Splish, splash

 The kids had fun yesterday at Grammie and Pap Pap's house setting up their new swimming pool.  In spite of the chilly water, they must have been in for at least 2 hours all together!  It was the perfect day for it too with the hot temperatures.

 Reese had her mask and snorkel and was snorkeling in 12 inches of water.

 We heard a funny statement on the radio this morning on the way to church.  The asked the question, "Who do you think is more content, someone with a million dollars or someone with 12 kids?  The answer is, someone with 12 kids...because they don't want any more."

Camp Week Ends...

Ahhh, summer always passes by too quickly!  As fast as it seems it started, camp week is already over. The kids had a blast at VBS this year and are definitely sad to be finished already.  Sienna and I had fun on some little outings to Sewickley and the new Boathouse Restaurant at North Park that I had wanted to try. It was a good change of pace for everyone.

The kids enjoyed spending so much quality time with their best friends.  They are really going to miss seeing them every day!

Ice Cream on a warm night...

Checking out a lightning bug

The Help

It's a jungle out there...quite literally!  We've been seeing all kinds of fun critters in the yard lately and the kids are enjoying it.  Sienna wants to peek in on the baby blue bird every day.  His two siblings already left so I'm guessing he won't be sticking around for much longer.  We saw a flicker and another rose breasted grosbeak over the weekend.  It's cool when you stop and pay attention to all the different animals you see every day.  We also were trying to attract some blue jays with peanuts, which worked yesterday...but today we had another visitor cashing in on the free food....Derrick's favorite chipmunk.  I guess he tired of eating all my tulip bulbs...sigh.

Flicker

Rose Breasted Grosbeak

Baby Blue Bird

The peanut thief!

My little "helper"

Sienna has been such a little helper lately...she always wants to be doing whatever we are...which is actually, usually, not very helpful at all.  Like the other morning, for example, when she "helped" take her diaper off, which was pretty wet, and was just standing by the open front door, totally buck naked.  Ugh!

She has gotten used to and now really enjoys going out with me to get the mail every day.  It's gotten to be a little scary almost though, how eagerly she anticipates this small task.  She must have razor sharp hearing when it comes to our mail truck, because she hears it when it's still half-way down the road and yells out "MAIL!!!  GET IT!" over and over again.  As soon as it's delivered we have to go out and get it and the minute she has it in her grasp, she starts on a ripping spree. She is mad if I take any letters away from her, she loves to tear them all open.  Usually I'll leave her on the floor with a pile of junk mail and return a few minutes later to find it shredded into bits all over the floor.

She helped me clean up breakfast by pulling a chair over to the counter, grabbing an enormous slice of watermelon, and trying to eat it, which meant most of it ended up on her shirt and on the floor.  She helped me make dinner today by tasting all the carrots I was peeling. Apparently they were quite tasty!  She also helped me make chocolate chip cookies by waiting for me to walk away from the mixing bowl and reaching her hand into the raw dough, scooping out a big handful, and smashing it all over the counter.  Yummmmm...

She loves to "help" with the laundry...which means she throws it completely unsorted into the washer and sometimes the dryer.  She will randomly sneak in a dirty shirt when I'm throwing the clean clothes into the dryer, leaving me to pick through every item to find the one dirty thing.  That's fun!  She loves to unfold a huge pile of just-folded laundry...I see her coming and I cringe.

Tonight she helped call the older kids to dinner by yelling, over and over, "Guys!  It's ready".  At first I wasn't sure what she was saying, but that was definitely it and it cracked me up.  She's getting to be so big!

This was a total "Pin Win"!!!  I've had some major flops lately, but this was easy and the kids LOVED doing it.  It didn't take very long and the finished shirts are actually pretty cool.  They did fade a bit after washing but are still really cool.  Got the shirts for $3 at the craft store and used sharpies to color...then did a dropper with rubbing alcohol to make them bleed together.  Cool tie-dye effect!  Here's the link I used for the full instructions.

