"While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about." Angela Schwindt

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Summer is Here!

After several busy, busy months full of surgeries, lots of therapy, follow up trips out east, a wedding, and lots of birthdays we are enjoying some down time here at our house (if there is such a thing).  While we are still keeping busy with baseball games, 4H, Boy Scouts I feel like we have more time at home to do things.

Our garden is in full swing now.  We finally got it planted the first weekend of June.  So late!  We had planned on planting on Memorial Day weekend (had the plants all bought) but rain foiled our plans.  We are growing several variates of tomatoes.  We had to purchase the cherry tomatoes in a six pack so we are going to be swamped with those at the end of summer.  We also planted zuchinni, eggplant, pickling cucumbers, acorn squash, butternut squash, spaghetti squash, watermelon, and cateloupe.  Woohoo!  Can't wait until Fall!!  It is lots of work taking care of all that.  The weeds and grass are just starting to pop up again so very quickly weeding will have to be added to the list of daily tasks.  Watering is the big thing right now.  Need to give the plants a good start!  The older kids have been helping with that.



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Since our garden is out in the front portion of our property away from any source of water it is a little bit of work to haul water out there.   Shelby backs the truck up close to the hose.  Jake puts empty 5 gallon buckets on the tailgate then they fill them up there so they don't have to lift them.  Then Shelby slowly drives them out to the garden where they both use coffee containers to water each plant.  Shelby likes to help just because she gets to drive so that is nice.  Nice not to hear complaining.  I promised my husband that we would all help with the garden this year.  That was the only way it was getting planted this year.  He went on strike after he came home from Brazil last year to find the garden full of weeds and some of the plants dead.  Can't say I blame him.  We are going to do better this year!  It is going to be team effort since we all enjoy the end results!


It was super hot here last week but the kids did not seem to mind!  Jadon is loving the arrival of summer!  He just wants to be outside no matter how hot it is.  He seems to find ways to stay cool as you can see.....


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He loves his water table!  We got the sprinkler out but he is not too sure of that yet.  Hoping he gets used to it by the end of summer.  I made a mental note after last week to just send him out in his swimsuit when it is over 90 degrees so he can get as wet as he wants!


I have several new water activities to introduce but we have had a break in the extreme heat this week and along with the cooler temperatures rain has returned so the other activities will have to wait.  I found several tutorials on how to make sprinklers out of pvc pipe.  One is like a car wash.  So cute!  And I also saw a way to make water bombs out of sponges!  An easy alternative to filling water balloons.  Can't wait to try these out!! 




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