6 1/2 Today

Better watch out, he's a tough guy!

But, man, is he ever a charmer.

He can run fast and play all kinds of sports.

He's going to big and strong just like his Daddy! And with those dreamy brown eyes of his too!

We made ice cream in a baggie today to celebrate. Abby has been gone all day getting fixed, so we are kind of missing her. Ally has had a friend over and we had a HUGE rain which was wonderful - it is still hot, but no so unbearable. Ally made a scavenger hunt to entertain everyone and we are headed to our lifegroup this evening. Her All-Star practice has been cancelled for 2 nights because of rain. We are really preparing to be bombarded with nightly practices starting next week. All Stars here is an AMAZING ordeal - we are glad she is getting the opportunity, don't get me wrong. It just seems more like they are preparing for a dance show sometimes. Matching headbands & hair ribbons, special shoe-strings, wooden dugout decorations, matching practice uniforms, goody bags and matching water jugs. It's softball for goodness sake!

Well, I have an apple pie in the oven so I better run!

Love,

Tara

thecutestblogontheblock.com/freebackgrounds

So, I found this neat sight that has lots of neat things to really jazz up a blog and I started tinkering and lost everything. I mean all the photos and all of it and I got scared and stopped messing with things. Now the background doesn't go all the way to the edge, the photo collage is crooked, but I don't care - least I didn't lose everything.
It is a really neat site. I was trying to change my blog into 3 columns (it explains how to do that on the site), but you have to monkey with the html settings, and I did something wrong. It tells you how to change font and add your signature and all kinds of things. The site also has something really neat - for a fee - they will print your entire blog into a scrapbook. Wouldn't that be neat to do someday? Anyway, I'll get brave again and monkey around with it some more one day, but for now I'm just glad to have my crooked collage!
Well, it's so hot today that we saw two trees fighting over a dog. It's so hot, today we saw a chicken lay a fried egg. Birds have to use potholders to pull worms out of the ground.
Potatoes cook underground, so just pull one out and add butter, salt and pepper. It's so hot, we can roast marshmallows on our bellies. It's so hot we eat hot peppers to cool our mouths off. It's so hot we can make instant sun tea. When the temperature drops below 95, you feel a bit chilly.

And my thermometer was not broken, it works perfectly well, so I guess where it was in the sun it really was 120 degrees. We got a 550 piece puzzle, some new playdough and a few other inside goodies because nobody will play outside! Even the dog only goes outside to pee before 7am and after 9pm - she holds it all day.

Crazy HOT!

Okay it is busted, but it was fine yesterday! It got so hot today my thermometer busted! The weatherman said it was 106, but it was hotter than that! Unbelievable hot! It I knew a lame joke about how hot it is - I'd tell it. It's HOT!

This is the first of some of the lapbooks I am making for the schoolyear. Yes, the kids will make most of them by themselves, I am just making a few of them so the process will go faster. I'll write more about them later, but I am excited, they are going to be a lot of fun!

We've had some educational summer learning about digestion. Seems the dog has a huge appetite for legos. Daniel has found several on top of piles of poop in the backyard which has sparked huge interest about where the legos have been and how they got there. He's learned a lot and now he wants to experiment a bit and see how long it takes something to go through the process. Gross. What a boy! Maybe he'll be a scientist someday.

Ally off to Camp

We got up very early this morning to drive Ally to Grand Prairie to attend church camp with Crossroads Christian Church and her cousin, Katelyn. She won't know many people, but if I know Ally, she'll have a lot of friends before the week is over. We left at 6am this morning, I don't think Ally slept much last night either. She has been looking forward to camp and I know we will be missing her all week. She will also go to Antioch's camp in July, but it is only 3 days and she wanted to go to camp for a whole week. She is excited about the zipline and swimming everyday. The current forecast now says 103 degrees Wednesday - what a week to be out in the heat!

We had to drive over and see the new Cowboy's stadium while we were there - this is not it, this is the Texas Ranger's stadium...

This is the new Cowboys stadium. Daniel wanted to see it before Daddy did. They were very impressed. They are actually standing at the same spot, which tells you how close the stadiums are to each other.

Can't Find the Camera

How dare I post something with no pictures? I know. It must be at my parent's house. Maybe it's in the car somewhere?

We've been in Corsicana a lot this week. My grandmother went to see Jesus on Monday. We had a kind of fun funeral on Wednesday. It was a very appropriate celebration of a life. We helped my parents a little with cleaning out her house. Like so many who lived through the Depression, she was a bit of a pack rat, but fortunately she was highly organized about it. Everything is neatly boxed and labeled. We haven't been able to do much to the property for several years, even mowing would upset her. So, the pecan trees and a lot of things are really needing some TLC. We would love all these projects if it weren't for the heat! It is SO HOT! Weather forecast says 101 for several days in the week ahead. My parents will remodel some things and move into the house in the next year.

