My new favorite:

These babies are beautiful, simple, and useful. Three of my favorite qualities in a craft! They are paperclip bookmarks in case you weren't sure. They work amazingly well to hold your spot in a novel, cook book, or even magazine. Plus, they can be decorated to match almost any decor. They make a great teacher gift at Christmas time, or even a gift for that mom or sister who hasn't given it up to the e-reader yet (girls after my own heart).
I'll be using some of these sassy ladies in our school textbooks. I guess I'll just consider it a teacher gift to myself.
The button on top really helps you find your place again.
I may have to make some more of these. I did about 40 of them in one afternoon, then let the glue dry overnight! I'm loving them.
Look out friends, one of these may just show up in your christmas card.

Oh Happy Day!

I know it's hard because of the hat, but can you see the gleam of excitement in my middle son's eye? He caught this big mouth Bass. All by himself! He kept it together pretty well, not bragging too much about his fine catch in front of his brothers. However as the day went on, his fish story grew just like they all seem to, and we had to reign him back in a little bit. It was hard with all the grown ups fawning all over him and making such a big deal out of how BIG his bass was. I tell you what, I was a little surprised he could still hold his head up at the end of the day with how much it grew.
 I am really happy for him though, his excitement over his big catch was contagious. The smile wouldn't leave his face, mine either.
We all had a good time on our family vacation down in Greenville, IL but this memory will be tops for him for quite awhile. It may also be awhile before he catches a bigger fish.

Baking Soda and Vinegar

Did you know that nothing entertains boys quite like baking soda and vinegar? The boys really wanted to do an experiment the other day and this one is always a winner. They had so much fun! And everyone got to be involved.
Since the weather was nice I just sent them all outside with a container to put the baking soda and vinegar in. The best part is that it really doesn't hurt anything, and it's cheap! Plus you probably already have the ingredients in the house.
Well, at least I used to.
Guess I need to pick up some more next time I'm at the store.
Happy bubbling!

The adventure

We went to Canadian Adventure for the week, I think this is our 5th year in a row. Troy always goes up to work and do projects and we tag a long for the fun of it. We try and help out as much as we can, this year the boys had dish duty every meal. You would think they would complain about it and hate it, but when asked what their favorite part of the week was, dishes came first. Funny huh? I'm glad they are learning to enjoy serving, even when the job isn't glamorous.  While we were in Canada, we discovered a little beach near the boat landing. It is a sandy cove carved out of the bank. The boulders surround it and make it look protected and private. We were able to name it and claim it as they say so it is officially dubbed 'Beabers Cove' We cut a path throught the woods, hung signs, and now anyone else who comes up can find it and enjoy it too. The boys really get a kick out of the fact that a beach in Canada is named after us. Hopefully the water levels will still be such next year that we can enjoy the cove again. That is the only variable to be concerned about. Don't want high water dumping a load of driftwood on our beach or low water making it a 50 foot walk to the waters edge. This year it was just perfect and that's how we'll be remembering it.

The supplies have arrived

Here it is! If you look closely you will see Wyat standing behind this huge pile of boxes. He's actually standing on his tip-toes. This is our school curriculum for this year. It's for two of the boys. I'll be home schooling a 2nd grader and a 4th grader. Can you spell O-V-E-R-W-H-E-L-M-E-D? I just did. That's a lot of stuff! The good news is, the boys are excited. They had a great time opening all of the boxes and looking at all of the fun stuff. They didn't even look at the 300 page teacher manuals for 3 different subjects. Why would they? They definitely don't look as exciting as the other books. But I saw them. Oh did I see them. Of course I picked them up and very quickly put them back into the box. After all, school still doesn't start for a couple of weeks. I can pretend it's not starting at all for a little bit longer.

At least until the shelves go up in the closet and I have to put all the books away.

But that won't happen for at least two weeks. So I'll just enjoy the last of the summer for as long as I can.

