Beautiful Morning Watching Things Grow

Just a quick picture and some thoughts....one of the biggest reasons I started this blog is so that I have a place to record thoughts I have about raising our girls and share pictures. Especially for those days that are "bad" days when I feel like I have no idea what I am doing being a parent. I needed a place to record things that make my heart sing. This is one of those moments.


It is a beautiful Michigan early summer morning - the sun is shining, slight breeze, nearly no humidity, the garden is in full shade early in the morning - so, I decided to do some weeding for my husband. (The garden is his baby, I'm not much of a fan of getting dirt under my fingernails - I know, I'm a priss.) We are doing 2 different Summer Reading Programs and Sweet Baby is constantly wanting to read to me, since she is just finishing up kindergarten she really needs to read aloud to get help on the words she does not know. It was sweet to be sitting there working while she sat in her chair reading Biscuit and Strawberry Shortcake books to me. I love listening to her read to me, it has been amazing watching her grow and listening to her reading skills improve. Again, I remain in awe of what the Lord has given me.

Chicken Coop Is Nearly Done

You will recall that we got 6 chicks in April. They were to small to regulate their own body temps so we needed to keep them under a heat lamp for about 6 weeks so they were living in a large container in our back livingroom. As they grew (and grow they have!) I've been anxious to get them out of myhouse. The last 2 weeks it has been warm enough that they did not need the lamp so they have been in the garage at night and in the dog's old dog crate during the day while my husband worked on designing and building their coop.

He did an awesome job and has been diligently working on it each evening after work and on Saturdays. They finally are sleeping in the "big house" . This weekend we will have the run completed so they can move about freely between their coop and their fenced in run.

Once all the sawing was done he was able to use our help in getting things put together. Here is daddy and Sissy working on the roof. I LOVE pictures like this...

Sissy enjoyed hammering the nails.

Ahhhh, Time to Relax

We officially finished school about a week and a half ago. Ahhh...it feels so nice to be done for a bit. We will be doing lots of reading this summer and all around just hanging out. You would think the girls would be excited to not have to think about school, but the day after we declared that school was closed, I snapped these shots.

The funniest thing is that these "school days" were occurring at exactly the same time in 2 different rooms of the house.

Sweet Sisterly Moments

A couple weeks ago Sissy earned herself a punishment that consisted of weeding the strawberry patch. Of course she had been putting it off until the last minute and today her minute was up. Apparently she asked Peanut if she wanted to come outside and play while she was working. Peanut agreed (because she is the agreeable one in the bunch) and proceeded to walk out back with books in one hand an a blanket in the other. As I was cleaning in the kitchen and looked out the window I saw this scene from the house.

I decided to creep closer and see what was going on. The closer I got, I realized that I was witnessing a wonderful moment of sisterhood. Peanut was reading aloud to Sissy as she was doing her work. Isn't that the sweetest thing you have ever seen?

Just after snapping this picture the girls noticed me "eavesdropping". So, I asked Sissy to come on over so I could get a picture of the two of them together. This is what I captured. I'm so thankful for cameras! Pictures like these are the things that home school days are made of.

YUCK..Snakes!

For the record, I'm terrified of snakes. Not just a little scared, not just a bit squeamish, but full fledged fetal position - rocking in the corner kind of terrified. I nearly lost it yesterday when my husband yelled, "I've got a baby gardener snake if anyone wants to come see it!" My initial thought was, "What?!? Why would anyone want to come see it?" That is when I heard Peanut say, "OOOH, how cute, a baby snake!" CUTE?!? Seriously? YUCK!

Well, the girls got to check it out in the bottom of the wheelbarrow. I tried to walk close and check it out, I did see it but just the sight of it made my skin crawl and I felt sick. Needless to say, this next picture was not taken by me and it makes me nauseated just posting it!

My point (really, I didn't post this just to share with you how much of a baby I am) is that I LOVE moments like this! I love seeing them all together exploring together. Ahhhh....

New Family Members

Awwwww, look what we got!

Yep, 6 sweet little chicks. Aren't they cute? A few years ago my husband announced that he wanted a few chickens and I thought he was nuts! I have never had a desire to have any farmish animals. A dog is just fine for me. But, we have dear friends who have chickens and whenever they go out of town for vacation we drive over and take care of their birds. Chickens are just the sweetest things. So, we thought we would try it this year. We ordered 2 Buff Orpingtons (the yellow ones), a couple Silver Wyandottes, a Black Australorp and one Araucana which believe it or not, lay colored eggs!

The girls have already chosen "their chicks" and named them. Sweet Baby and Sissy chose the Orpingtons. Sissy is the only one who has named hers and she chose Yellow Daisy for its name. Last year we spent some time talking about birds and their feathers. They are already losing their downy feathers and you can see their flight feathers are coming in as well as tail feathers! What fun.

Break for the Artists

Our last co-op meeting for this school year was Tuesday. As much as we enjoy co-op, it will be nice to have a break for the last month of school. The kids always get gym and art through our co-op and they all really enjoyed art this year.




Sissy and Peanut didDiscovering Great Artists . This is a great program that takes various artists, explains a bit about them and their style of art and then the children try to create art in a similar medium. They experimented with paint, ink chalks,





Sweet Baby was lucky enough to do Storybook Art in which the teacher reads a children's storybook to the kids and then they create a picture using similar mediums as the illustrator did in the book. You can see that Sweet Baby is holding up her rendition of a caterpillar from The Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. This particular program is so sweet that the kindergartners and first graders will be doing it again next year!