Seventh Anniversary Pics

In case you were wondering if we had a life at all apart from the kids...

Relaxing on the back deck

This picture was taken yesterday after a long day at work for Max (having had a flight at 4 in the morning). The kids like to join their Daddy in relaxation. Max and I got the decor for the children at a dinner theatre that we went to for our seventh year anniversary. Max gave me some beautiful earings and I made Max curtains for two of the windows in his garage, still two more sets of curtains to go...

Mulberry...shaking

Max is holding JB up deep inside a Mulberry Tree to see some baby birds in a nest. The mother was not happy that we were there close to her probably one-day-old babies.

We were picking lots and lots of Mulberrys on Sunday when Max got a bright idea. Many of the berries were so ripe that they were falling off of the branches while we were trying to snag them. He went home and got a big tarp and lay it under different sections of the tree. He also brought a very long, skinny PVC pipe and shook the branches with that causing a lot of mulberrys to rain down into the tarp, then we poured them into a five gallon bucket. We ended up with 30 lbs of mulberrys! I have already made three batches of mulberry jam (two of which turned out more like syrup, but still tasty!) and Max hopes to make mead with the rest.

As you can see, the kids really enjoyed and experienced the mulberrys. The mulberry trees are in between a dirt road and farmland. We tried to keep the kids on the farmland side so that they weren't in danger of being hit by the cars zipping down the dirt road.

Don't you touch me with those hands...cutie pie!

Zephyr and the Elephant

Zephyr cozied up to this stuffed elephant one day and I thought the symmetry of it was rather cool. Finally someone with shorter legs than Zephyr in this house...and a little bit bigger ears.

Tree Swapping

This is before Friday, the day Max dug out this pear tree (the one in the forefront). It used to be a lot branchier and bushier than this picture shows, but Max pruned it way back to see if he would like it better that way, but he didn't. This pear tree was damaged in a storm in past years so it was missing a big branch that made it look flat, kinda ugly from some angles.
Here is the downed tree and the triumphant Max. He spent many hours on a 90 degree humid day digging out this pear tree, which has a huge root ball.

Here's Tamsey, who did about 10 minutes of digging (compared to Max's hours) to make the hole bigger so that the elm that is already down in the background could be inserted into the old pear tree hole. We were having a garage sale the same day that Max rented this Bobcat to move the trees. A hispanic couple came by to check out the sale and ended up helping Max get the tree straight in the hole for about 30 minutes. We were very grateful for their help. Now we have a nice Stitch Bark Elm in the place of the Pear Tree. The Elm is actually a much nicer tree and now has a bigger place to grow than it did before because it was competing with a big Oak where it was before. Now our lawn is torn up by the Bobcat but I know that Max will patch it back up again and grow new grass.

Praying for sunshine

No, it's not raining here and it's not cloudy either, actually it's been very sunny and warm this week. However, the sun was no where to be found yesterday at 7:45pm. JB and I got our new inflatable pool out yesterday (which already has a leak in it) and ended up using a neighbor's air compressor to blow it up. I think the dragging it back to our house part did in the bottom poofy part of our pool.

Anyway, JB still had his bathing suit on after our outdoor back-deck dinner was over so he decided he would play in the pool again. It apparently wasn't as warm as earlier in the day because JB came back onto the deck and asked me very seriously, "Mommy, where did the sunshine go?" Max pointed to the setting sun, now behind the trees, and said "over there JB." JB suggested that we go stand over there but still couldn't seem to find the sunshine. Max told him that if he prayed for the sun to come back, he would bet it would be back in about ten hours.

Although JB doesn't understand time, he seems to have somewhat of a grasp that "hours" is a long time, so I don't think that satisfied him. However, we do know that we can depend on the consistency of God each day in bringing up the sun in the morning and "taking it away" in the evening (thus JB's disappointment) and also consistently making the grass green eventhough He could make it any color He wanted to each day. I think He knows that our little minds couldn't handle that, so God continues to be dependable and solid as a Rock.

Mother's Day Activities...

JB is hammering on his fort and Gloria is stepping daintily down the stairs looking at the flowers we just planted. It was a beautiful day yesterday and I felt very blessed with a wonderful, loving, healthy family.

Tamsey the Farm Girl...

...or maybe just a suburban girl. I grew up in Boston, specifically Brookline, on Beacon Street with no yard, just some bushes in front of our apartment building. The first time I mowed our lawn in Mississippi about six years ago, our first year of marriage, I used a manual push mower (with the rotating blades). I was so proud of myself until Max pointed out that there were "mohawks" in the grass because I hadn't figured out the whole overlapping thing while mowing. Since then (and before our current Kansas lawn) our yards have been either small or average size. At our yard in North Dakota I actually used a motorized mower and got the overlapping thing down. Yesterday, Mother's Day, Max treated me with the opportunity to mow our yard with our new (new for us) riding lawn mower. It is one I found at a yard sale for $200 and Max fixed it up with sharp blades and now the steering works! It was fun and a lot quicker than even a self-propelled lawn mower! I guess I'm easily amused...

After an Outdoor Meal

These are their innocent little faces before we hose them off. Just kidding, we don't do that, we just let them run around like little ragamuffins.

Vacuum Styler 2000

Max used the hose vacuum to make this hair doo on Gloria. She was not even scared of the vacuum, she just sat there still, not having any idea of her new look.

I wonder what we are teaching JB by doing this...I'm sure it will come back to bite later on...

JB's first fish!

New Pics on JB Blog

I just had to include this picture of JB because it's so cute. It also gives me the opportunity to let you know that there are new pictures on JB's blog, which is under "Links" on this page. He's getting to be quite the photographer...by accident:).

Lounging on the Porch

This was a lazy Sunday afternoon. The chairs are ones that I found at a yard sale and painted white to match the porch. The planters have seeds in them and I'm still wondering if some of them will ever sprout...patience, Tamsey, patience. We are growing some herbs and hope to transplant them to the ground at some point. We also have vegetables growing in our backyard! The cucumber plants are doing the best, but the corn, radishes, and sunflowers are also coming along great. Our berry bushes are unfortunately showing no signs of life and are just sticks in the ground.

Ladybugs

JB is very excited about insects and worms these days. Last year at this time he was afraid of them, but now he brings them to me. Gloria bring bugs to me too, following her brother's example, but they tend to die in her not-so-gentle fingers before they get to me.

JB found a place in the lawn while Max was mowing where ladies bugs had just hatched, so there were a slew of them all over the grass. We even put about four in a cup and watched them crawl around. JB talked to the lady bugs very sweetly and let them crawl almost anywhere on him.