family help

My parents came into town Thursday night, with my sister. Which was perfect timing, because by Thursday night I was having a MAJOR poison ivy breakout. I went to the doctor Friday and got on prednisone, which didn't seem to make a difference at all yesterday. I was pretty shot the whole day due to a lack of sleep and being super itchy. Today my parents got me some Zenfel. Which really helped with the itchiness and between that and the prednisone I think things are toning back a bit. I think I got the poison ivy from the bees.....I can't figure out how else I ended up with it all over my arms a legs. It's especially bad on my right side, which is where there were more bees. My parents took all the kids to a state park for a hike today while Nathan and I cut down a few trees and did some none casual cleaning up of the yard. I was in pants and long sleeve shirt, just to be on the safe side :-) But the moral of the story is I'm very thankful my parents are in town for the weekend, because it's been really helpful!

itchy

Did you know bee stings itch really bad the day after you get them? And today, I found I also have poison ivy. I probably got it Monday as well.....Nathan said I can no longer "casually" clean up the yard. I didn't have long sleeves or jeans one when cleaning up on Monday, I figured I'd make myself useful while the kids were watching the crew dig. Anyway, Evie and I have been quite itchy the past couple days. Yesterday was bad, very bad, today was slightly better, except for the poison ivy coming out and starting to itch. But I was much more functional today, so my house is slightly cleaner for the arrival of my parents and sister tomorrow :-)

sting

Today as the kids were watching the workers lay conduit I was doing some yard clean up. I pulled up a bunch of thorn bushes and I was pulling down a dead branch when I was swarmed....by bees. Fortunately it was only bees, so they could only sting once. One of the workers sprayed me down as I had a small swarm following me. I ended up with 16 stings (I think, it's kind of hard to count them), on my legs, arms and neck. Evie ended up with one on her leg and Kaleb got a bee in his ear, but I don't think it managed to sting him. He seems to be doing fine now. We got a complementary can of bee and wasp spray from the crew :-) Wasn't that nice of them? They also were going to attempt to spray the hive, which we think is underground. As I was pulling up the torn bushes one of them offered to have the mini-excavator come over and dig them up for me, I declined, but it was a nice offer. I guess that's what happens when you bring them cookies and various goodies regularly! That's our adventure for the day so far, and I think that's enough of an adventure for me for one day!

dress up fun

As I've mentioned the girls have been hanging out with our neighbor Hannah, one of the things they've been doing, besides catching frogs and riding bikes is playing dress up. Here's a picture of the five kids all dressed up!

Here are the girls and boys, with our neighbor Hannah.

Swimming Lessons - Complete

We had our last swimming lesson on Wednesday. The pool was 70 degrees all this week, so it really was just too cold to do anymore. Wednesday was warm, so everyone got in, Monday only Hannah got in. Evie was only in for a few minutes, so I only got her doing freestyle, but she has a legal breaststroke kick, and does a nice elementary backstroke, along with backstroke and freestyle. But I did get video of Hannah and the boys :-) The boys were a little cold as well, so they wouldn't do too much for me. I did not edit the videos, they are all pretty short, but you might not want the sound on :-)

Hannah doing the backstroke

Hannah doing freestyle

Hannah doing elementary backstroke

Evie doing freestyle

Here are the boys doing bubbles and putting their faces in. 

responsibilty

How do you teach responsibility? How long to you punish a child for when they are irresponsible with their things? Hannah had an almost brand new bike, we got it from a neighbor and it was in excellent condition. She's been riding it like crazy which is great, but she hasn't been using the kickstand and has been just dropping the bike on the ground. I have told her multiple times not to drop it and to use the kickstand...well Thursday it finally had it's last drop, she bent the gear, the bike wouldn't peddle and the chain came off. We haven't had time to try and take the entire gear assembly apart to try and pound it back flat again, so I haven't let her use her bike. We have a smaller bike that she could use.....but I haven't let her yet. Evie and our neighbor Hannah who my Hannah has been riding with have been really nice about not riding since she can't......so I'm not even sure it's worth not letting her use the bike, as it doesn't seem to make much of a difference....

