Peaches everywhere

This is our first year to really get a lot of harvestable peaches off of our tree. The kids have been so excited about the possibility of picking peaches they sometimes would pick them too early. Even with that we still ended up with a lot of peaches. So when we harvested them we also set to work on processing them right away.

We made the following items:


Peach Cobbler


Peach Chutney



Jared Peaches


Peaches and Pineapple


Peach Salsa

Peach Jam

Everything was so yummy or smelled so good while we were making it; I can hardly wait to try a couple of our items later on. The cobbler and salsa were great, and tasted wonderful. I hope that the rest of our peach harvest is just as delectable.

We even left a few of the smaller peaches on the tree and there were about thirty (30) new growth peaches starting, strange right. So we might have more peaches to come.

Girl Scout camp

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This is Isabelle's first year to go to Girl Scout camp. I was so excited for her, I really wished I was able to be a fly on the wall to see how much fun she was having, and really be able to hear all about her experience. Resident camp was always so much fun for me as a girl and I was happy that Isabelle got a chance to go as well.



The day we dropped her off, it was raining and so she actually had to use her poncho, how exciting. Otherwise I'm sure it would have had to stay in her bag until the end. She took lots of pictures that I am waiting to have printed, and she said she had so much fun.



They got to go swimming, eat with all the campers, and make some crafts. When I arrived to pick her up, she asked if she could stay another day or come back for the next session. She had so much fun. I was so happy that her first sleep away camp was successful.

Catching Up

I had the recent chance to take a trip to Las Vegas for the baby shower of my of high school friends. It was so great to get a chance to catch up with her and my other girl friends with whom I was able to visit with.



I was really please to get a chance to visit with Amy before the birth of her first baby. Which in a strange was seems wild since I already have four. Good grief! I guess it's just the way the world works, because I have a couple of friends and family having their firsts sometime this year. This was the first chance that I had to see her house and get to know her in-laws a little better.



Plus I had the added benefit of visiting with friends from Utah. One of my girlfriends, Nicole, actually lives in Vegas now, so I had a great chance to visit with her and see how things are going in her life now.



Then Missy and Holly came down from Utah for a short visit which was great. It was so wonderful to visit with both of them. I only wish that our time was more, but life must go on.

Plus everyone had a chance to meet Decllan, who of course was the life of the party and always brought tons of smiles out from everyone he meets. He did a great job on the air plane and even started to sign while we were there. I can hardly believe this kid. He keeps getting bigger, and learning new things. Next thing I know he will be going to school with the big kids. Yikes!

Until then at least I have this trip with him to remember. Thanks girls for meeting me in Vegas. Next time I will have to make my way to Utah for a visit.

The New Patio

I am so excited! We have finally made an adult change to back yard. Yes the kids will enjoy it too, but really it's for Ben and I. I can hardly wait to finish it out but that will most likely be next year. For now, I have a brand new patio to put chairs on that won't fall off because of the slope, and I won't have any grass growing out from in between the bricks.

Here is what our "patio" use to look like:




The bricks all gone, yeah, that was the best part. It looked so much better without them there. The forms are going in along with the plastic and sand.




Now we have the wire mesh down and then it will be time to pour.



They had to mix it the color in so that it would be uniform. And then the pouring can begin.



I am so excited, now it's time to pour.


They can stamp out the pattern then wait for it to harden, and seal the patio.



All done, doesn't it look just great. The kids are already loving it and having a great time.



Now I just need to come back with some fill dirt and bring the grass back up to the edge of the patio.

I can hardly wait to have our first dinner outside later on this summer. It will be great.

Awards Ceremony

The end of the school year is upon us and so are the awards from the year. Isabelle almost got perfect attendance, but she missed one day in the fall because she had a fever. I felt so bad for her, because she was so close. Only one kid in her class made that as an accomplishment.
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Isabelle did pretty good herself otherwise for her school awards. Here is her list:


* Exemplary Honor Roll

* Commitment, dedication and performance in Spanish

* American Citizenship

* Outstanding Girl in Technology

* Artist of the Month Facts

* Composer of the Month Facts
(she worked really hard each month to research and write down facts about different artists and composers for the school year. She even turned in all of her work on time and each month.)

