Garden update! Our plants are growing like wild. So far we have eaten three tomatoes. There is a zucchini that will be ready to pick today or tomorrow. Tiny prickly cucumbers, still no peppers or beans. So far so good. It has been very hot and dry here so we have had to water quite a bit in the last week or two. Oh well I do not mind, until I get my water bill.

Weekend Recap part 2

After dinner Saturday we grilled smores! No, this is not the traditional way to roast a marshmellow but it worked. I do have my limits and making a bonfire when it is 95 degrees and humid to roast 2 marshmellows is something I am not willing to do. Sydney enjoyed helping roast, the marshmellows got hot and gooey but did not burn.

We made two smores, one for each of us girls, Bill says he does not like them. He does however like chocolate candy bar, so we shared.



Sydney ate all of her smore just not as a sandwich.

licking chocolate

eating marshmellow

what a face

then she ate the graham crackers


Then Syd and I camped out in a tent. Can you see her dancing on the air mattress?

We caught lightening bugs, read a bag of books and talked. I will admit that I had to go in and get a fan and hook it up with an extension cord, it was just so hot. We had to make a potty trip in at 10 pm and other than that we woke up to the birds at 6. It was fun but I think we will wait to do it again in the fall when it is cooler.

Weekend Recap

We had a very busy weekend, so busy and fun I think I am going to break it up into two posts. We started the weekend by going to the Friday Night Family movie at the library. The movie was The Princess and the Frog which we had not seen so we were excited. It was free and they gave out popcorn and drinks, what a deal. Everyone had a good time even Griffin (well until he threw up). Griffin actually sat and watched the movie for a good amount of time.

We saw some friends there, Max and his grandma and another family from daycare.

We ate popcorn

Saturday we were up bright and early (as usual) and by 7 Sydney and I had made a banana cake, yummy. Then it was off to the Farmer's Market.

We walked around town after making our purchase and then headed home.

Fresh beets. Yum. These take me back to my childhood because we always grew beets in the garden. I have been buying canned beets for Greek salads but I am not sure if Bill has ever had fresh beets. So I boiled them until tender, peeled and then sliced and sauteed with a little butter and salt. We paid 1.00 per pound and bought 2 pounds which made plenty. We had some for dinner both nights this weekend and I have some left for salads for the week.

I just think the color is beautiful and they are rich in Magnesium and also iron. We also made a trip to the pool and then.....

part 2 coming soon.

Sneak Peak

Any Guesses?

Wordless Friday

Guess what...

Griffin Sawyer is crawling (8 months and 8 days old)! I had this awesome video that I was going to post last Thursday night when he crawled for the first time however there is some sort of error with videos on blogger and I have not been successful. It is so cute to watch him move around. He is into everything. I keep a journal for both my kids and I write down all kinds of stuff such as milestones, stats, words they say at any given age, the funny things they say and do and how much we love them. I was writing in Griffin's journal about him crawling and it was so bitter sweet. It has been the same way with Sydney, we are so excited to see them do new things yet so sad that they are growing so fast. My baby boy is CRAWLING. I feel like I blinked and he is no longer this tiny baby.

This week is vacation Bible school and we dropped Sydney off on Sunday night after we all ate dinner. It felt so weird to be leaving her at the church by herself. My friend Ellie and her husband Garret are the crew leaders so I know she is fine but it is just an odd feeling to leave her somewhere. I know that I leave her at daycare every week day but this is different. It also is odd to pick up one child at daycare and only come home with one child. I am so used to two now that one is a breeze. It has been a great week so far but it has been long days for Sydney. Normal bedtime at our house is 7:30 because we get up early but this week I have been tucking Sydney in at about 9:20. So far she is holding up okay. She is having a blast at VBS and learning so much. All the way home tonight she was singing "Who built the ark? Noah, Noah. Who built the ark? Brother Noah built the ark" Every few minutes she would sing "Noah Brother built the ark" so funny. I was cracking up in the front seat. Anyway it has been a good week so far and tomorrow is my half day!! I will keep trying to upload the video because it really is priceless.

