2012 Blue Jeans Week 28

Thanks for visiting Blue Jeans Momma.  It has been so hot here that it is not fun to be outside at all.  We have had to be creative and do things inside.  Extreme winter and extreme summer are not too different in that respect.  Here is our week. . .

Sunday:  We did finally get a little bit of rain and had a pretty rainbow at the end.  

Monday:  Indoor fun--oh the things you can do with blankets--blanket forts are our favorites.

Tuesday:  Miss O is working on making her own cookbook of family favorite recipes to take to college (yes she is only 12, but she is a planner), so she is making by herself every recipe she puts in.  Today she tried homemade wheat bread.  It was delicious!  Way to go Miss O!

Wednesday:  Mr J and Miss E are attending a daily kids' summer activities camp this week in the mornings.  Today they learned how to make rag rugs, and Mr J was showing me how to do it when he got home today.  His ended up more like a rag bowl than a rug, but that is okay.  Still cool :)

Thursday:  My previous post talks about our summer garden and how we did it a little different this year, and the results are very good.  Check it out.  Miss O is very proud of her harvest today.

Friday:  One of those way-too-hot-to-be-outside days, so we played with magnets inside.  Mr J likes to make the little triangles spin.  It seems like the kids have lots of toys we never play with, so on 'inside' days it is nice to hunt through and play with things that we haven't in a while.

Saturday:  Make my day--this note was on my nightstand this evening when I went to bed.  It was from Mr J.  I smiled as I went to sleep that night.

Thanks for visiting and hope you have a great week!!!

Blue Jeans Week 35

A week to remember. . .

Sunday:  This is one of my favorite of the thousands of images from the 10th anniversary of 9/11.  I think the memorial is beautiful.  I went to NYC  as a teen and went in and ate in the basement of one of the Twin Towers.  I would like to go back now and see it again.  It is so important to remember.

Monday:  We have a big garden 50' x 50' and we planted over 24 tomato plants and none of those plants are dead, but we have not seen a single tomato yet either, but we have had a huge harvest of zucchini and yellow squash.  We can never get sick of zucchini, but I think my family has had their fill of yellow squash.  Miss O chops some up for dinner.

Tuesday:  Over 2 months ago in July, before we left on vacation, we had a strong storm, and it blew some shingles off.  Ben hurried and bought a tarp to cover the part of the roof that was bare, and we left on vacation hoping for no rain.  Well, waiting on insurance and contractors we have had this lovely blue roof now for over 2 months, and finally this week we are getting a new roof and getting rid of the blue tarp.  Thank heavens this was on the back of the house :)

Wednesday:  Homework, homework, homework is a constant thing at my house "Did you get your homework done?"  is probably the most common question asked after "Did you practice your piano?"  and "Did you clean your room?"  Miss A is quite comfortable doing her homework on the floor.

Thursday:  I snap pictures all the time, all the time, and my kids are used to it and just ignore me.  Ben is not so used to it :)  Gosh, I love that cute boy.  Today he was helping Mr J with his piano.     

Friday:  I actually worked and got paid for my work today--first time in almost 14 years :)  Being a stay-at-home mom is the best job in the world, but the monetary pay isn't so good :).  My mom is the librarain at my kids' elementary school, and today she had to be gone and her para also had to be gone, so she begged me to come work for her that day in the library.  Little did I know the paperwork and hoops I would have to jump through to help out my mom for 7 hours.  I had to get a TB test done and a drug test.  I thought--serioursly?  Oh my, but I had a fun day at the school library.  I checked out 186 books and shelved about that many.  I got to check out books to this cute little guy too--it was fun seeing Mr J and Miss E at school.

Saturday:  This is one of the big trees in our front yard.  The kids love to play in it and under it and around it.  It has a tree swing in it.  We were so sad to find out that the power company is putting in a new powerline down our street, and it looks like our trees are going to have to be cut down.  We are so sad and just sick about it.  Makes me want to cry.  Of course they say they will pay us for it, but how do you appraise the value of a tree?  I love trees.

Blue Jeans Week 30

So we are getting caught up with things here.  Re-entry was a little rough, and school starts this Thursday!  So we are going crazy trying to get 4 sets of everything needed for school and names on everything--what would we do without sharpies??  But life is good, crazy, chaotic, loud, tearful, and insane at times, but still good.  Hope yours is too.