* Six Flags Reading Award - (she earned a free ticket for pleasure reading)

* Dove Award - a special award her teacher created because she was always helping to resolve conflict before it reached the teachers desk. Each kid received a special "candy" award and this was Isabelle's.




I am so proud of Isabelle and all of her accomplishments this year. I can hardly believe that next year she will be in Second (2nd) grade. Where does the time go. I'm sure that next year will bring more achievements and more greatness from this wonderful kid. But for now I am going to enjoy her this summer and see how much she grows over the summer. We have some fun things in store that I think she will enjoy a lot

I do actually have other children, I know it’s hard to believe but I do. Who would have thought right? Just kidding, Isabelle has just been busy with lots of end of the year stuff, and the boys are just hanging out. But one exciting thing this month, Decllan turned 9 months old. How cool right? We keep getting close to a year and then he will just keep on getting bigger, and more active. Right now this kid is all over the place, crawling, climbing the stairs and trying to keep up with those big kids. Some days it seems hard to believe that so much time has already come and gone from his little life, but then I think there is so much more fun stuff to come.



Of course this kid would not hold still for pictures, and kept putting things in his mouth but hey, he is still super cute acting like himself. Who would want it any other way? I’m not sure what I would do with a kid that did not move around as much as mine do. I can hardly wait every day to see what new things he will discover. He still wins over groups of people with his ready smile, and always is ready to give you a hug.

After two years of being a Dasiy Girl Scout, Isabelle is on her way to being a Brownie. I can hardly believe it. I'm so proud of her and I know she is having lots of fun in her Girl Scout troop. Her leaders did a great job of creating a very cute bridging ceremony for the girls, and now they are brownies. I am also so excited for Isabelle since this year she will get a chance to go to sleep away camp for Girl Scouts. I have really great memories from camp, and I hope that she has as much as I did. Some days I can hardly believe that my baby girl is growing up so fast.

After a full school year of learning to play the Viola, Isabelle and her classmates have thier recital. So sweet to watch these kids come together and play their songs and solos. I will not miss the early Monday mornings but I know that Isabelle will miss her teacher. She had a great time learning from Ms. Blair. I was so proud of her to take on this challenge and do well. I know she can set her sights on whatever she chooses to accomplish. I forgot to bring my camera so we have to deal with crummy phone pics. At least it's something.

Earth Day

I have one of the coolest kids going. Isabelle is amazing and the ideas she comes up with on her own are great. Besides having lots of fun on Earth Day, we also helped to make the earth a little bit cleaner around our neighborhood. There is a wash, or run off area close to the house that sees lots of trash. So Isabelle thought it would be a good idea to clean it up. We collected six bags of trash from said area. Granted there is a little bit of construction going on right now so that does not help with the amount of waste, but we helped clean up. All the kids help to make the world a better place to live and a healthier place. I did hurt my heart that we bagged up recyclable items, I just was not sure how to handle that. Maybe next year we will bring out our bins to collect those items. Either way, happy Earth Day. What did you do to help make the Earth a better place to live?

The Renaissance faire is always one of my favorite spring time activities to do with the whole family. But of course we have a very busy spring so it seems to get harder and harder each year to get there. The kids love it so I think we will have to make it a priority. This year we were joined at the fair with my parents. The got a chance to see the kids enjoy something they introduced my brother and I too when we were kids. I know they have gone with us before but now that the kids are older it is so much more fun, to see how excited they get over the fun, food and games. We did things a little differently this year, we gave each of the kids an allotment of money and that was theirs for the whole day. Once it was gone they were all done. Mom and Dad were not going to pitch in any more money. Barrett had to learn the hard way what that meant. But in the end it all worked out and they still had lots of fun. They were asking to go back as we were leaving. If only we could scrape out two weekends to go to the fair. Maybe in the fall we can go down to Plantersville.

