Little Miss

It became apparent to me yesterday that miss Gracie Beth seemed to need a little one on one time with Mommy.  We've always made a point to have alone time with Jacob since the twins were born, but honestly, until now, Grace and Joshua were just too young to really know the difference.  For various reasons I could just see the glint in her eyes that she needed some of Mommy's special attention.  So I kicked the boys out of the kitchen (I think she felt really special when I shooed Joshua away on more than one occasion, saying it was special time for just Mommy and Gracie) and we decided to treat Daddy (and the neighbor) with some cookies!

Little Miss Gracie Beth, with your sweet curly piggies, I'm so glad we did this together.  We talked...

 

and stirred....

and scooped (I will miss it when you don't fit UNDER the cabinets anymore).

 

 

Hope you enjoy your cookies, Daddy!  Gracie and I sure had fun baking them for you!

Veggies, Flowers, and Dirt, OH MY!

If you know me even a little bit, you know I am NOT a friend to all things vegetation.  It isn't that I don't enjoy beautiful flowers and plants nor is it that I don't try...  I just can't seem to keep things alive!  I either water them too much or too little, not enough light or too much light.  I've found a few things I can keep alive and stick to the basics much of the time. 

This year, for some unknown reason, I decided I really wanted to try my hand at a garden.  I thought the learning and teaching opportunities with the kids would be endless and perhaps if they grew it, they would eat it (a Mom can hope, right?).  My thumb is really, truly quite black, but we decided to jump in and give it a whirl!  Chris gave me a small raised bed garden this year for Mother's Day and got it all set up for me.  We're starting small with just four plants this year: two types of tomatoes, a cucumber plant (which is taking over the whole garden--this may have been a poor choice on our part), and a green pepper plant (Jacob's favorite veggie).  So far we have two tomatoes growing on each of the tomato plants and one green pepper coming in with bunches more flowers blooming.  Do the flowers all turn into veggies?  If they do, we should have a great harvest off our little pepper plant.  Our cucumber plant, well, it is growing...all over the place (and we even bought the so called "compact" kind!), has flowers, but no sign of any type of veggies yet.  It also has some sort of white moldy stuff on some of the leaves.  Hmmmmm....perhaps those endless educational opportunities I was talking about for the kids will also apply to me?  Definitely need to google that one.  We also planted our flower bed out front with wave petunias.  Petunias are not my favorite, but seem to fare the best in our front bed that gets almost full sun for the whole day.  Last year our petunias did not fill in very much so this year we are hopeful that a touch of miracle grow will turn that one around.  I've recently had the itch to do a small container garden on the patio with a lettuce in it, but I haven't made it very far with that one yet.

Needless to say, we are total novices and have no clue what we're doing.  BUT, we are having fun and I guess that is really all that matters.  Jacob has taken on the chore of helping me water almost daily in our hot KY summer heat and occasionally Joshua and Grace get in on the action.  Everyone, including Mommy and Daddy enjoy an evening jaunt around the back of the house to check on the progress of our veggies.  Joshua and Grace can see it from their bedroom window and report back daily what seems to be growing or blooming.  We have no idea if our harvest will be bountiful, but we have no doubt the memories will be!

Joshua is hard at work taking care of the petunias.  I forgot how much Jacob enjoyed watering the plants at this age.  He is a helper!

Mommy is thrilled to see the fruits of our labor!  Look!  A tiny tomato (that isn't so tiny anymore...this photo was a couple weeks ago).

Joshua and Gracie are hard at work tending the veggies!

An evening jaunt around the house to check things out!  Grace is reporting to Daddy that we have TWO tomatoes on our plant now!

Jacob is such a blessing to his Mama!  He takes his chores so seriously and works at them with great dedication.  He is thrilled he is old enough to "work the hose" this year...he can turn it on and off and get the cans filled all on his own!

Not too interested in cheesing while he watered, but here he is taking care of the cucumbers (those are not so small anymore either!).

"Oshua's" Turn!

Joshua was soooooooooooooooo excited it was finally "Oshua's" turn!  He has been patiently waiting for his turn to spend the night with Grandmama and it finally arrived!  He was thrilled to pack up his suitcase and get ready to go!  He had a great time with Grandmama and Grace survived her lonely night alone in her room just fine. I can't believe they are big enough to do things like this, but it was certainly a highlight of his summer thus far!

All packed up and ready to go!  Cannot wait for Grandmama to arrive!

In the car, hugs 'n kisses given, and ready to go!  Bye-bye Mommy!  I'm going to Grandmama's!

Sleep Over for Gracie!

