America 250

This is America's 250th year of existence. I was excited and wondered how we could celebrate in a memorable way. First idea we made flag shirts a few days a head. I was very happy with how they turned out. The kids enjoyed the project. 

A neighbor had asked for help stacking her wood for the winter. Our church had suggested we give 250,000 hours of service collectively. This was a great fit. So on July 3 we stacked wood for a few hours. This was a perfect way to come together with cousins. We really appreciated the kindness of this family, they aren't prone to yelling at each other or habitually saying hurry up or now. They are quick to be positive and know how to work. This was a good combination. 

6 cords of wood stacked and cleaned up in about 3 hours. 

Some sat and visited because that is important too. 

Almost done. 

The lady we served was in tears at how fast the job was completed. We truly enjoyed this time working together. It's hard to find common ground with people from very different backgrounds and distance. However work is a great equalizer and shows how we need each other and can work together. This was uniquely unifying project.

Later that day these ladies were made-up by an older cousin. She did make-up and hair for the girls to go work at the rodeo selling sno-cones and cotton candy. 

The next morning we were up bright and early to participate in the fun run cross country fundraiser.

Millie and friend Avery ran the 5k. They smashed their time from last year by a full ten minutes. 

The parade later was full of community, candy, and kids. 

After we had a BBQ and water fight at our house. 

Merle fell and got a small cut. Joey had a band-aid ready to help Merle feel better. Joey always impresses me with his ability to take care of the kids. 

My dad shared some thoughts on how we came to this point and how the articles of faith support the one that says we honor and sustain the laws of the land. He always does a good job sharing his testimony and linking the past to the present and future generations. It is said that children that know their history have a stronger sense of self. I believe sharing stories of our ancestors and heritage help anchor our families in the communities we are part of. This country was built by families and people seeking better for their future families. We continue in that same tradition working our way through Heavenly Father's plan for his children to come to families to learn and grow to create our own families and continue learning and growing. Hopefully choosing him and desiring to return to Him everyone. 

 

We then went around the group naming why we are thankful to be Americans. It was a nice evening and hopefully a memorable celebration. 

We finished the day with fireworks and sleep, thankful for our country, our family, and our freedom to live. 



 

First Day of School

We had another first day of school. 18 years of being a school mom. My 13th first grader. Lots of anticipation, less worry than some years and many prayers answered. They were all excited to go. They got up early to do water and chores then we drove out to school for our tradition of mom dropping them off the first time. I spent fair share of the rest of the day trying to decipher and decide what to do about the new bus routes. We will try those tomorrow. 3 hours of bussing is too much that's what the district offers we shall try the hour and a half option tomorrow and see how it goes. 

Andrea was delighted to spend the day with cousin Marilla at our house. They started by watching aristocats while I cleaned the kitchen. 

I got this picture from a teacher friend. Titled making new friends. I'm so thrilled with the schedule Livy earned backed by the credit Addie built while in high school. Livy has so many opportunities we shall see how she capitalizes on them. 

Afton's Class shes on the front row right 6th grade

Alia arrow pointing to her 2/3 Mrs. Mulvany

Millie 8th grade Mrs. Worley

Bruce grade 4

Jake rested and pulled himself up all day. Usually on me then I would need to move. He discovered the vacuum is a nice place to take a look around. 

My older beauty shared this recent photo. She is sure gorgeous and missed. This is her ready for a night of shows she hosts the gift shop. 

Andrea and Millie checked the garden and found this pile of zucchini. Yay finally enough to make some zucchini foods like bread or cake or something. 

Mark sent this recently. He is doing well and learning to endure in the rain. 

Last week Millie accompanied Greg, Jake and I to the city in hopes of having her ears pierced unfortunately the store didn't open until 11 and we were long done by 9:30. Another day I guess. We wandered around a rose garden for a while while we waited on Greg. 

Jake tried out a baby swing. He enjoyed it. 

Bruce and Afton made homemade reese's peanut butter cups. They are tasty and easily layered together. We are going to run out of chocolate chips soon. They are much more economical to make at home but a dangerous item to have waiting to be eaten. Yum!

More garden produce. We don't have an abundance this year so we are grateful for whatever our garden shares. The tomatoes have curly top and will only produce a minimal amount to years past. The peppers seem to have done ok though. 

 A lot of lessons and time passed in our summer. We had a very low key summer with a lot of doctor visits and time spent with healing. I am resigned the reality and necessity of school days. Kids are in bed dinner was determined and ready early in the day. I moved around a lot and survived with the little kids. Marilla and Andrea are very interactive with Jake and play pretty well together. Now for day 2-140 or however many school days they go. 