Camp Week...

 Ahhh, the long-awaited week of VBS!  It felt awfully quiet around here for the three hours I had with just Sienna this morning.  Of course we still found plenty of things to do to keep us busy...but it was a welcome break from the usual chaos, to be sure!  Carter and Reese really enjoyed their first day at camp, he for the full day and Reese for half.  I took the girls afterwards to the Splash Pad to celebrate the start of summer and enjoy the beautiful, warm day.  Sienna LOVED it...her first time going that she could do it herself!

There is something very special about summer and making new memories with your kids.  I love watching them experience something for the first time, doing an activity that they enjoy, and visiting new places.  I have so many fond memories of summer as a kid and hope my kids will cherish these times as they get older as well.

A Yummy Tradition...

 I guess we are starting an annual tradition of going to Cheesecake Factory for Reese's birthday.  We decided to celebrate a little early and go down after church today because the weather was absolutely beautiful.  The only bummer was that the fountains are not working.  But the kids still had fun, ate lots, and we enjoyed a morning out together.

I was commenting to the kids how last year when we went it was Sienna's first time eating a French fry and that she wasn't walking yet.  And now she's just a few months away from being a big sister.  How things change in just one year!!

 Sienna got one taste of the water from the big cup and wanted nothing else.  Too bad more of it ended up on her lap than in her mouth.

They sand to Reese for her birthday.  She LOVED it!

Let the picking begin...

 We had our first Pick Your Own trip to Soergel's today for strawberries. The kids loved it...probably because they ate so many strawberries while we were there.  We did end up with 7 pounds, which I am sure will be gone in a matter of days.  They are SOOOOO yummy.

If you know anything about our family, you know we LOVE to pick things in the summertime.  I won't even try to guess how many pounds of fruit and veggies we picked last year but it was in the hundreds of pounds.  Yep, we mean business.  I thought maybe some of these berries would make it into a pie or jam but considering how fast the kids are eating them, I'm guessing that won't happen.  I don't mind the picking, although it's slightly less comfortable leaning over when you are sic months pregnant!!  For anyone who knows me well, you may know that my first real job was picking blueberries for several summers in a row.  I guess I'm something of a picking expert after that, right??  haha  The pay was really good too...at $0.25 per pound...my longest day was a 9 hour day of picking in mid-90 degree temperatures and I made a whopping $18 that day.

Eating as fast as we picked

I'm glad my kids can experience where their food comes from and the hard work that goes into growing and picking it. Sienna may not have contributed more than a berry or two on her first trip where she could actually pick, but she sure did have fun!

Sienna's Shenanigans

My little girl...sigh...she may be cute, but OH is she a trouble-maker.  If I have this baby early it will be because she sent me into early labor.  Or I might have a heart attack first....  

Near heart-attack #1: She  managed to climb the ladder on the swing set...turn around at the top facing out, and grab onto the first monkey bar..then jump out so she was hanging 5 feet off the ground.  Derrick and I were both in the kitchen, he saw her and raced out just in time to grab her before she fell.

Near heart-attack #2:  A few nights ago I was in the kitchen and it was nearly bedtime.  I heard a big SPLASH...look out the window and she's fallen head first into the kids' big blow-up pool on the deck.  Now there was only about 8 inches of water in it at the most, but still...she went completely under before resurfacing, soaked from head to toe.  That counted as her bath that night...

Near heart attack #3:  She walked up to me today and smiled, revealing a ping-pong ball fully lodged in her mouth.  I FREAKED out and told her to spit it out, which she did...but oh did that give me a scare.  

Near heart attack #4:  She was sitting on the kitchen table today with her hands and feet both gripping the back of the bench that was pulled up to the table...she started leaning forward and the bench started to fall backward.  It would have pulled her right off the table and crashing down onto the floor if I hadn't caught her and it JUST in time.

This all happened in the last 4 days...this kid knows how to keep my stress level high!

