Things that have been keeping me busy...

Hello!

Hello?

Huh. People probably gave up on me. Not that I can blame anyone for not checking this since, after all, its been since February since I posted last.

...so, if anyone actually reads this after not posting for so long...

I've decided that the time has come to resurrect the blog. So many neat things happen with us and we have a great time...and I miss sharing our pictures and stories with everyone. I've been very busy lately, it was kind of a crazy summer...and thought I'd post quick to update everyone on what is going on with us!

So......

I feel like I should get a drumroll here....

The things that have been keeping me busy:

1. Poopy diapers. Lots of them. But I'll spare you the pictures.

You're welcome.

 

2. Homeschooling.

 

We decided about a year ago (I think?) to homeschool our kids. I have not actually been busy with homeschool because TODAY was our first official day of school! Hurrah!

But what I spent most of the summer (and lots of whiny phone calls to my mom) trying to sort out what what in the world to do. I had no idea the array of curricula, education approaches, materials...

It can get a little overwhelming.

We've been doing a little here and there...working on reading, some handwriting, some fun unity studies, etc. with Noah, but decided to offically begin Noah's kindergarden year and begin our first school year! It's kind of fun starting school in October....

3. Weddings.

Some of our best friends got married this year, and our little family was lucky enough to help out with both of them.

First in July, our friends Matt and Jess (Diers) Pauly were married. Jess, one of my best friends, and I went to college and were in Delta Zeta together. Noah was their ring bearer and I was the reader during their wedding mass.



Then in September our friends Alex and Nicole got married. We met them here in Salina, and they're pretty much become an extension of our family. Alex especially was a pretty regular fixture at our dinner table...at least before Nicole started keeping him so busy. Noah was their ring bearer, too, Bri was an usher and I was a cake cutter. And dropped frosting down the front of my dress.

Because thats how I like to do things.

4. Gardening

Of course, our obsession with our garden prompted another garden expansion this year. We unfortunately had a hard time with it, as we got hit really hard with the heat wave and drought that covered most of this part of the country. We had two weeks straight where it was over 100 degrees. Wait...it might have been three...anyway, we kept everything alive (yay for us!) but nothing has really been producing until now.

However. Allow me to introduce you to Mr. Mantis. We brought him back from my brother and sister-in-law's house in Omaha. He was sitting on their door knob and asked to come home with us, so we took him.

...at least thats the way Noah likes to tell the story...

Anyway, the kids LOVE to look for the mantis every time we're in the garden. So, almost every day. And he pops up in some funny places. Here is is among our sweet potatoes.

See all the holes in the leaves? There were tons of caterpillars in the sweet potatoes. I bet he had a nice snack that day....

5. Trying new things.

We always take on too much. Super-huge problem for both of us. Which probably explains why we have no logical way to get everything done that we want to do...

But among the things we tried this year/got more involved in/are doing more of:

• Church-Bri is on Parish Council, and I started cantoring
• Sewing. I made this pillow case dress for Bellini, and lots of other fun things.

•   A little bit of wood working stuff. Bri made me these shelves and is planning a few more projects for me. But he doesn't know that yet.

• Piano lessons. I played growing up, and we were lucky enough to score a free piano off Freecycle last summer. I started giving our neighbor girl piano lessons, and am thinking of taking on some more students.

6. Chickens.

Maybe its our new-found crazy hippy urban-farmer ways; maybe the economy; maybe our neighbor jokingly informing us that you can have up to 15 chickens within city limits...whatever it was, we decided to get a small flock of chickens this year.

And it has been a BLAST. We started off with nine chickens in February, after figuring out how many eggs we wanted, how much space, etc. We wanted to end up with 6 or 7 and were pretty convinced we were going to kill some since we didn't know what we were doing.

The dog killed one (while my poor sis-in-law was here to visit with her boys. Yikes.) and we butchered one, who was a rooster. You're not supposed to have roosters in town, and we were kind of trying to decide whether to get rid of him or not, and if so how, and he started attacking our kids. So he went to the soup pot. Which was not as terrifying an experience as I thought it would be.

Now, we have seven pretty chickens.

I absoulty picked our chicken breeds based on the kind of eggs they would lay. We get no white eggs, just pretty, mulitcolored surprises. Mostly brown...one lays a pretty robins-egg-blue egg; light brown with dark brown spots; tan with white spots...aren't they pretty?

7. Random acts of silliness.

Other than our few extra added busy-makers, it has been business as usual around here. Here are some fun, and some sweet, pictures of what we've been up to:

Haircuts, of all things, got to be quite the topic of conversation in our house this spring...probably because Isaac's and Bella's hair looked like this:

Isabelle's wasn't that bad. I had cut her bangs a lot, but had never ever trimmed anything off her length, and was pretty jagged at the bottom and needed cleaning up. But. Yeah. I can't believe that Bri let me get Isaa'cs hair that long...wasn't it beautiful??? Those curls melted my heart on a daily basis...but unfortunately they are gone. With family pictures and weddings on their way (ya know, events where people would actually see us) we figured it was time...or rather, I finally gave in to Bri's begging. And my brothers asking how my "hippy child" was doing.

Anyway, here's his hair now.

Of course, he needs another hair cut in this picture. But I firmly believe that funny faces could save the world...

...they at least make it 300 times happier...

Bella: "Momma, look at us! You should take a picture!"

Noah: "Yeah. It actually looks like we really love each other."

True story.

Love me my morning cuddles...

...and the look on Isaac's face. What a goofer.

Playin' with the neighbor girls...in the closet...because apparently that's cool.



One of hundreds of photos that melt my heart. During a picnic at Kanopolis.



Whew! That was fun!

Hopefully I'll get some time to do that more often...again...I am thinking about "privatizing" the blog, and making it password protected. Just so I know that its a somewhat controlled group of people looking at our blog and pictures. Not sure on that one though....

Anyway. I hope you enjoyed :)