Happy Birthday Noah!

Noah turns 12 today. One year shy of being a teenager. Believe it or not, he has been more fun this year than he was at 9 or 10. Those years it seemed he was already trying to act like a teen, but this year he has been a lot of fun. He's had his moments, of course, but nothing like the past. It seems that Caleb has taken up that position, LOL. Noah has been more reliable and dependable, taking on more responsibility, and really growing in maturity. I am very proud of him.

Here's a fun set of pictures I made to show how he's grown:

from 4 months to 5 years old


from 6 to 11 years old


I'll be editing this at the end of the day, to add his 12 year old picture!


Noah had a great day. We had pancakes and eggs and "facon" (turkey bacon) for dinner, at his request. He made iced brownies for his cake, and I also made a cinnamon swirl cake with cream cheese icing. He liked most of his presents, though I guessed wrong when I chose X-Men for him. He said he'd rather have Fantastic 4. Oops. (Remember when I said how easy it is to please a 4 year old? Not so a 12 yo LOL)

Cherry pancakes for dinner:




Noah had to smile quick, because his "N" was melting LOL:




Lego Lover:

More Fun with Widgets!

Take a look at my sidebar --->

I've had fun adding some new elements. The first is an avatar I made up a few years ago. Unfortunately I saved the image and lost the code for the link, so I don't know what site I found it on. I may change it if I find a site that has a more, um, accurate picture lol. I'd like longer, straighter hair. I love that sweater, though!

Next, I added my local weather. I know not not all of you care about my current weather, but I thought it would be fun for my family.

Finally, I added a quick comment widget. If you want to leave a message that isn't in reply to a specific post, (or even to suggest a post!) you can do it there and it will appear instantly. Also, you can see a reply instantly instead of having to search through the comments.

Ah, the wonders of DSL LOL. Chris thought I'd spend all my time on the web, surfing and watching You Tube, ignoring the kids and the house. Well, he was sort of right LOL.

ETA: I got the longer hair, but now it needs freckles!

Some Pics of the House

Since Melanie asked so nicely LOL

Here is our front porch, with Caleb and Samuel working on a pail of beans:



Here is our kitchen. It is eat in, long enough to fit our big table that seats 8. (notice that's not 9 or 10 - that's more because we don't have 10 chairs than that we can't fit 10 LOL)



Here is the back room that we gave to the boys for their toy room. It is officially the family room, where we play games or read, and the boys have all their puzzles, games, legos, and toys. The walk in fireplace is cool. There is a wood stove in it that seems big enough to have had big kettles on. The room was originally detached from the back of the house, so I guess it was some sort of summer kitchen.


Now we get to the category "What Were They Thinking???" LOL

Our living room is papered with a mural:


Very rustic, bucolic. Appropriate, I guess, since it is a farm scene. But the other 3 walls have a paper that is like fake grass cloth lol.

Here is a really bad un-plan:

I'm pretty sure the toilet came after the dryer LOL Our plan is to move the toilet so I can actually get the dryer door all the way open.

Here is a pic of one of the two lovely lavender sinks in my upstairs bathroom. Why lavender? Not sure, since the paper is blue stripes, and the trim is painted turquoise. Oh, and the tub and toilet are mauve. Bleh! lol


And the best for last, a little tropical vacation with every bath:

Why yes, that is a mural of Figi on the wall above the tub! Note that the material is not actually waterproof, so there is no reason at all to have that there. Other than atmosphere, of course LOL


As we do renovations and redecorate, I'll take pics - you know, when it looks better in here LOL

More Fun Pics of Summer

Here are some pictures from around our yard:

Inside our barn, where we store bicycles and the lawn tractor



This is a cool picture inside the back of the barn. It was in low light, so the shutter speed was slow. Caleb was walking when I took it, and it came out looking like his ghost! You can just see his one sneaker.



Another pic of Tigger


Aimee had asked a few questions about him. He stays in the barn, he is not allowed in the house. There was another cat that had come by a few times, but he has not been back since we got Tigger. The boys go out to play with him every morning.