Tonight is the night!  It is Gracie's turn for her first ever overnight stay at Grandmama's house!  She woke up and told me she was excited and she was pleased as punch to drag her luggage around the house.  Not sure what she'll make if it tonight, but I hope and pray she loves this time of pampering with her Grandmama!  This is her FIRST overnight stay with Grandmama, her FIRST overnight away from Mommy and Daddy (sniff!), and her FIRST overnight away from her twin brother (unless you count the time Joshua had surgery when they were about 6 weeks old).  It is a big day for Miss Gracie Beth!

So excited! 

She is a typical girl.  She does not pack light!

All loaded up in Grandmama's car, hugs 'n kisses, given, settled in with a book, and ready to go!  FUN!

I've had one report so far today from Grandmama that Grace is loving her time.  She got to go eat lunch at a restaurant with Great Grandmama Kay and apparently she was not shy about displaying her appetite (apparently McKinney makes a mean grilled cheese!).  Now she's napping and I have no idea what is in store for the rest of the day, but I am sure it will be lots of sweet, girlie fun with Grandmama!  So thankful she gets to make sweet memories like this!

School's Out!

School is out for summer!  What a year it has been!  We have loved every minute of Jacob's time at Trinity Christian Academy in the 3 day Pre-K class.  His teachers have been a wonderful blessing to us and he has further grown in his deep love of learning.  Friendships grew, memories were made, and time flew by!  We cannot believe we were just here:

First day of Pre-K, August 17, 2012

A little unsure of what to expect, but excited to be "big" and starting school!

Now look where we are!!

Excited about last day festivities, not limited to, but including a lunch date with Mommy at Cracker Barrel after school!

He has grown so much this year!

The night before his last day of school, we were also treated to a wonderful Spring Program at his school including music, hymns, an impromptu review of the attributes of God (during which Jacob was able to recall the word omniscient and say it clearly into the microphone), Bible recitation, and poetry recitation.  We loved seeing all they have learned and how they have grown!

We have loved each and every minute of our experience at Trinity.  God graciously opened doors for us to be able to send him to the half-day kindergarten program at Trinity again next year.  He will attend in the mornings, five days a week.  We are really excited to see what the year has in store for us.  We have no idea how long God will allow for us to remain at Trinity or in "typical" school settings (we are prayerfully considering the possibility of homeschooling him).  We are just excited to prayerfully consider each year and see where God leads us.  We are so glad He led us to Trinity for Jacob's first experience with school!

Thank you, Trinity Christian Academy!  Jacob LOVES school!

That being said......it is summertime!  And we are EXCITED about summer break!  Yippee!



Book Worm!

I decided Jacob was old enough to get his own library card!  Look out world...we have a new library patron on our hands!

Signing the back of his card.

Showing off the new card!

Testing out the new card and checking out some new books!

Success!  Books checked out, library card secured in a good place, new library book bag to show off.  Happy kid!!

What an April!

We've had quite the April (well, some of it spilled into late March, too) around our house!  Sickness, more sickness, and sickness galore!  We literally made at the very least one trip per week to the pediatrician and some weeks included two trips!  In the month of April we had:

• Four people with pink eye
• One child with two ear infections
• Another child with an ear infection
• One child with strep (well, I think technically it was Scarlet Fever, but they don't really refer to it that way anymore)
• One child with "almost" pneumonia
• One child with vomiting
• One child with random, unexplained high temps of 102 for a day or so
• Two with deep, come from your toes, keep you up at night coughs
• One child with a rough allergic reaction to eggs that we learned later should have required us to use our epi-pen, but we are still learning all this allergy stuff and didn't use the epi-pen...

Each time we'd get hit with one thing and we'd go to the doctor and get it all cleared up I'd think...phew!  The worst is behind us!  We are finally well and can get out of the house.  That would last for a day or two and then the next one would start with symptoms of the next thing.  It seemed to go on and on and on.  We've been a pretty puny bunch lately, but as I write this we are all well and I pray it remains this way for a very long time!

Not sure if you can see it, but Grace's rash was pretty horrendous when she had Strep.

You can see more of the rash on her face.  She was so pitiful.  She would just lay down in the middle of the floor, wouldn't eat for days, and really didn't talk much either.  It lasted about a week, but boy were we glad when we got our Gracie back!

Joshua's allergic reaction.  You can see in the photo the redness and hives around his eye and how huge his lower lip is--very swollen.  This episode was the worst reaction so far (other than his very first reaction--before we knew he was even allergic to eggs) and it was entirely by mistake!  We have him on a no egg diet, but Mommy overlooked a product with egg!

This month has had some trying times, but it all makes me all the more thankful for our health and helps me realize how fragile life is.  What a sweet and precious gift it is to know the Lord holds each of us in the palm of His hand.  While mothering many who were ill I found so much peace and rest in knowing He was ever present with us through the trial.  Oh how I long for the New Heaven and New Earth where sickness will be no more!