I've been loving reading that Restoration Series by Terry Blackstock - appeals to the survivalist in me (see shelf)! Ally DID make the All-Star Team. Because of the area of their league, they go directly to regionals in July. She will begin nightly practices when she gets back from church camp next week. Daniel had a wonderful time at Football Camp, and Gracie is just a-working in the kitchen and reading and trying to learn to juggle. We are having a fun summer, but busier than I had hoped. The heat is making the kids want to stay in and watch TV or play wii too much, so that has become a constant battle.
Love to all,
Tara

Daniel's Football Camp

Daniel is going to football camp this week. He had a great time and did a good job, too. It was HOT!

Daniel loved kicking and punting most of all.

Mudpies and Bird Booby Traps

The kids and Elana had fun playing in the mud at Nanas. They piled mud on the road and cars would come by and splat more mud all over them. Good dirty fun! Long as it is Nana's carpet they are tracking up and not mine! We went to Nana's Thursday kind of expecting to go to a funeral for my grandmother. Amazingly, she is still hanging on as of my writing this Sunday night. Doctors didn't believe she would make it to last Wednesday, then they gave her just a few hours - that was about 20 hours ago. Her brain function is very low, bp very low, various organs have shut down. The kids hoped she would get to go see Jesus and Papaw for a birthday present on Saturday (she was 89 on the 13th). We expect to be back in Mildred some this week to be with family and help Nana and Max as much as we can.

Our garden is really starting to produce. We have had some beautiful tomatoes - but so far all the red ones are full of bird beak marks! Daniel and I had fun thinking of booby traps - plastic snakes (which didn't phase the birds), then we added little cowbells all over, then we put red Christmas balls on the plants to trick the birds. We still had a fresh beak mark this morning. I think I will go with Daniel's suggesting to rig them with mouse traps and build a monster scarecrow. A bunch of really small bugs are all over the eggplants too. I need to google some organic solution to that as well.

Love,

Tara

Fun Fun

Lazy River

This is part of Daniel's new Lego sets that he bought with his own money. He bought a ship (that really floats in the bathtub), helicopter, police car, dock with light house, and all kinds of stuff to go with them. A very cool bunch of Legos which should keep him busy all summer - then some. He always talks about how he is going to add to the Lego collection and then when he is a very big teenager, he is going to give them back to Justin Harwell for his someday son (or Misty and Jason's someday son). It should be a very nice collection by then. Justin gave Daniel his childhood Lego collection several years ago (which was ALOT of Legos).

Daddy and Daniel had a lot of fun putting it all together!

We had a GREAT time at the water park today. We are attending a neat VBS every morning this week about the early Christian underground in Rome. The kids are learning alot! After that, we went to the water park with some friends. It was great fun until somebody puked in the water -GROSS! They cleaned it - but we didn't really feel good about getting back in, so we left. Kind of a yucky ending to a fun day.

We are headed to Corsicana in a few days. My grandmother is not doing well, and is not expected to live much longer. We are very thankful we are closeby now and able to be here with family.

Just life

Gracie is WAY into cooking. She's pretty good at it too, she makes a mean cowboy stew. Maybe that kind of thing skips a generation or something. She is reading a series of books called The Katie Lynn Cookie Company by G.E. Stanley and every book has a recipe or two she HAS to try. I have recently been leaving the girls TOTALLY alone in the kitchen on these adventures, resisting the urge to even make suggestions. They learn so much through the trial and error! Actually, this cooking adventure didn't go so well. The recipe called for buttermilk (which of course we didn't have) so the girls were SUPPOSED to mix 1 cup of milk with 3 tsp of vinegar. However, somehow they mixed 3 CUPs of vinegar instead. The second batch was much better and we all enjoyed Gracie's delicious chocolate buttermilk bread.

Daniel is so done with his kindergarten work, but the girls have a couple of days, so am keeping him busy sending him out on Daniel adventures. Today, I gave him a large bag of birdseed and a small spoon, binoculars, a bird guide, and an exciting book from Aunt Kim about Birds of Prey. Soon the girls were sucked into the action, and the only challenge was to stay quiet enough not to scare away every bird in the county.

Love to all,

T

Water Sprinkler Fun

We were planning to go hiking with the kids on the Cameron Park trails after church Sunday, but it was SO hot! And Byron and I had that Sunday afternoon nap calling, too. I think it is going to be really difficult to hike around here this summer. So, we got out the water sprinkler instead and got wet.

We have a packed calendar for June. Lots of VBS's around close, Daniel is going to football camp, and lots and lots of birthdays! We might have a 1/2 birthday party or 2 to off-set some of the Christmas/birthday madness. We can have a big sleepover now, then keep it simple for the actual birthday in December. Everyone is done with all their subjects for school except the girls have about 2 weeks of math to do - we might spread it out over the summer - it doesn't take them long to do their math lessons.