Adventures in Mommyhood

I had a big, ripe tomato waiting for me in the garden. Welcome, BLT season.

Ahhhh... a cold front finally came through and we enjoyed a cool 89 degree day today... felt like heaven.  A week ago, the kids and I met my parents and went camping... in a tent... in 100+ degree weather.  Crazy?  Yes.  But we made it through and I don't think the kids really realized how crazy we were.  They thought it was great- even though we were the only tent-campers in the park and everyone else slept in air condition comfort in their campers.  We did have a fan at night and I actually got cold (really!).  My parents gave us the tent for our anniversary and I am looking forward to using it many times in the future... but not when it is so hot out :) When we arrived, we went straight to the river.  Frozen yogurts were the perfect snack. Helping Grandpa put up the tent... thankfully our site was mostly shaded.  We were also right across from the bathrooms so that we could go hop in for an ice cold shower whenever we needed it. French Toast and sausage on the

Fisher is now back from spending a week in Iowa at my parent's house.  This is the first year he's gone without Claire and I think it was a really good experience for everyone.  I am thankful to have parents who will take my kids on for long amounts of time.  As my children get older, it really isn't so much for my benefit (a break from looking after 3 kids) as it is for theirs (getting to know their Grandparents and having their undivided attention).  After loosing my Grandma this year, I count every moment of her influence on my life as a blessing.  These kinds of blessings are ones that I want to heap on top of my kids every year that they are able to have their Grandparents in their life. One more benefit of having kids spend time apart from their siblings... they are MISSED and APPRECIATED by their siblings!  Tonight, after we had all finished supper together, Claire walked up to Fisher, wrapped her arms around him, leaned her head on his chest and said "

Beach Scene (I'm not sure, but doesn't it look like the fish is trying to catch the girl with a fishing pole??) Self Portrait

Fisher had a full head of hair that needed to be cut by 7 month of age.  Unfortunately, my girls were not as blessed in the hair department.  It took Claire 4 years before she got her first hair cut (thanks in part to curly hair that just kept coiling instead of getting longer, thus disguising the she-mullet).  Holland, who has very straight hair, now is sporting a true she-mullet and I don't know what to do with it!  The other day I realized that I could probably do some low pony-tails. A HUGE improvement!  The trick is getting her to hold still long enough for me to put me in. I can't wait for her hair to get a little longer on the sides so that I can chop it all into a cute page-boy and let it grow out from there, but the side-hair is taking its sweet time, while the hair and back seems to be longer every day.  What to do... what to do????

My garden is causing me a bit of stress lately.  I'm afraid the heat has been too much for my tomato plants and they are refusing to bear fruit.  One plant doesn't even have blossoms.  However, they are so tall that they have slumped over their cages and 3 of my 6 plants have snapped off major branches.  My cucumber plants is still laden with blossoms, but squirrels have been eating every teeny tiny cucumber they can find.  Bummer.  My zucchini plant is getting even huger and has 3 or 4 little zucchini growing, but my pepper plants (all 5 of them) do not have a single pepper growing on them them.  I may be over-fertilizing them, so from now on, they are getting  no extra TLC from me.   Luckily, our church opened up some land for a community garden this year and I decided to plant some things just in case my backyard garden was a flop.  Thank goodness!  So far my tomato plants are loving the sun out there and I have 2 acorn squash plants that are full of tiny baby squas

Our 4th of July was.... HOT,  Parade, Nap, Cherry Pie, HOT, Pool, Neighbors, Steak, Halibut, Garden Veggies, HOT, Fireworks, Ice Cream Dessert, Bed. (Isn't that a sorry picture to represent such a great day?  I think in this one you can see the HOT in our day quite well)  :)

The summer seems to have gotten away from me.  I had all sorts of plans for the perfect summer system .  I had in mind lots of fun, lots of chores, lots of reading, and lots of bonding.  June was such a busy month with baseball and camps and golf lessons, gymnastics, piano, etc, etc, that I felt like I was just chasing my kids around and wishing for bedtime.  I know it wasn't all that bad, really, but I still felt the need for a "do-over." Yesterday was July 1st, and so I sat down and gave some thought to the month.  I printed out calendars for each of the kids and labeled the days that they were in day-care and the days they had activities or were going to be gone.  Then I filled out a couple of chores for each of them to do.  By doing it ahead of time, I was able to really look at what our days were going to be like and pick chores that would be well suited for that day and time in the week.  Today, chores went great.  It is almost like the kids didn't begrudge me