Easter

I know I'm way behind but last week was a little rough. Either way, here we are now and who could pass up the fun times we had on Easter day. We started our morning off my dying eggs. We were super busy that week and did not have time to do it before hand so we dyed them on the day. Everyone got in on the action including Decllan. And why not Easter egg dying is great fun. Cooper did a little two fisted dying and so did Bear.

Then before we had lunch we started the Great Egg Hunt of 2012. Cooper got a couple minute head start since he is younger than all the other kids, and they were off. There were tons of eggs and no one was left out in the goodie department. Collin had lots of fun scaling the playground to reach the eggs. Isabelle was pretty intense about her searching and Bear was just a little perplexed at times. Not really but he sure does look so here.
All of the kids had a blast and found a great amount of eggs. Money, play dough, silly putty, and candy were just a few of the scores. Cooper even stopped to eat one his hard boiled eggs during the hunt. Too funny, I don't think it cost him any time or booty.

Quater Review

Well, I don't think I have been doing so well with the blog posting as I would like. Part of that is my own nerosis, of wanting to post a picture with each post and lack of time. What lack of time you say, surely you have all the time in the world, as a stay at home mom. Ha, ha, what a myth. But most of you should already know that. Either way, I will still try to post something once per week but it might be hit or miss, or a little bit of catch up.

I have done ok, with my scrapbooking, I think I really only lack about 5-8 pages to keep with my goal of 5 pages per week. Which when you consider I scrapbook for five different books is a not so bad. But I am happy to report soon it will just be two, and the others will get "copies" from the family album. I have a plan, I just need to put it into work.

I think I have been doing ok at taking more pictures of Decllan, although some have been on my phone, which is not so good but easier than bringing out the big camera. I might need to get a point and shoot to carry in the diaper bag.

My house, ah what can I say. I have four kids and it is a full time job keeping this place picked up. Makes me want a smaller space but then where would I put all of the crap. Maybe, I would have to get rid of some of it. Oh, usually it's really not too bad, today would be an exception. It will be clean before the weekend, we have friends coming over for Easter dinner.

sports, for everyone

Ok well maybe not everyone but we did have a whirlwind weekend of sports. Three soccer games, and four baseball games. I can hardly believe it that we have made it to this point in our lives. Now I will say that these were with just two kids, can you imagine what it will be like with all four kids playing a sport. I might have to get very creative and ask for help to get them to and from their games. At least one game was actually mine, so maybe that helps it to be a little better. Either way, it was a great weekend and we would not have had it any other way.

Bear's baseball team won the Championship game in the tournament they played in this weekend. So instead of just getting a trophy for showing up they got a trophy for a win. They were all so excited. Bear played great, he hit two triples, and a double, off of a coach pitch ball. This is pretty big since he is the youngest player on the team. He is such a little risk taker too. He forced one of his triples but it worked out for him. He did cause a few heart attacks and whatnot but in the end he prevailed.

Isabelle did great in her games as well. She is one of my best scorers for rec soccer and she is finding her grove on the field for academy ball. She has a hard time since coach likes to play his best players back and have a strong defense, and so she has been playing back. Not her best place to be, but I think in the end it will all work out for her. I just want to make sure she has lots of fun.

My game was good, our team won. Some woman pushed me down for no reason and then was wondering why I was pushing into later while playing the game. Honestly, it took a lot not to come up off the ground and pop her in the face. Some people!

She cracks me up . . .

Isabelle is just too darn cute. Recently my mom brought up a big suitcase filled with costumes used a various parts of our lives. Mom and Dad use to live it up when they were younger and attend Halloween parties for adults and they had some very interesting costumes. So Isabelle is playing dress up and this is one of her creations. A costume too big for her plus my boots. I told her to ask her dad if she could wear that outside of the house.