Super Dad

If you are expecting to see a picture of Bill with a cape on flying around, you will not find it here. But you will see pictures of him with all his kids doing all the things that daddies do. Bill is a super dad in all the ordinary ways and that is why we love him. Bill was super dad to his four "big kids" when I first met him. When we were just friends he was always talking about his kids. I could tell before I even met his kids how much he loved them. Here is a picture of us with the "big kids" plus Sydney and also Laura's two kids (her and Brad now have three). I have piles of pictures of Bill with the kids but it was prior to our digital camera so they are not on my camera. I do not have a scanner so you will have to believe that I have lots of pictures.

We used to travel all over the state of Indiana and beyond to watch golf, basketball and volleyball. We thoroughly enjoyed watching all the kids activities and we miss those days. The only negative thing about us moving to North Carolina is that we do not get to see the kids as much as we want to.

Bill with Alexandra on her High School graduation day.

Bill loves to let Sydney help him wash vehicles or work in the yard. Even though she slows him down.


Super dad doesn't mind having a tea party with his little girl.

Bill is willing to ride along on just about any kid ride that he will fit on, including this cow train.

I think Bill had as much fun as Sydney did on the water slide on vacation last summer. We will going back to the same place this summer and I am sure he will be on the slide again.

Bill and Syd sledding at my parents (with Danon my mom's dog)

He will ride the carousel as many times as Sydney wants to go around and around and around!

Bill is the king of being silly. Anything to make one of the kids laugh. This is a Shirley dog puppet that Sydney received from Aunt Rita and Uncle Jeff (Shirley dog because it looks just like their dog Shirley).

Proud daddy with Sydney Nicole Hall

Bill thoroughly enjoys feeding Griffin a bottle and he was the same with Sydney. In fact Bill was upset, sad when I changed her to a cup at 11 months because he treasured their time together in the morning while he fed her.

Super dad gives the best shoulder rides!

Bill tells the best bed time stories and Sydney knows how to get him to tell her story after story even though it is past her bed time. Sydney loves to sing songs and her favorite thing lately is to pick a topic and Bill will make up a song. He is way better at it than I am and he will sing song after song whereas I tend to stick to the schedule and not go over board.

He is always ready for an adventure, including a trip to Lazy 5 Ranch to feed the animals.

As much as Bill hates snow he will gladly go out with Sydney to play and attempt to build a snow man. I say attempt because a snowman was never built but it was not because of lack of effort, the snow just wasn't right.

Bill with Griffin Sawyer

Bill with Marcus and Alex during one of their visits to NC.

The kids are all so blessed to have Bill as a dad, he is SUPER!

Alphabet Book

The library summer reading program has begun! Actually it started last Monday. I took Sydney and Griffin to the library last Saturday to sign up. The lady kindly informed me that we could not sign up until Monday. I was a bit annoyed because I do work full time and I wanted to take Sydney with me to sign her up and it is difficult to take the kids to the library on a week day. So anyway we picked out books (so many that they would not all fit in our canvas bag) and I went back on Monday during my lunch to officially register Sydney. While picking books I stumbled across a section in the kids area for parents and teachers. The section is educational aids and project books. I found a wonderful book called Carson-Dellosa's Jumbo Alphabet Book. For each letter there are lists of words that begin with the letter (names, objects, careers, opposites), tongue twisters, activities using senses, craft ideas, foods (and recipe to make), songs, finger play books and suggested reading list. I went through the entire book and copied a few things for each letter that I though we would enjoy.

Today we decided to talk about the letter "F". I had Sydney practice writing the letter F and tracing the letter F. Then we decided to do an experiment. The idea in the book was to discuss the concept of floating. So we gathered various items, we each picked a few and a few other supplies and headed outside.

I let Sydney fill two rubber tubs with water from the hose.

Then we took one object at a time from our pile and put then in the water to see if they float.

We picked one tub to be the float tub and one to be the tub for items that sank. As we tried each item I asked Sydney if she thought it would float or sink.

These are some of the items that we tried:

eraser

top

plastic lady bug

plastic fish

wiffle ball

golf ball

clothespin

plastic bee

small rolling pin

foam letter F

shovel

water flute

It was great fun. It is in the 90's here today so water play is always a good choice.

For lunch we had a few things that started with the letter F and talked about them as we ate. We had tuna fish on pita, a few goldfish, fruit (oranges, raisins and prunes).

Later on we did some finger painting!!

I will share some of the other letter ideas as we go along. We are going in no particular order, I am just looking at the list and deciding which projects would be good for the day.