eatingcvvbnvbvbv (that was the little rascal) and wearing sand...
..going from wading in the creek, to on her belly licking it like a dog. Really.
..messy food face and corn on the cob at a campout with friends.
And we went to the park by my sister's house yesterday afternoon--Honey kept putting the playground pebbles in her mouth. I changed a dirty diaper last night that had many of said pebbles in it. She was wearing a onesie, so I don't think the pebbles could have worked their way in from the outside...but I'm kind of hoping. :)

Splashes of color

In the 100+ degree heat, it's nice to see some color in the flowerbed, even though things are starting to dry up.

The clematis we transplanted from the farm finally bounced back and has some blooms! This purple flower has always been one of my favorites.
The glads keep marching out new blooms and colors every few days, it's been nice they haven't all bloomed at the same time.

Flowers always trigger memories for me, the different ones I remember from my grandma's and mom's homes, the ones we planted and took to the fair for 4-H. One of my goals is to plant a favorite perennial of different family members and have a 'family garden' that way. (that's an idea from a magazine, not an original one, by the way.)

We're Ba-ack!

We've been home from our travels for less than 24 hours, and already Honey has found a crayon to chew up; Speedy had an accident early this morning; and I've managed to dye a pair of Thomas the Train underwear pink.

More details and pictures of all our fun will be posted, soon, I hope. Here's a sunset from Lake Florida, MN to tide you over.

A little of this, a little of that

I am procrastinating with packing for Wehrman Round-up and the trip up to Lake Florida! Just wanted to post a couple things before we take off for awhile.

Bargain of the month: This American flag set marked down in the clearance section at Dillon's--just $4.99! We'd been wanting one, and I couldn't beat that price! A close up of some pretty peach and ruffly red gladiolas from the flower bed:
And proof that Honey is moving her stool wherever she wants to reach up and get into trouble:
That's leftover frosting from a cake, and Speedy figured out she was into something yummy!

Honey is waving hello and good-bye to everyone now, even vehicles pulling in and out of the driveway--very cute. She also recognizes hay bales in fields as we drive by and says, 'ba, ba' (ball).

Since VBS, Princess has been trying to witness to Speedy. She'll out of the blue ask him if he wants to go to heaven or hell. Speedy usually replies, 'stop talking to me!' Good practice for the real world, I guess. Today she asked him if he wanted his sins forgiven, and he said yes. Princess was so excited! I don't know if she has babies on the brain or what, but several times this week I've caught her with her shirt up, trying to get Speedy to nurse. Oh dear.

I'm always hearing about friends who are blogging and I didn't know it--if that's you, let me know your site so I can come catch up!

Hopefully in a week or so I'll be able to update with some fun vacation pictures! Stay cool, we're finally (ugh) reaching the 100s this week!

Power Lab: Aha!

One more day of VBS! The kids had fun with face painting and sno cones at family night last night. They're learning about how Jesus gives us the power to be thankful; help others; be brave; and live forever. And I've learned some other interesting things...

Did you know this would happen if you dropped a package of Mentos in Diet Coke??
Or that this is our pastor? AKA Dr. Boom. Speedy and his cousin are fascinated by him, but for some reason always end up in my lap when he comes out on stage. :)
Or did you know that an orange floats, but a PEELED orange sinks? A can of Diet Coke floats, but a can of regular coke sinks? (Eww.) What do you think about a bowling ball--sink or float?

4th Fun

Oh, the kiddos were SO excited that the 4th of July was finally here, because that meant FINALLY fireworks!! Here is my hubby entertaining them by lighting firecrackers under tin cans to pop them up into the air. Some went as high as the roof! Honey wasn't scared a bit by the noise, and loved being one of the big kids.
Speedy and Princess with sparklers--they could have done this ALL night!
Our 2nd annual 4th craft: this year was coffee filter Fireworks Flowers. Do their massive red Kool-aid moustaches show up on your computer?
Here's Honey on Sunday, wearing a patriotic hand-me-down and beads. She's been wearing LOTS of beads this week. :)
How we spent our day: parade in the morning, family lunch, tried to get the kids to nap, supper here with some of my fam, firecrackers here, watching the city fireworks. A fun day.

More Fishy Pictures

A surprising favorite: the otters. We got to see them being fed live goldfish (I didn't know how that would go over, but it was okay.) And playing with each other. It was pretty fun.
Disappointing: the raccoons were sleeping. This one finally looked around when we were back in the river exhibit a second time. The kiddos were really looking forward to seeing the raccoons for some reason. (Chester in 'The Kissing Hand'? Because a raccoon got the kittens at Grammy's?)
You can barely make out a striped shark at the edge of the tank--this was in the shark petting pool. I did feel a sandpapery shark, and and icky, slimy, yucky sting ray. (shiver)
Honey peeking in a viewing window at her height. She was too active for the stroller; but too active to let loose. :)
Kind of small, but can you find Nemo and his dad toward the lower middle? I'll try to blow this up later.
Thanks for checking out our little trip!

Shark Petting

We've had a 'rainy day' trip planned for awhile, and got our chance on Friday. We went to the Oklahoma Aquarium in Tulsa. The kids were intimidated at first, it was kind of dark and there was a shark suspended from the ceiling--but they were soon enjoying themselves. :) (Sorry for the lack of picture quality.) Here's the coral reef tank:
The shark/sting ray petting tank. Speedy was eager to put his hand in the water--but didn't actually ever want to touch anything. :)

Speedy in front of a very colorful fish:
A tired and hungry Princess by the end of the outing, in front of the seahorses:
We rounded out the day with supper at Braum's, swimming and overnight at a hotel before heading back home.

Frogs

One evening last week, I noticed teeny frogs hopping all over the part of the pool that isn't covered in water. I caught a couple for the kids. But we didn't take very good care of them. I don't know if all the other teeny frogs are back in the pool water now, but I haven't seen them.

In other news, goldfish are back at our house! Speedy got in the mucky cow tank and helped Uncle T catch them. He wasn't squeamish at all about touching them! So there are 3 fish out front in the fishpond and 4 out back in the pool--of course we haven't seen them since they went splashing in. I guess it's an experiment back there.

Did I mention that it's raining and storming AGAIN???

There's No Place Like Home

We've been on the road for almost a week--up to Minneapolis and back. We saw lots of flooding in Iowa, just missed the severe weather on Wednesday as we headed back south. We opted to stop at my sister's that night after we saw the radar and were in her basement for a tornado warning. I really feel like God was watching out for us in our travels that day, especially after seeing the tornado damage in Kansas! Here are couple links to the KSU and Manhattan damage. So weird to see buildings that I've been in messed up like that! Watch the tornado form here. Here's a map of the possible tornado path.

Bright spots

My geraniums I saved all winter have come back wonderfully! The picture doesn't really do justice to their pretty coral color. It's nice to look out my kitchen window and see something colorful, finally. And we have wisteria growing on our west fenceline! I finally goodsearched it to figure out what it was. Smells lovely, but it is toxic!
And our somewhat pitiful garden. The beans we planted are the sparse 2 rows on the left, there are 2 broccoli plants from my dad that were doing quite well till it got so hot. On the right are our volunteer pumpkins and volunteer tomatoes. (This was our compost area last year.)
I've been quite disappointed with so many garden things--the lilac I moved with us got killed by spray-drift, apparently. (As have several of my other annuals). And the flowers I started from seed just peter out after transplanting. Never getting vigorous at all. And many of the plants I mail-ordered do not seem to be alive. There's a replacement guarantee, but I hardly had time to plant them the first time! The rose bush and glads are the things doing the best. Maybe we'll see a few blooms this year. Maybe.