Dirt under my fingernails

First harvest. Can you say delicious? I can't think of a better way to give my kids a healthy snack than to send them out to the garden to eat some fresh peas warmed in the sun. They love them!

This year we planted a garden. Again. I call myself an experimental gardener because every year is an experiment. I choose the seeds and plant them with the faith that they will grow. This doesn't always happen. Like my carrots last summer. We planted the seeds and waited and waited and waited. Nada. Good thing carrots are so cheap at the store. This year I thought I'd try Bok Choy. If you've never had it, it 's kinda like a cabbage/lettuce/celery cross. I like to chop it up and add it to my roamine lettuce to give it extra texture and substance. I've had good luck with lettuce varieties in the past so I thought the bok choy would work too. But, nope. It grew, but before it ever made the dense head it is supposed to have at the base, it flowered out and overall was a bok choy bust. Bummer.

But my tomatoes, oh WOW! We planted about 20 starts all over the yard to see if we could get any produce this year. In the past the harvest has been very very slim for tomatoes. Since I don't like to give up because I love tomeatoes, I decided maybe we'd err on the side of overkill this summer. It worked! We will have about 5,000 tomatoes because all of the palnts except 2 are ginormous and producing buckets of tomatoes. The boys have tasted the first ripe cherry tomatoes off of the vine, one of their favorite snacks. so, if all goes well and this fruit ripens before it frosts, we will be rolling in tomatoes. I guess we'll be really prepared if the dog gets sprayed by a skunk. But let's hope that doesn't happen.

You know why I really like to garden? It's a place where you can watch the truths of scripture lived out before your eyes, in your own yard. I can show the truths to my children and we can talk about it, a hands on lesson, many teachable moments at my fingertips. No longer just words in a book, but living (or not, depending on the plant) pictures for them to grasp and hopefully have a deeper understanding of. Jesus used stories of plants, seeds, harvest, and sowing for a reason. He knew we needed the real life examples that we could touch and see to help us relate. If you've never grown something, give it a try. If it fails to grow or if it produces a beautiful plant, you'll have so much to think about in relationship to your spiritual growth and the conditions that surround you. It makes the dirt under my fingernails all worth while.

Setting goals

Here's a cute picture of the boys on the 4th of July. And I'll include one with me in it too. Although with me in it, it's not as cute.
I lost my cute factor a couple of years ago I think. ;) We had a great 4th celebration with my mom and dad and fireworks and parades. No one does the fourth of July like small town America in my opinion.

The day after the 4th is my birthday. Every year, just like clock work. No skips or breaks.

I don't know about you but my birthday always causes me to be a little reflective, even introspective. What I came up with this year is that I am a horrible goal setter. Or maybe I'm a horrible goal keeper? Or maybe, just maybe, it's both? Yes. Both. But I am realizing that goals are good, beneficial, healthy, and smart. So I am going to try it out. Goal setting. I read in Craig Groeschel's book "Weird' that he doesn't do multiple goals in a year, he prays and asks God what the 'one thing' he should change in his life that year is. This makes a lot of sense to me, but when I tried to think of 'one thing' my brain overloaded and nearly broke. Picture my head with steam shooting out of it and my hair flying off my scalp! How do you stop with one thing, when there are so many things that need fixing? Now the theory that he offered was that when you try and do many things, you end up changing nothing. By focusing on 'one thing' you may actually not give up and in a moment of self pity, drive through the culver's drive-thru and order a large snickers concrete mixer, double on the snickers. Right? Cause that's pretty much how I deal with my failures. By setting a goal I am choosing to be intentional about my day. Intentional is not a new word to me, it is a word that God has been whispering into my life over the past few years. You see, I'm really good at 'fly by the seat of my pants', but I'm really bad at intentional. And a life well lived, an obedient life, needs intentional.

And goals help.

So I'm gonna try it.

Just gotta figure out what that 'one thing' is that God wants me to change, is.

Wanna join me?