First Day of School

Yesterday was the first day of school. I can't believe summer break has been here and gone. I wasn't one of the moms who were marking off days on the calendar waiting for the kids to go back. They help me out so much and I am going to miss them dearly. The house will be much quieter that is for sure!

Jake is a sophomore this year. That is hard to type let alone say. He is growing up so fast and is such a responsible kid. He passed Driver's Ed this summer and is eagerly saving his money to buy a car.Tony is in 8th grade. I am excited for him to get back into a routine and have some structure to his day. He is a little reluctant to return to school but came home in a great mood yesterday and seemed very excited. Let's hope it lasts.My lil' Bro man started kindergarten. I am sad to see him gone all day. I will miss him so much. We have spent almost every day together for almost 6 years. He was thrilled to start school though and I know he will love it. (Special post about his first day coming soon.)

Blueberry Picking

The kids and I spent a morning at the berry patch a few weeks ago. We picked about 10 lbs of blueberries. The kids love blueberries. I am not a huge fan of store bought blueberries but these berries are wonderful! You can definitely tell the difference when you buy them fresh and local.The boys of course ate way more than they picked. In fact I think Drew's bucket was completely empty the entire time. Anything he did pick went straight to his mouth. Tony and Brodie did a little better and did contribute some.
When we got home I bagged some up for the freezer to add to smoothies and muffins later on. I also made Emily a large batch of baby food with them.

An evening at the park

The weather has been beautiful in the evenings the last week or so. We spent one evening at the park with all the kids. It was great. The little boys rode their bikes, Jake ran and walked with us, Tony roller bladed and Emily was completely happy being pushed around in her stroller.

She is just so sweet!
We ventured away from the park and decided to take a stroll around the block. Drew was super excited when he found a night crawler on the sidewalk. He even rode around with it for awhile before finally "setting it free". I'm pretty sure the night crawler was glad to be released.I will be happy when Fall weather gets here. We love being out doors but my family is fair weathered people. If it's too warm then no one has fun and everyone is crabby. Evenings like this are wonderful. Perfect, relaxing and just plain make ya feel good.

Emily Joy 9 Months Old

Hard to believe our baby girl is almost walking! She is 9 months old now. She has been pulling herself up to furniture for almost a month now. She also just stands up on her own in the middle of the room. I am sure it won't be long before she takes those first wobbly steps.
She has been teething. Her third tooth just broke through over the weekend. She is trying to get all 4 teeth on top at once. She has been pretty miserable with this.
When we went in for her 9 month check up last week she was 17lbs 12 oz (20th % for her age) and 26 inches long (13th % for her age). She also was diagnosed with her first ear infection and "really red throat". She is alot smaller than her brothers were. She is just a dainty little girl!

Pool Parties

We have awesome neighbors. A few years ago they put in an above ground pool. They are kind enough to call and invite us over when they aren't using it. It has been an awesome treat for us this year since we have had such a hot summer. Plus, you can't beat the price! It is so expensive to take our family to a public pool so I appreciate the fact that all this has cost me is some produce from my garden! (Given because I wanted too, not because they asked.)The boys love the water. The water is 4 feet deep so they wear their life jackets and can just bounce around without us having to hold onto them.
Emily has been getting used to the water too. It is very relaxing for her. On more than one occasion this is how she ends up.

First Camping Trip of the Year

A couple weekends ago we went on our first camping trip of the year. We had wanted to do alot of camping this summer, but the summer is quickly getting away from us. The weather has been so dreadfully hot. We finally had a decent weekend and nothing on the calender so we took advantage of it.

We headed to Spring Lake in Jefferson Iowa. I had never been there before but Will had camped there as a child. He remembered it for the 1920's skating rink that is right by the lake. Unfortunately it is only open on Friday and Saturday nights and we camped on Sunday so we will have to make a trip back to be able to see it open.

We had an awesome camp site right next to the water. It was perfect.We got there around noon on Sunday and after setting up camp we headed out to find firewood. Once the wood was found we headed to the beach. The had a nice clean beach and an ice cream store where we each enjoyed a cone.

Brodie helped Dad get the fire started for dinner.We made one of my favorite camping meals, hobo meals. Stew meat, potatoes, onions and green peppers. Mmmm.Of course we had to have s'mores right after dinner. The best part of camping.We stayed up late that night and fished from the shore. We didn't catch any fish but I caught a metal fishing pole holder. I guess it's something. During the night we had a visitor. I thought we did pretty good getting all the food packed up.
If you click on the picture you can see footprints across our tablecloth. I guess coons like night crawlers. Who knew? They ate the whole container. This was our view Monday morning. Peaceful.
Breakfast consisted of eggs and little smokies. Even more wonderful when cooked on an open fire. Tony found a piece of wood to write down all our information on. His grandparents did this when they used to camp. We will pack the wood with us and take it on our next camping trip and use it to help start the fire.
The 3 younger boys. Jake didn't go with us cause he stayed at a friends house. And Emily, well I am holding her as I take the picture.
We had a great time and I hope that we can fit in a few more camping trips yet this year.

4H

Tony joined 4H in the Spring. He joined his cousins group, which is a newer group just getting started. He had some big plans for projects he wanted to enter in the county fair. First he was going to do rabbits, but that just wasn't going to work. I love animals but adding another animal at this time just isn't reasonable.

He really wanted to restore a piece of furniture but we just didn't get started in time. So, he has always liked photography so we taught him a few things about our camera and turned him loose. He ended up snapping some pictures of our chickens and picked a silhouette picture of one of the birds to submit to the Polk county fair.

He was a little nervous to have his picture judged, but the judge gave him some good pointers and he felt really good afterwards.

He ended up winning a red ribbon for his photo. From what I can tell blue ribbons are awarded to participants whose photos meet all the standards; quality of photo, centered, lighting, focus, etc. Red ribbons are awarded to those who meet some of the standards but could use a little more work.

Tony was extremely proud and excited as he should be.