life group...

So, what is a Life Group?

It's a group of friends that come together to study God's word and to do "life" together. It's not all bible study....no, it's much more than that. We share the ups and the downs of life...and do a whole lot of laughing!! Since laughing is healthy for you we don't feel so bad when we find we've spent 30 minutes cracking up to the point of tears on a Friday night. :) A few weeks ago we had a cook-out in our backyard and said farewell to our fearless leaders. They've left us for the other coast and will be greatly missed. Of course, we are still holding onto the hope that in a few years' time they will be back with us!!

My baby hits double digits...

When you first have a child many people will warn you that it flies by so fast and that you better enjoy every second. You can't imagine that it will go too quickly though as you battle sleep deprivation, change umpteen diapers, go through teething, terrible threes (yes, I said threes...I don't know why people call it twos!), and other parenting woes. Then one morning you wake up and your BABY is 10. Yes, I said it...TEN. What is up with that? This is the baby. Not my oldest baby, second baby or even third baby. Nope, this is the honest goodness BABY baby. She had the nerve to turn 10.

I figured we would take a look at some of K's loves and things I love about her.

K loves to be crazy at times with one of her brothers or even by herself.



I love that she loves to laugh and that we sometimes can barely stand up straight during our giggle fits.


K LOVES animals.....tame ones and wild ones, big ones and small ones.


I love the fact that I had way too many photos of K with animals to put on this blog. Pictures of her with dogs, birds, goats, cows, pigs, snakes, guinea pigs, etc....




K loves HOT SAUCE on lots of her foods. I love that she cooked these eggs all by herself and that she is learning her way around a kitchen and takes delight in experimenting with food.



K loves water. I love she has worked through her fear of being underwater....and I love the way the water brings out her blue eyes.


K loves science.

I love how she takes the time to be organized with it and loves to learn the hows and whys.



K loves being creative whether it be with a stick and string.....


or a pencil and watercolor. I love how she has found so many ways to express her creativity and she isn't hampered by a mom that lacks the creative bone.



K loves school....ok, maybe not the book work, but she loves when...


...she can take time to create a family trivia game or


decorate cakes to look like maps.

I love that she understands that learning is not all about the books and that she works hard in that area knowing the fun stuff is coming.

K loves sports like tennis and fishing.

I love that she gives it a shot before deciding that something really isn't her favorite. Along the way she discovers what she truly does love.


K loves cleaning and organizing. I love that she keeps me on my toes and makes me think if I truly love, want or need an item or if I'm just hanging onto it for no good reason. Yes, people...she is that good at it! ;)



K loves the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. I love listening to her sing along to her cd. I also loved watching her smile all through the dinner theater performance that we went to on her last birthday!


K loves playing in the snow. I love that she ALWAYS builds snow mamas with a baby or two.



K loves Pluto. I love that even though she knows it's a costume, she still loves this Pluto.


She's a great girl and watching her grow has been a blessing to both me and her daddy. Fortunately for me, I believed people when they told me my babies were going to grow up way too fast. I have always tried to treasure each moment I have with them...I KNOW and I UNDERSTAND that time flies. I am now one of those people that goes around telling young moms to enjoy it and let the laundry wait. Guess what!?! It STILL goes way too fast.....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PRINCESS K!!

planting day....

Woohoo, the day has finally come. Yes, sirree...today is the day to get some serious veggies in the ground. Last night Mike and I laid them all out in their respective beds. This morning my mom came over and helped me plant them. We were done before lunch, thank goodness. I did plant seeds and have my radishes getting close to harvesting...hopefully! Now, with some sun, water and luck they will do their job and grow and produce. I want lots and lots of yummy veggies.

Here's an early morning picture of the garden. Every plant has been placed in a spot and is just waiting to get plopped down in the dirt to spread it's roots.

We have 16 pepper plants, so far.....hot ones and sweet ones.

We bought three kinds of squash this year, including these patty pans.

Here's one bed of tomatoes and cukes. (we have two)

Here's the squash bed...


...the pepper bed and



the full garden shot.