The "Idea" of Faith

Carter was at a neighbor's house yesterday for an hour and was playing around with their miniature golf clubs.  As soon as he got home, he wanted to try some more golf with Derrick.  He was incredibly enthusiastic about it, but suddenly realized how much harder golf is than it might appear at first glance.  Yes, some balls went soaring gracefully through the air in a perfect chip shot, but more often they went off to the side, didn't lift off the ground, moved an inch or two, or he completely missed them.  

He soon realized that the "idea" of golf and how fun it could be was a whole lot easier than playing the real thing.  It takes practice and patience and time to learn and doesn't happen in an afternoon.  There will always be disappointing shots that don't go where you want them to, but you can't just quit.  You have to keep playing the game.

Last night Carter was out playing in the family room while we cleaned up dinner and he out of the blue asked Derrick, "Dadda, if you had to pick whether to worship an idol or get thrown into the fire, which would you pick?"  They had read the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego at bedtime last week and I guess it was on his mind still.  We tried to talk to him about it for a few minutes and explain how hard it is to believe and stand strong in your faith when you are being tested like that.  "But if you said you wouldn't worship the idol, you wouldn't have to worry, God would always protect you."  I wasn't sure what to say.  I didn't know that it was the right time or age to be talking to him about how many millions of men and women have been martyred for their faith over the centuries.  I would like to give my six year old son a neat and tidy answer...that God always protects those who believe in Him...but we adults know that in a fallen world full of sin, this is not the case.  

Faith seems so appealing to some initially because of the warm and fuzzy aspect of God's love and forgiveness and His care and concern for us.  But then as soon as they are tested, they want to blame God and will often turn from Him in hurt and pain and distrust, feeling He has let them down and that they no longer owe Him their allegiance.  The "idea" of faith seems good and right to many, and many a person you ask would say they have some kind of faith.  But when that idea is tested...that is when the rubber meets the road.  Life is full of these realizations.  If we choose to quit the second we encounter adversity, we won't make it far in our pursuits...the same applies to faith.  Faith is not a feeling, it's not just some knowledge you acquire.  Faith is a day in and day out relationship you have with God, realizing you will never know it all, never reach a full understanding of why things happen in our lives the way they do, but also realizing that God does love us infinitely more than we could ever imagine and does want the very best for us. 

I hope I can gradually find a way to fully articulate this to my children because I don't want them to have a sheltered view of faith and what it all means.  I want them to know that "in this world you will have trouble.  But take heart!  I have overcome the world."  (John 16:33)  I want them to know that with faith comes hope, "and hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit Who was given to us."  (Romans 5:5)

We enjoyed showing Derrick our appreciation today as we celebrated Father's Day.  We are so lucky and blessed to have him in our lives.  We celebrated by cashing in our Groupon for 6 dozen donuts from Peace, Love and Little Donuts!!  Yikes that is a lot of donuts...they wouldn't let us split it up...so we are freezing most of them.  The kids also, very enthusiastically, filled out these cute little questionnaires last night.  They wrote in all of their answers totally by themselves...I'm so proud of them.  It of course gave us some good laughs too.

 

That's right...72 donuts.  Yikes...and YUM!!

The first taste tester.

Father's Day Fun...

The Grove City Gang

 We had a fun little GCC reunion at the Zoo today.  In spite of some pretty torrential rain at the end, we had a really great time and the kids enjoyed seeing their friends.

 Sienna was really enthralled by the Red Panda and was playing a little game of peek-a-boo with him.

 Sienna also enjoyed the Komodo Dragon...he has quite the long tongue!!

If only she was this cute all the time...

JAWS!!

We were "trapped" in the shark tunnel for a good ten minutes waiting for the rain to stop, but ended up trucking it back through the downpour in the end anyway.  The kids thought it was pretty fun getting all wet...I didn't think it was as enjoyable driving home with wet shoes and socks and pants. hahaha

I am very blessed to have such wonderful friends from college who still keep in touch and now to share so many special memories with our children.