Turtles

I knew we had frogs, toads, snakes, chipmunks, turkeys, deer, moles, mice etc around here, but I did not realize we have turtles! Apparently closer than I think. Today when they were digging up our yard to put more conduit in (yes, they're still working in our yard) they found turtle eggs! They re-buried them, so we'll see if they hatch or not. They knew it was turtle because not all the eggs survived the rude discovery. The turtle in that one was big enough to walk away on it's own, but they don't think it made it far.

pancakes

The girls saw a picture of pancakes yesterday and commented that we hadn't had pancakes in forever, so this morning when they got up they asked for pancakes. And I made blueberry pancakes. The kids all decide to sit right next to each other at the table and it was super cute. So here they are eating their blueberry pancakes!

rainy day fun

Wednesday it rained for about 5 hours, so the kids, not letting it stop them went out to play.

Hannah and Evie coming back from seeing if our neighbor could play. Kaleb ran down the driveway to meet them and walk back with them.

They decided to stop for a drink. Wondering why Kaleb's shirt is so muddy? He mad a puddle in the driveway and then laid down in it and said he was swimming :-) Don't worry, it all came out in the wash!

Smile Damen! Umm....that's not really a smile.....

Of course they had to catch some frogs and brought them up to the deck.

cool moth

When we got home from Boston on Saturday we saw this cool moth.

Nathan took the picture. Not bad eh? 

It's a Pandorus Sphinx. The wing span on the moth is 3 1/2- 4 1/2 inches. It's big and beautiful! I'm starting to like the small town in the woods a little more, and having the opportunity to be up close to some really cool parts of God's creation!

if only it was that simple

Today one of the girls friends form the neighborhood was over and she asked Hannah about which boy hit more...Damen likes to hit, this may or may not have something to do with Hannah patting/hitting them on the back regularly, Hannah said Damen and then our neighbor asked "Did your parents teach him not to hit?" Hannah said "yes" neighbor "while they didn't do a very good job!"
If only parenting were that simple and you just had to teach something once and it's done and learned!

Weekend fun

On Saturday we went to visit my sister, brother in-law and their new baby! The boys, especially Damen loved the baby. All he wanted to do was hold her. Unfortunately, Lily didn't feel the same way. She cried pretty much the entire time whenever he held her, but he didn't mind one bit. I left my camera at home, so I don't have any pictures :-( But maybe I'll get some from my sister and can put them up soon! All the kids except Evie fell asleep on the way home. They were all exhausted. It was a long but fun day with family.

Fall!

See?

The leaves are turning!

And falling to the ground! So it must be fall right?

leaf art

The girls have been spending a lot of time outside, if I hadn't mentioned that :-) Which results in lots of creativity. Here is some "leaf art" they did on the porch the other day.

They used a rock to cut the holes out of the leaves and then colored them with chalk

what would you do for a klondike bar?

We bought some klondike bars a couple weeks ago on sale. Ice cream is WAY cheaper here than in Houston, at least during the summer. It's terrible....mainly because we eat more than we should :-) Did I mention this year we're having Sunday Summer Sundays? Every Sunday we're having ice cream Sundays during the summer. Anyway, back to the klondike bars.....my girls cannot remember ever having a klondike bar....I really think they have, at least once, but maybe only once before...but we really had to fix this memory blockage, because what is life without klondikes? Nathan and I did have a discussion however if we were allowed to give our kids klondikes because both of us remember getting them at our grandparents house :-) (Thanks G&G!) Anyway, last night we gave them one, an oreo one, which I had never had before. It wasn't bad, they are a lot smaller now than they used to be too....but that's besides the point.

Here are the girls enjoying their klondike bars with Nathan!

We didn't make them do anything for their klondike bar this time, but next time I think we will :-)

reptiles...and other creatures

I sent the girls on their own with my camera to the last library program of the summer. It was another program with live animals. Focused on reptiles.

 Apparently it had spiders....as well :-)

I think these are bearded dragons?