We have bush beans, bush pickle cucumbers, bush cucumbers, regular cucumbers, hungarian wax peppers, jalapenos, red bells, orange bells, green bells, sweet banana peppers, serrano peppers, a chocolate pepper, zucchini, yellow squash, patty pan, Mr. Stripey tomatoes, better boy, beef master, sweet 100's, yellow pear tomatoes, an orange heirloom tomato, plum tomatoes and a few other kinds of tomatoes. Also, some herbs, radishes, lettuce and carrots. Although...the lettuce looks a little....sad. We'll see. I'm hoping to bring you lots of good yummy pictures during the summer. Wish me luck!

veggie garden update

It's been a while since we checked out our big spring project. Remember we built six raised veggie garden beds.

Let's take a peek....

Ah....the fresh dirt is ready for planting. I checked and its loaded with big juicy worms, too. Just perfect for growing baskets and baskets of produce.

Wait...what's that in the far bed. Is something coming up already? Let's move in for a closer look.

By golly, is it what I think it is?


YEP!


Our first batch of iceberg lettuce is up! I told you all we were garden masters. Wait till you see what's happening tomorrow in the garden.

HINT....it's quite a bit better then our first harvest.

caterpillars...

'Tis the season to be covered in caterpillars. Gypsy moth caterpillars are everywhere and if you stand outside in one place too long you'll wind up with one, two or five on you. They may be climbing up your pants leg...or under your pants leg! You might have one sitting on your shoulder looking like your pet parrot....or sometimes they wind up in your hair....ewwww!

I know they are pests, but when you have a kid that loves all things furry you just wind up excusing that fact. Every year for at least the past 3 years, K has been bringing a few of these "pets" inside and watching them go through their cycle. It's just something that she does and until this year it's been a fairly ordinary thing. This year, however, her body decided that it was now allergic to gypsy moth caterpillars. Oh what a fun event that was. It took me two days to connect them to the huge itching welts that were popping up on her. Just when I figured it was the caterpillars, she pulled one out of the cage and let it crawl all over her hand. I didn't say anything at the moment, other then put him back in and let's see what happens. And see we did! Thirty minutes passed by and her hand blew up. Welts all up her fingers and her thumb was too fat to bend. Hmmm.....ding, ding....we had the connection. Benadryl brought her back to normal and it's been hands off since. That doesn't stop her from watching them and playing with them....yesterday she put her winter gloves on and played hospital rescuing ones that looked weak! Like I said....she loves ALL things furry.

The other night she went out back to take a few pictures.

Is it just me or do you think these caterpillars are organizing themselves to spell out some message?

What a special day. I've been spoiled for sure and I wanted to share a little of my morning. Middle son works in a flower dept and had a hand in the first two pictures. I think that makes them even more special. Last night he brought home the first flower arrangement for me from him. I love the colors and it looks perfect on my dining room table. The second set of flowers was bought this morning when Mike, middle son and K went to the store before 8am.

(that in itself is a true act of love!)

K had a plan, though. She told the guys in the house how it was going to be. It involved getting up early, so we could still make it to church for the first service. It involved grocery shopping, following recipes and all of them working in the kitchen doing their part.

I came out to see my roses, a little bear, a wrapped present(more on that another day), a card made with love and a plate full of food. I had eggs made to order with cheese and veggies, a cream cheese and strawberry grilled concoction(a cross between grilled cheese and stuffed french toast) and a chocolate chip muffin. No, I wasn't able to eat it all and I didn't even try. Breakfast was yummy and it was very much appreciated.