The last leg of our trip was definitely very relaxing.  We were at my grandparents' cabin in the mountains.  This was the glorious place where our van temperature read 43 degrees the morning we left.  We were sad to leave.  This is Mr J with his great-Grandpa "Grum" putting peanuts out for the birds to eat. 

And then Mr J watched and watched and waited for those birds to eat those peanuts!  It took them awhile, the birds must have been very busy else where that morning, but they eventually did come, and that made my little boy very happy :)  The joy of little things like peanuts and birds!

We all enjoyed lots of rides on the 4-wheeler through the mountains.  Ben and Miss O head off.

And sadly all good things must come to an end, so here we are happily (ha, ha, yeah right) heading home.  If I had a quarter for every time someone asked "how much longer?" or "Are we there yet?" we could retire next week.  It is probably a miracle my children are still alive at this point. . .

Wednesday, August 10:  But they are, thankfully, still alive, and even more amazing than that fact is that we actually had a garden that was still alive when we got home.  Miss O picked this monster of a watermelon when we got home today.

Thursday:  And Mr J really missed his train tracks while we were away, so today he covered my living room with an awesome train track, and even better he cleaned it up by himself without complaining (and that is not an extremely common occurrence at our house, is it at yours?).  Love that boy!

Friday:  Mr J loving the tree swing!

Saturday:  I am loving my surprise lilies!  So fun when they pop up!

So hope you all are well and that beginning of school goes well for all!  My kids are ready and excited to go back, and I, for one, am very excited school is starting--my to do list gets longer and longer every day.  Monday through Friday 7:45 to 3:45 with no kids--bring it on :)

Blue Jeans Week 19

What a week, what a week, summer is finally here. . .

Sunday:  Got my pots in the back planted.  Love those wave petunias!

Monday:  Mr J got this book from the library and has LOVED it!  He laughs and laughs, and I laugh too because it is pretty funny.  I have read it at least 3 times daily to him, and then he reads it to himself too.  It is  The Little Red Pen by Janet Stevens.

Tuesday:  Let it begin. . . Mr J started piano lessons today. I start my kids right after they finish kindergarten, and I have told them they may quit when they are 18 :)  His teacher is the same one I had in high school.  I now have 4 taking lessons, and am wondering when we will get all the practicing in???

Wednesday:  Mr J's birthday!  Miss A made him his cake, which wasn't a cake, it was an Oreo cheesecake that he requested.  Yummy!  Smart boy!

Thursday:  My youngest sister and her hubby were in town, and it is tradition that Aunt Tessa always does the girls' nails when she comes, so we had Tessa's nail salon today.  So fun!

Friday:  Miss A took a gardening class this week from this sweet man.  Such a nice guy, and she learned so much.  She came home and told us all the things we are doing wrong in our garden :) so maybe with her expertise we will bring in a great harvest this year!

Saturday:  I took the kids to a local greenhouse and gave them $2 each to buy any plant they wanted.  Miss E got hers all planted and ready to go.  Love gardening season!

Hope you all had a great week!

 

Some random sweetness

Just some random (my 12 year old uses that word all the time!) sweetness from around our house lately. . .

Random sweet #1: Saturday night Ben and I picked these from our own back yard!!! We put in 50 strawberry plants 3 years ago, and they are really producing this year. Don't they look yummy? I think the 3rd year is the beginning of good things with fruit because last year was the 3rd year for our blackberry bushes, and we got tons! Next year will be the 3rd year for our raspberries, so I hope they will be good next year! 3rd years the charm, right? So we had yummy strawberry crepes for dinner tonight. So sweet!
Random sweet #2: A great big thank you to the Parker family for sending out this awesome train with Grandma and Grandpa to my Mr J, who if you didn't already know is a major train fan!!! He loves, loves, loves it!!! Rides it every. single. day. It is in the backyard in our summer house, and it fits perfect there. Thank you, thank you, thank you to the Parkers!

Random sweet #3: My kids have 5 days of school left

Random sweet #4: We leave for our big 2 week back East trip in 6 days!!! We are super excited! We will be in Washington DC, and in upper Pennsylvania (Erie), NY (Niagara Falls, Palmyra, etc) so if you have any suggestions, words of wisdom, don't do's or don't misses for traveling in that area, please leave a comment and share your knowledge! Thanks! Hope that you are having some random sweetness in your neck of the woods too!