The kids had a good first day. We calmed Merle's anxiety by telling him there was no chokey, or Principal Trunchbull that he would in fact come home. Alia came up with those examples from the book Matilda. Merle was relieved. His teacher is so kind. He has cousin Myla in his class and of course his siblings in other grades. When Afton asked him why he wasn't playing tag at recess he told her he would "leave the others kids in the dust!" if he played so he was watching. 

Bruce wasnt sure about  all the switching classes that is his new schedule. He will get it soon I'm sure. Livy joined choir and Reed may get to drop adv biology and have a study hall. We shall see. Alia spent the evening working on spelling words and time tables. Third grade level actvities that thrill and inspire her hungry mind. One nice option for dual level classrooms working ahead. Life is good and we are blessed.

Thank you

Today we said thank you. We ordered some bouquets and delivered them to some of our favorite people the local librarians. The kids checked out books nad made lady liberty hats. They wore them all around town. 

We are so thankful for these ladies who let us check out so many books, who renew them when we can't find them, and who graciously help us find new titles and authors not found in their walls. The library is the highlight of our family trips to town. 

 We also said thanks to local police force. We shared cookies with them from a local baker. It felt good to say thanks and support small businesses. We live in a great place and are thankful for our service club Modern woodmen who provides funds that we can do all this in one afternoon. These are the moments that make me happy. The bonus cinnamon rolls we tested were and added treat. Life is good. 

Summer of calamity.

Our summer was hijacked by injury and sickness. I had plans for swim lessons and water activities. But one night a very dusty Merle was brought in by Reed who thought he needed to get to football practice. There was little explanation of what happened just a crying Merle who said he hurt all over. Millie was crying too and didn't share many details. I knew something was wrong and took Merle to Greg who gave him a blessing then we proceeded to the urgent care clinic for x-rays. He said going over the train tracks hurt. That was weird. I kept asking where he hurt he pointed to his elbow. They had him put his arm on a table for x-rays. He was not very happy or cooperative about that. They saw nothing in the x-rays and sent us home. He was not holding his arm normally. I did not believe everything was ok. Again he complained about the train tracks. 

The next day I had the prompting to put the arm in a sling. We went yard saling and happened to find a squirt gun. This seemed to be a good exercise to get him to use his hand and arm if he could. He proved he could and enjoyed squirting his sisters from the sling position. The next day Anna and Joey spoke in church he did not wear a sling. The rest of the week he mostly wore a sling and didn't go outside or do much. His arm mostly just hung at his side. We finally determined raising it was the problem. I took him back to the doctor and they had him stand against a wall to xray the whole arm. Sure enough a spiral fracture near the socket. So no cast just a sling. 

Finally Millie was able to remember, I think she may have had a concussion. She had several bruises from her leaving the four wheeler too. I learned that a few days after the initial accident. Merle was holding a bucket of tools and a tool box. Millie got spooked with oncoming and following traffic on the paved road. Reed was following in a tractor. She somehow turned the four-wheeler and Merle flew off along with her. They both were spared pavement and the full canal. We are so thankful they are both on their way to completely well. I'm aware and understand angels watched over them and prevented worse outcomes. We are thankful. The orthopedic doc just said wear the sling and no running or potentially harmful activities. 

The nurse at the orthopedic office added the safety pin and removed the belt strap. This made it more secure and more useable. Gotta go to the high professionals for a best fit I guess. 

Jake is too curious for his own good. He touched the hot insta pot and burned his finger tips. He liked cool water for a few hours on the injured hand. I remembered this from other babies who had burned themselves. 

Livy came home from girls camp with a serious burn on her pasty white legs. This hurt for days and is just now peeling off in sections 10 days later. While they really enjoyed the floating the river the sunburns were not enjoyable. Hopefully she will learn and I will invest in water leggings for her in the future. 

On the evening of father's day Jake crawled over to some four wheeler batteries and pulled one down on his hand. It swelled and I watched it. How could I take another kid to the doctor for broken bones. 

Mind you I had been going to the doctor daily for the next kid who got strep because they won't just give antibiotics to the whole sharing family. Nope one at a time for 8 people. UGH! That was 2 weeks of doctor visits right there. Then some 160 doses of medicine. 

In the midst of all this I cut my own hand with my nicely sharpened cutco knife. I was so mad. Thankfully Addie was home and bandaged me up as blood and dangling skin makes me light headed. I was able to recline on the couch while she wrapped it up and managed the dinner prep from there. It healed well too and wasn't too bothersome after a few days. Alia and Afton had to do a lot of dishes while I couldn't. That was part of the problem why I cut myself is I was doing things they were supposed to be doing but had skipped out on. We are working on doing your jobs not disappearing. 

