Little Red's Caboose

Just incase you were not aware, our little riding lawn mower is Little Red, while the larger tractor is Big Red. After some searching on Craigslist I ended up finding a used trailer for Little Red. We thought this would helpful around the yard as the kids could do cleanup etc. during the day when I am at work. Little Red's caboose needed some TLC before being put into service. We started by sanding down areas where the paint had been scraped off and the metal was showing some rust.

It is always good to use proper hearing protection when the boys are being loud!

Little Red's Caboose is finished and ready for test rides. So I loaded it up with some weight and zipped up and down the driveway to make sure it would hold up.

County Fair

This is always a fun and fairly inexpensive outing for our family and this year was a blast. We met both sides of our families there and spent quite a bit of time looking at animals and even got to watch the 4H kids try and catch soaped up weaner pigs.

Uncle Mark and Aunt Christie learning to square dance. It looked like a lot of fun.

Mia pumping water as Larkin waits for her turn.

We found out that if the kids read a couple of books and filled out the form they got two free ride tickets. So they all did it and went on their two rides, this being the second one. The carnival area at the fair is always a little sketchy or scary, and I am not sure we will do that again.

Waiting for ice cream!

Happy boy!

Happy girl!!

Can you guess? Happy boy!!!

Lily loved sharing a shake with Momma.

Overall it was a lot of fun and the kids got to stay up late. Next time we need to make sure we can see some of the shows, and possibly learn some four square dancing.

First Day of School

Well, we officially started our school year today. The kids were excited. Ethan's words were, "I'm so glad to be back to schooling," while he was surrounded by his books for the year. We didn't take off the whole summer. The kids worked on math and reading and a whole lot of nature and science while outside. Learned some swimming while swimming in our pool, how to snap green beans and can them, and so much more. It was a busy summer and HOT at the end but we are so excited to get back to a normal routine once again and start getting into our books more. We started out with a yummy pancake breakfast. Did the kids weight and height check and took pictures. Then started school work. This week and I'm sure for the next few we are taking it half speed. Just getting a feel for our new curriculum and what to expect. Also it gives me the time to figure out how long it will take for things to get done. So much fun. Just a glimpse of what this year will be like. it should be really interesting with Lily Mae in the middle of everything. YIKES!

Harvesting our first crop of Honey!!!

Our bee's were already done with the first box of honey for us. They were working hard. Here is Dave and Mark starting to take the frames out. They are all nicely capped.

Dave always takes a helper down with him and it was Ethan's turn this time. The kids have no fear of the bees. It is amazing. Ethan has gotten stung once but not by a honey bee. So it still doesn't bother him at all.

Here they are brushing the bees off of the frames.

The precious frames full of honey just waiting for us.

Ooooh, ahhhhhhhh!!

Dad and Mark cutting off the caps to reveal the tasty honey.

Look at all that golden honey.

Using Mark's nifty contraption for extracting the honey from the cell's. Dave is coming up with a design of his own to use later at the end of the summer when we harvest again.

Look at all that honey spraying out of the cells. WOW! I loved this part.

The final steps. Pouring into storage containers.

All of our honey.

And it is so good.

Fishing with Grandpa

So Dave's dad, loves to go fishing and will come over and take the 3 older kids to a nearby lake. The kids love to go fishing with Grandpa. This one time Ev and Mia caught the fish. Here they are and Grandpa is teaching them how the clean it out. Yes in my sink, but I made sure it was nice and clean afterwards.  Yuck!

Ethan got to clean Mia's cause she would not touch it. She's my kind of girl.  

Updating

So it has been a while since our last post. Many things have happened so we will be doing many posts in the next few days. Hope you enjoy.

Our Princess is 5!

 Our Mia is 5 today. I can't believe how fast those 5 years went. She has been a princess to us all along but she continues to love being a princess. Whether it is carving pumpkins,

at Disneyland 

reading to her baby doll, Summer

or teaching Lily how to be a cowgirl princess

she has always loved being in a princess dress. I don't know how many dresses she has actually worn through, to the point that we have to just toss them. There are just to many to count. They were lovingly hemmed and stitched up many times over. Her dresses were loved so much. I actually thought that maybe I should of just bought princess dresses instead of other clothes cause she hardly wore the other things. Having a girl in our home has brought so much joy. Her cute laugh, her sweet caring, nurturing for babies, and the way that she adds the princess or cowgirl into whatever the boys are playing. I love how she adores Dave. When he calls in the evening to say he is coming home and she answers the phone there is just this loud cute voice saying, "Hi daddy!" with so much excitement. He says that everyone in his office can hear her and just smile every time cause it is so cute. I agree. I hear it here and I smile. I love that. I love how she can come over and just put her arms around him and love on her daddy. There is so much pink now in our house. She wanted a pink house when we asked what colors we should paint our house. O.K. so we are not going to allow that but we had to ask to see what the kids thought. Lots of fun! Needles to say, we praise the Lord for giving us such a sweet daughter and we look forward to many more years ahead of watching her grow into a beautiful young women. We pray that she will become part of God's family as she continually learns about Him and what He has done for her. We pray that her strong desires now to become a wife and a mommy will deepen as she gets closer to that part in her life. And we pray that God will help guide us in raising her to become a Godly woman who whole heartily wants to serve God.