03 July
Day by Day
Instead of trying to write any more brilliantly worded posts this summer, I'm just going to attempt some photo essays occasionally. Maybe on a weekly basis???
Consider this your first installment.
My parents visited us last wekend, and the lc had a blast show grandpa around daddy's job...all the trucks and tractors and mulch, Oh My! The Little Chimp is absolutely in. love. with all things tractor. He even has some tractor posters in his room, courtesy of Grandpa's job at New Holland, Inc, that he pours over nightly. His toy loader is his favorite toy, and though he will use it to load sand and clothespins (which make do as mulch when inside the house), he much prefers to use it in the mulch beds. He hasn't dug up any flowers...yet.
While, my parents were here, we decided to put up a fan in our living room to help keep things cool. At one point, dad needed someone to hold up the fan while he connected the wires. I volunteered, but couldn't hold up under the pressure...until my mom took pity on me and offered me a pillow. The fan was installed without further incident (and then uninstalled and another installed in its place, but I won't go into that here.)
Saturday evening, we went out to dinner at a great place called Sprague's Maple Farm. The kid's favorite part was all the animals in and around the restaurant. Since HoneyBee still wants to be a zookeeper when she grows up (longest lasting job-kick she's ever been on...four months and counting!), she was in paradise!
As I mentioned before, playing with his loader is Little Chimp's favorite thing to do, and here's his second favorite place to do it.
I don't know how many have been around to remember our first iteration of Where's Abby? But here's an encore of a slightly different variety. See how many of these pictures you can find her in...don't look ahead, it gradually gets easier. I've linked to larger sizes, so you can get some close-ups. (These pictures were taken from our deck and include our lovely field of daisies.)
And that's it for this edition.
Posted at 20:21:08 by jsmoker - 1 comment
Outfitting Babes
Since I just realized I totally skipped the month of April in my blogging efforts, I've decided to bring you up to date on the little sewing I've done in the last several months. No need to sit down, it's quite underwhelming. In April I made the mei tai baby carrier on the left and dozen diapers for my sister-in-law. In May, I sewed almost nothing. In June, I made another mei tai, this one for my sister-in-law's sister, who currently lives in Burkina Faso! These two were slightly different than the first three I made, in that I added a little padding in the shoulders. At this rate of five a year, I should have a booming business in about 20 years. 
In June, I've also managed to sew about nine costumes for VBS at our church. Oh wait, I think three of those were in July. That's all the sewing for VBS...now I just need to find enough fabric and sheets to make no-sew costumes for all the little kiddos come Monday.
After that's over, I have all kinds of real sewing planned...after I finish unpacking.
Posted at 19:38:10 by jsmoker - Leave a comment
20 June
Wish come true
For the past year, HoneyBee has been begging for something in particular. Before the move, it wasn't very difficult to put her off, but since we've moved back to our own house, the excuses have kind of evaporated. Seeing a friend here with several of the coveted items has only intensified the desire. Sooo....when the mother of said friend found an ad in the paper offering them for free, we finally relented.
HoneyBee would like to introduce you to Isaac, our new kitten. I picked the little guy up Thursday morning, unbeknownst to HoneyBee as she was playing with the aforementioned friend and her kittens. He was two months old on June 15. The condition originally, was that the cat be an outdoor cat, but since Isaac had never been outside before and I wanted him to know where home was (and not try to run back to his last home), he is inside for now. The plan is to gradually introduce him to the outside, once he knows his family. HoneyBee is the mommy and she takes very good care of him...at times a little too good, and he has been known to hide for hours at a time after being played with and chased for an hour or so. The site of Little Chimp generally elicits scurrying and the site of Kayla, our dog, elicits an arched back and hisses! However, he does seem to be a very playful cat when he wants to.
The name: I told HoneyBee she could pick the name and asked her to think about it. I was quite apprehensive about what she might come up with as the names she uses for some of her dolls are rather unpronounceable and lengthy, so when she announced that his name was Isaac I was pleased and relieved. After we got home with him on Thursday, she sat on the couch with him in her lap singing to him about Isaac and then she went to get her Bible so she could read to him the story of Isaac in the Bible (as we have read to her the story of her namesake in the Bible).
I'm sure Isaac won't add anything to the craziness of the next few weeks before VBS (see previous post). 
Posted at 14:23:43 by jsmoker - Leave a comment
Goings On
So, it's been a bit crazy here the last several weeks. Moving is always crazy, but for some reason, this one seems to have been particularly so. I don't know if it's the older kids (last move Little Chimp was not mobile) or the logistics or the busy work schedules or the fact that we already have friends/family here and so it took no time to get involved (negative time since DH and I were both recruited for things at church months before the move) or everything combined. I think I'm beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but it's still pretty faint. July 11 is shining pretty brightly though, and not just because it's my parent's anniversary. That's the last day of VBS at our church. The VBS for which I agreed to make a few costumes, where “few” turned into 30+ (but I've recruited several helpers and we had about a third donated!!), and for which I volunteered to help with the crafts because I loved the idea that they are teaching real crafts from Bible times instead of just foam creations that get thrown out in a week. (We're doing Group's Jerusalem Marketplace this year.)
Anyway, despite that I have managed to snap a couple pictures in the last few weeks for your viewing pleasure. So, without further ado:
Playing in the rain
The kitchen floor after HoneyBee & Little Chimp got haircuts. DH used the clippers on Little Chimp for the first time--and he tolerated it (as opposed to screaming every time I even got close with a pair of scissors)!! I think it might've had something to do with the fact that he was also allowed to look through the pictures on the digital camera while daddy clipped...
The end result of all the chopping? Too grown up for me!
Can't leave out daddy! He started the whole thing off by cutting *his own* hair with the clippers. Isn't he dapper? Then he decided to introduce the kids to bucking broncos...right at bed time no less. They've been bucking each other and anything else off their backs ever since.
Finally, a picture of our virtuoso piano player working on a particularly difficult passage.
Posted at 14:05:25 by jsmoker - Leave a comment
03 June
Empty Nest
A friend and her brother stopped by for a quick visit today, and while up on the deck, she asked about our baby birdies. While peering through the observation slats, she said something about there being two birds looking ready to go. I was about to correct her that there should three when her brother, who was playing frisbee with the dog in the yard, came a bit closer to the deck and startled the birds. One of those in the nest took off flying across the yard and a robin came flying in from the corner of the deck and followed the baby. It made it a good 50 feet before going through some branches and crash landing, with mom close behind. We didn't see them again, but a few minutes later, the last little birdie decided to go for his/her inaugural flight as well. Only he didn't make it quite so far...out of the nest and down under the stroller about three feet away. HoneyBee and the brother got to see it close-up, but for those of us on the deck, we could only see the stroller.
Guess we'll have to switch our nature study to watching the garden grow now. I put all the seeds in last week, now we just have to wait for them to come up. I have in marigolds, green & yellow beans, onions, lettuce, carrots, corn, cucumbers, zucchini, butternut squash, and pumpkins. And I'm hoping to get some tomato and pepper plants this week. I know it sounds like a lot, but there's not a lot of each. I'm just trying to see how well I can grow each thing. Next year we'll go for production. This year I'm really just want to see something grow!
Posted at 16:59:25 by jsmoker - 2 comments