I think one of the best parts of the day was hearing from K when she said she was so excited she couldn't go to sleep until 11 last night and that she woke up a little after 6:30 and sat on her bed watching the clock. She knew she had gotten daddy to say he would try to get up at 7 and she knew she shouldn't push it. It touched me to hear how excited she was to show her appreciation and love today. Wouldn't it be something if we were all like that....all bubbly and excited to show our love to others? It's something I plan to work on everyday.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TO ALL THE SPECIAL MOMMIES OUT THERE!!!

cool bug

Look at this way cool moth. I have no clue what kind it is, but it visited my mom last year. I was browsing through my photos and decided to test the photo loading aspect of my blog. (it's been broken for days) Looks like it's back.

yummy snack

I heard K rustling around in the kitchen the other night, but didn't really think much of it. I was reading blogs while I was waiting for The Biggest Loser to come on. Well, imagine my surprise when we all plopped down in front of the tv and K brought out a snack for everyone. It was an appropriate snack for the show, too! We ate half of them before I thought to have her take a picture.




We didn't have skewers so she used toothpicks...

lots and lots of toothpicks!

She can be such a creative child.

(sorry about the picture...blogger has been giving me fits the past few days regarding pictures. I've had to resort to using a different method...which gives me a gigantic photo or a small one. You can click on it to enlarge it...if you really want to see a larger version. Hopefully, I'll be back to normal here soon. A blog without pictures is.....boring.)

working on health....

This year, K has been taking health in a co-op group. The lead teacher has been having the kids learn about the different systems in the body. The kids then color them, cut them out and put them in their paper bodies. It was a good overview for her and we will spend some time reviewing and going more in depth.

K is busy at work catching up on a few worksheets.

Here is her liver. ;) Notice the cute little box she made in art. They were working on Origami.

It's always fun to walk into class and see a sea of "bodies" sprawled across the floor.

a most delicious giveaway...

While I was out taking a break and scoping out fellow blogs I stumbled across Christine's blog, Maman and Gourmand. She has a few giveaways going on there now and the Mother's Day giveaway is a doozie!! :) She's offering an array of goodies that I would personally love to get my hands on. Be sure to check it out and enter. (just click on the above link) Should you decide that this is a contest that you would love to enter, please post my blog address in her comment section. Then I will receive an extra entry and so will you! Make sure you check back on her site often and follow the directions for more entries. Good luck!!

Half the fish...

Yesterday, my guys all went fishing on the bay. My dad chartered a boat to take them out to catch rockfish. It's Trophy Season and you can catch one a day. If it's under 28 inches you have to throw it back in, but you get to try again.

So, everyone had to meet at 5am and they carpooled to the marina. I guess you have to really like fishing to be up that early....and on a rainy day to boot. Last weekend we had absolutely GORGEOUS weather. This weekend, not so lucky.

My dad and my brother joined the fishing party, so there were 6 of them altogether. We all had expectations of them bringing home 6 huge fish. My mom was coming over here after the fishing expedition to help bag and wrap the bounty.

Their day started off with a bang with the first fish pulled in soon after they started. It was a 33 inch big boy that my brother landed...or is that boated? Soon after that T reeled in a 36 inch rockfish. My brother is just as competitive as T, so the fact that T's fish was bigger was enough to make his day. Then they waited....and waited... and waited some more. S reeled in two, but they didn't make the cut and had to be released. I got a text from J, my oldest, and he said no one else had caught any fish. I replied back and said I would say a little fishy prayer. Not more then 30 minutes later, J reeled in a.....39 incher! That was the last fish brought in for the day. Still they had fun and made plans to go again when there were no limits and the weather was sure to be warmer.

Fortunately, for my mom and I they had the fish cleaned and filleted at the marina. So our part was easy... just cutting and packing. Actually, at the time, I was kind of glad that they only caught 3. It was dinner time and I was hungry. Next time, I'll at least make sure I had a lunch before they get home!

The lucky fishermen

The whole gang

That's quite a bit of fish on my counter.

Here's one of the fillets from the biggest fish.

Anyone have any yummy fish recipes to share?

A month of giveaways....

So, who doesn't like winning a little special something and receiving it in the mail? Anyone?? I know I love trying and every once in a blue moon I actually win. It's so exciting to check the mail and find a little package. It makes my day...heck, my whole week!

Well, at Fantabulously Frugal there is a WHOLE month of opportunities. That's right. Each day brings a new giveaway. You can click the above link or click her button on my sidebar and it will take you right where you want to be. Good luck. I hope you win something!!