Caleb



Jacob getting ready to head out and mow the lawn...LOL



More cute shots of Jacob





Aimee asked for more pics of my lilies. Here are a bunch of them:



And a close up; I was hoping to capture the blue at the tips of the petals. Really cool!



I love this one, one of our sunflowers



This is cool - one day we saw this across the street. No idea where he took off from or where he landed.




Finally, last Wednesday was Levi's birthday. I made him a Thomas cake. Ugh, it took me 3 hours to decorate, because I didn't have the right decorating tips for the brand of icing tubes I bought. I had to do it all with toothpicks. Levi was thrilled with it, so I'm glad it worked out.


Here he is opening his favorite present - money! LOL


He said, "Hooray! Now I have money! Now I can go out and buy something!" First on his list was a bag of M&Ms LOL

He really enjoyed his birthday. 4 is a nice age for birthdays, it is easy to please them LOL.

Fun Summer Pics

I have a bunch of pics I took this month, just the boys having fun. We went to a pool picnic on Saturday, and the boys had a blast. I baked zucchini bread for the first time ever. We grew some zucchini in our garden, and they are living up to their reputation LOL. TOO MANY! It took me all evening to chop up the ones I had so far, but I had to because they were starting to go bad. I made 3 different kinds, one regular but with a brown sugar topping, one with raisins, and one with chocolate chips. They were a big hit! Phew lol. Even Samuel, who hates veggies in all forms, loved it. I made 6 loaves all together, but I have enough zucchini left over to make 12 more lol.

My yummy bread:


Enjoying some juice:


In the pool:
Jacob wasn't afraid at all


Caleb


Noah jumping in


One of my favorites, Samuel jumping into the deep end. Just 2 years ago he was scared to get in the water at all.


Micah enjoying a soda


Troyer

He requested this haircut. He thinks it looks like David Hasselhoff's hair. Hmm. Well. Yeah. LOL


I have more pics, but I'll save them for another post

A Few New Things

A few weeks ago we got a kitten for the barn. It took a while for him to warm up to the boys, but now when they go out to visit him he likes to come out and play. The boys named him Tigger.









The weather has cooled off a bit, so that it is nice to be outside. The humidity has dropped to comfortable levels, too. Here are Micah and Caleb riding bikes in the driveway. Just today Micah came in to say he has learned to ride the bike without training wheels! At 6, he's the youngest yet to master that.




Finally, just last week I had something strange pop up in my flower beds. Tall olive green spikes with buds on the ends, but no leaves whatsoever. It was very odd looking. They have since bloomed into these:





I looked them up, and they go by many names: Suprise Lilies, Magic Lilies, Naked Ladies (I can't wait to see how many hits I get on this post from people googling THAT lol), and my favorite, Resurrection Lilies. They did have leaves, back in the Spring, but they had since died back. I had been disappointed that whatever it was had not flowered, but just shrugged my shoulders and waited to see what else would come up. What a wonderful surprise! They smell really nice too. They do look funny, though, with no leaves.

What Happened to Summer???

Holy cow, here it is August 4th, and we are starting school today! Well, we are supposed to be, anyway. The boys have a friend visiting for the week from our old church. It is going to be hard to get them to do any work when they want to play.

Last month was full from beginning to end with camp and swimming and VBS. Micah just finished up a week at day camp at the Y. The theme was zoo week, and he loved it. They brought up the "Zoomobile" full of animals, right to the camp. He talked all week about that. He got to swim each day, and on Friday they went to a pool park that had slides and a sprinkler section, as well as smaller pools for the younger kids.

The kids did two different VBSs this year. The first one was Power Lab, offered by MIL's church. I thought it was really neat; the theme was science, and it was about how God is in charge of everything, and gives us the power to do anything. They had really catchy songs as well. The second one was at our church, and was Castles and Crowns. It was medieval themed, and it was about how we can be adopted into God's family to become princes and princesses. They had some cool crafts, and the skits were really funny. In both groups the teen helpers did a great job. I was really impressed.

So now that swimming and camp and VBS are over (and our gas budget has been wiped out for the year!) it's time to start back up with school. We'll be starting slowly, with review and fun stuff. Come September, it's time to really get down to work!