Or maybe this one is?

I think this is a salamander

A snake....

 A bigger snake :-)

Evie took all the pictures...not bad huh? They said they got to pet almost all the animals. One they said they did not get to pet was the scorpion. They had fun and got to sit with a bunch of friends from church while the boys and I hung out downstairs.

matching

My kids love to match, the girls are matching today in jeans and a white shirt...I didn't get a picture sorry. We just got a bunch of hand-me-downs for the boys and there were a few pairs of matching pajamas. The boys were very excited.

 They came running out of the girls room

And here they are. My cute matching kids! (Damen, Kaleb, Evie, Hannah, if you can't tell :-) )

Kettle Corn

There are some things you should never look up.....On Monday, I was teaching swimming lessons at my friends house and she had been to a fair the week before and had kettle corn, good kettle corn. Kettle corn like I had never had before. In general I am not a kettle corn fan, but this was good, really good. So today I went to make popcorn and I thought, I should look up how to make kettle corn and see how hard it is. Well, I did, and I found out it is WAY too easy to make. As in, all you do is add some sugar to what I was already doing to make popcorn. Who knew? Did you know it was that easy? I think we'll be having kettle corn a little more often (than never) now. :-)

Frogs and Friends

Yesterday I helped the girls round up some of the neighborhood kids to hang out with. They all started out on bikes, so we had seven kids, ages 3-11 riding around. The boys were on their trikes, everyone else was on a two wheeler. It was kind of crazy, but lots of fun. I think it's how a neighborhood should look, with a pack of kids riding around on bikes, right? Anyway, they all got hot from that, so they ended up in our yard, catching frogs and then eating lunch with us and spending some time in the girls room as well. Apparently all the kids around here catch frogs for fun :-) Today the girls went over and hung out at one of their houses. It's great that they are getting old enough to go and see if friends can play on their own!

Motivation

Sometimes all it takes to do something new is the right motivation. Friday our neighbor brought over a bike that was too small for her and offered it to us. We have a couple bikes that size, but this was a pink barbie bike. I went ahead and let Evie take it, as long as she agreed to ride it. Today she decided she was going to ride it, so I went out with her to "help" her learn how to ride a two wheeler. I had tried once before earlier this summer and she didn't really want anything to do with it. Today, with the new bike to ride on I helped hold the bike a couple times and then she got frustrated with me and told me to stop helping. It took her about five minutes and then she was off. As in, could get herself started and ride along pretty much continuously without any issues. We went by the neighbors house and thanked them for the bike, and she came out to ride with the girls. All three of them are riding now and Nathan went out to see how well Evie is doing. 

getting dressed

We have been working with the boys on getting dressed on their own the past couple weeks. Today I told the boys to go get dressed, no other direction. Damen came out dressed in shorts he wore yesterday and the shirt Kaleb wore yesterday on inside out :-) But hey, he was dressed, and he did do it on his own. Kaleb I had to convince a little more that he actually wanted to get dressed, so he ended up with a little more direction. I told Damen to take off the clothes he had and get new ones out of his dresser. He did, but lost his underwear in the process. But that's okay, we're getting much closer. At least they can get their clothes on on their own now!

The week of the dentist

This week we've been to the dentist/orthodontist three times so far and we're scheduled to go again tomorrow. People ask me what we've been doing this summer, my answer has pretty much been swimming lessons and the library. Maybe I should start to include keeping our dentist and orthodontist employed? Hannah had a check up on Tuesday with the orthodontist and he's ready to move to phase two which is a semi-permanent retainer on the bottom.  She had a cleaning on Wednesday, where they found she had holes in the sides of her molars which is apparently a fairly common problem. So they wanted to fill those, but they happen to be on the teeth they were going to fit the bands to on Saturday, so we had to have the fillings done Thursday, today we had off and tomorrow we will see the orthodontist again. At least the boys have been well behaved, and they enjoy watching whatever is done. One of the assistants even complimented me on how well behaved they were, of course she didn't see them going crazy while waiting in the room for the dentist to come in, but that's okay :-)