Jake with scrapes from diving out of bed headfirst. He hasn't done this again since this picture I'm so thankful his spatial awareness is also developing. 

His finger has persisted in looking like this. Yes he's grouchy he's also cutting two teeth that I can see and has a head cold. He has had sleepless nights. I don't bounce back from those well and driving back and forth to doctors is challenging on little sleep. But we all survived. Finally Greg demanded we get an xray. We did four days later the pediatrician demanded I rush to get him splinted. That this was a serious injury. I said it's three weeks old. She said you don't understand he must be cared for. Seriously. So we went the attending PA was superb. He laughed he talked he held Jake and let him play with his ID tags. They worked this splint out. It lasted about 1.5 hours. Jake hit it on the cart, he bit at it and finally it unraveled.

 The next day after another sleepless night we braved rush hour to be in Boise for an orthopedic appointment. I had forgotten the splint but the doctor agreed there was nothing to do that wouldn't cause more problems. That Jake is doing fine and like they said with Merle the human body is growing so fast and will "remake" itself so many times in the next years it will be fine. Thankfully he worked with other doctors and nurses and they agreed to see Merle two days early. He is also almost completely healed. We made it home and were able to stay just in our town for a whole day. What a relief. Merele has done well playing and waiting inside. Andrea has been his faithful sidekick and Jake is daily getting better able to play with them. 

Between being the only driver and the rules of modern specialized medicine this summer has been long on sitting and waiting for expert opinions. I'm thankful the experts continue to advice let nature do it's thing. I'm thankful for healthy kids. I'm thankful our flippant prayers for safety are indeed answered. And I'm thankful it looks like we may be well and whole for a while. Life is so good and life is absolutely amazing. 

Working through summer

In our family summer means work. Lots of work. Before the wedding there was a lot of electrical work on the pivots. Sitting atop is quite the view and so much more comfortable than standing on the rungs of the spans hours of that cuts the bottom of a foot in half. Thankfully the guys were able to get the pivot moving before it was hot and desperate. 

This lady is learning about sunburns this summer. She refuses to listen to the counsel to cover completely. This is from getting water down rows standing in the field all day long. 

After a long day work the walk home is a relief. 

Millie and Bruce are the tool bearers. Thy cart tools back and forth from farm to home and whatever needs to be fixed. Merle was on this duty too but then he got hurt so Millie and Bruce have been the main go- getters. 

There is pride and relief in finally getting the water down the rows. The kids had to really this year to get the water through. Thankfully after a month the water flows freely all the way to the end of the rows. The corn has now tasseled and is setting ears. We are pleased the kids are able to do so much together. This was especially tedious this year but life takes work and doing the job completely is absolutely necessary. 

We got a baby backpack for Jake. He loves being able to see and be part of whatever is going on. 

When Addie was here she packed him up and told him to be quiet they were going to work. She told me I babied him too much. She is probably right. I've been working to make him more independent feeding himself, playing more, and doing things on his own. 

My lillies have been pretty this year. I love having flowers around the yard.

One day Addie was out on the road and a neighbor stopped and asked if she would take their ducks. So now we have 6 ducks. They love the water we give them. We have plans to take them to a pond nearby. 

A friend has allowed us to pick her raspberries they have been so nice. We have made over 14 quarts of jam. The kids will eat all we can pick. 

More wildflowers. The yarrow make nice additions to bouquets. And my one remaining daisy, unfortunately the prime bouquet flowers failed to come up so we have no homegrown flowers to share this year. The roses are gathering steam for a fall show the heat is not their friend. 

The latest planted corn was knee high by the fourth of July. That was the old adage that it had to be that tall to make a crop. We met that. It is now shoulder high. 

From a distance you can't see the weeds in my garden. This year we have potatoes, squash, zucchini, tomatoes, peas, beats, peppers, cantaloupe, watermelons, and pumpkins. We are excited to enjoy what we grow. The garden effort has been minimal at best some years are like that I guess. Jake however is doing well. 

The summer is full of work but we enjoy the fruits of our labor and learn there are in fact worse things in life than school etc. Thankfully no catastrophic breakdowns. Reed, Bruce, Millie, and Afton are managing very well. Life moves quickly. The younger kids are learning to be more self-reliant to take care of what they want to happen. Lessons have come slowly but we are making progress. Almost a month from these pictures and its good to know how far we've come. Seasoned gardeners have told me for years that each year is a new adventure even with the wisdom of previous success that doesn't guarantee this year will be trouble free. I feel that. 24 years of parenting and I'm still needing reminders and lots of grace to get the job done. We are blessed.