Kindergarten playgroup

Caleb had a playgroup today with some new friends that are going to be going to the same school as he is. They had lots of fun playing together. This is Brady. His dad was just getting home from Japan today so they didn't stay very long, but they had fun in the splash pad and at the park.

Here he is, my big boy all grown up and ready for Kindergarten, almost every day he asks me, "Mom, when do I start school?" He is very ready, I am pretty sure I am ready too.
This is CJ a long time friend of Caleb's. He and Caleb are pretty crazy when they are together and so we (CJ's mom and I) are secretly hoping they are NOT in the same class together. We wouldn't want to do that to the teacher... There was another boy Alex that came late, and for some reason I didn't take his picture....we are going to try and get together one more time before school starts, so hopefully I will be sure and take his picture.
I had to steal a shot of my little Keira. She had lots of fun playing in the water, as always....

This cracked me up. At one point, Caleb and Alex were off playing, so CJ and Chloe started playing together and they were holding hands almost the whole time. I thought it was super cute....who knows what that means.....

Garden Produce

So this is what you get when you neglect your garden for a couple of days....extremely large produce. The girls were so excited to help me carry these in, and I had to take a picture. Chloe carried them like they were babies in the crook of her arm.

Pray for Sharon

I know most of you are family and are the only ones who read this, but I thought I would send you an update on my friend Sharon. Sharon and Matt came to our Sunday School class years ago, so we have known them for quite some time. It is at this time in our lives that we tend to take for granted our health. What seemed like a very healthy man, was instead one on the last days of his life. What would he have done differently? I start to question my attitude towards so many things (husband, cleaning, kids, all the run of the mill daily grind things that seem so daunting sometimes). Then I go to their house and notice all the small things that you wouldn't think twice of in any other situation - 2 sonic drinks in the fridge, Matt's hat and ipod on the counter, leftover food from the last night out they had....a grocery list of the groceries they were planning to get tonight.....things that might annoy you if they were left out, but now are precious memories. I can't imagine what is going through her mind. Matt and Sharon were soul mates. Words don't do them justice, everytime you saw them, you could just tell they were in love, completely and truly in love. Holding hands all the time, Matt took great care of Sharon and vice versa. Matt died this morning at 9:15 from a pulmonary embolism (sp) which is a blood clot in his lungs if I understand correctly. Please pray for Sharon, I think she is very angry especially at God. Life for them had been hard, they had been trying for years to have kids, had a couple miscarriages, and were in the middle of fertility treatments (which were in the refridgerator). My heart breaks for Sharon, but one thing I pray that she holds on to is God's love which I am afraid that she is having a hard time doing right now. Please pray that she feels God's love and doesn't become bitter and hateful towards God. I know it would be very hard not to feel a little anger towards God. I do believe that God puts people in our lives for a season and hopefully they are here for a long season, but sometimes it gets cut short and that is the hard part. Keep her in your prayers. I know I am praying hard for her.

Playing in the rain

So it has rained all day today and Chloe and Keira being the outdoors girls that they are, were determined to be outside. So, it wasn't too cold (obviously being July and all), I let them go outside and play for a bit. They had a lot of fun getting all wet. Just thought I would share pictures of our day at home....

My picky eater

So, Keira is probably my most picky eater. She is 15months old and wants to use a fork to eat. If she sees something she wants to eat, she refuses to eat anything else until you give her the item she wants. Most of the time it is fruit, but in this case it was ice cream. She is in for a rude awakening when she has to eat all her dinner before she gets dessert.....I just took some pics of her eating a chocolate ice cream cone and thought they were too cute not to share.

I got my way, mom and dad are wrapped around my little finger.

Firstfruits

Well, here you have it, the first fruits of my garden. It looks like we are going to have a lot of squash and zucchini, but that might be it, they are overtaking the garden. The carrots are pretty small still, so I will give them more time until I pick any more, but all in all, the veggies taste great!

See - the carrots are small, even Ronald McDonald is bigger.....

Caleb & Chloe are eating the carrots, not the best taste, but they ate them, hopefully they will taste better if they get bigger...we will give them a little more time.
There you have it. I will send more pics if we get bigger carrots, and some peppers.....don't hold your breath though.

Garden Update

Okay, so remember months ago (February 16 to be exact) when I sent a blog saying that I was going to try my hand at gardening? Well, here is what it looks like now. I will admit, I didn't have high hopes for this years garden, but I am quite impressed with what we are going to get. I have learned a few things this year, so next year is sure to be even better. For example, as you can see, my zucchini and squash have pretty much taken over the garden.....so we need to get some of those wire circles so they will grow up instead of out and around. My broccoli got eaten by bugs, so I need to get some kind of bug treatment on the veggies earlier. The green peppers are coming along, next year I will plant actual plants instead of seeds, and the strawberries (of which I am completely surprised that any came up) will be put on mounds instead of just in the ground. We tried to put them in mounds, but apparently not good enough. Anyway, here are some pics of the veggies I have growing. On the right end of the garden there are carrots and they look great, for some reason, I didn't take a picture of them....

zucchini
squash
I think this is where we planted cucumbers, but I am pretty sure that these are not going to turn into cucumbers....any idea what it is? a weed maybe???? I haven't wanted to pull it, just in case....

I was quite surprised to find a strawberry growing on one of my two strawberry plants....I would love to have a whole mess of strawberries next season, here's hoping......okay, I know it is quite small, but I was pretty excited...we may have to split it five ways, but we will enjoy it.

of course, I am always open for suggestions on how to create/grow a better garden....I don't think I did too bad for a rookie though....