Mama!

I brought you tickle torchers for dad! 

Me: go get him! It will be so funny!

J: ok! I will!

J: runs to dad. Stops. 'Here dad, I got tickle torchers for you to get Parris!'

Tortilla making

The dough taster. I find it super gross. But she loves it. Odd. 

She decided she was my ball maker. She needed some help getting the right sizes though. 

Goodness is she ever adorable. And mine. Wow. I am a lucky mama!

Tortillas were disappearing. But this is my stack minus about a dozen. Stinkers. 

This is the recipe I used...

Trade the lard for coconut oil. I don't have lard. 

Sooo yummy! We love tortillas. We ate them as bean burritos and chicken salad. 

Sunflowers.

Patrick and the children planted a few sunflowers this year. They are beautiful. 

These were all harvested prematurely. Storm a couple weeks ago broke 5-6. 

This one still got huge. We got the seeds from a friend in Iowa. And hope to plant many more next year. They are minimal work with a decent yield.  And a fun snack we all love. 

Sunflowers were my Grandmas favorite. So we all like to smile at them. Reminders of her are blessings. Makes me happy when my children see them and say 'wish grandma could see these' or grandma would love these. 

Decent stash of sunflower seeds. This is around a fifth of what I am expecting. Mmmm

Reading.

Lil wanted to read me her new book. Fancy Nancy. I told her I would buy it today if she would read it to me. She agreed. <3

And Patrick's Aunt and grandma just sent us 2 boxes. One loaded with books and other things. We are enjoying the books a lot. 

Today's bounty

This is our second digging of potatoes this year. And last time we got more than this. One more big bed to go. We tried two methods this year. 

1: just planting the traditional  way and mulching. (All my beds) 

2: double digging and mulching. ( Patrick's) 

His did better than mine. But I planted more than him. His way is better. No doubt. But my goal was just to get them in the ground. And I was successful. I grew lots of taters. And I'm pleased. Very pleased. Roughly 5-6 five gallon buckets worth. And one large bed to go. 

Then all hot and dirty they jumped into playing play dough. It is getting old and crumbly so getting dirty DIdNT matter. Shower was busy and they were ready to play. 

   Sometimes it is hard to choose which work to do. My plan was cleaning my room. Til the middle of the night when I decided the potatoes were more important. Plus they are where I am planting the fall garden stuff. Soooo I needed to get busy. 

   I came in satisfied from the digging just to see the 2 loads of laundry on the chair begging to be folded and put up. But I have to decide it is a good thing to do in the heat of the day. Mornings are for the garden. And it is far from time wasted. 

    I am buying a couple soaker hoses for the fall garden. Watering is hard for me. We haul water out to the pasture for chickens.twice a day.  Then have to bring the hose back to the house area to water the garden. A 'easy' task I avoid. So Eli (Patrick s summer help) had watered over the summer. Now I have to. So I am planning easier ways. Like hose splitter and soaker hoses that stay where I put them. For me I have to simplify things. So they can get all done. Watering comes first in changing. 

I hope to plant on Monday. I am ordering hoses today. Now to decide the size of hose...

Blueberry Scones for breakfast

Breakfast is hard here since we don't get enough eggs to just eat eggs. And I generally forget what we have to eat. But this morning I saw the word scones and remembered the blueberries my sister left me yesterday. She had come over to enjoy the day and we made lemon blueberry dessert pizza. So yummy!  But she forgot to take back the blueberries. (C if you are fast you can have some scones!)

Since or oven quit... Ick.... I have to cook in our roaster oven.  It takes longer but I have found tin foil over the top under the lid is great.  I had to cook them in 2 cast iron pans due to space in the roaster and lack of wanting to wash the 9by 13 from yesterday... But cast cooks better anyways. 

Looking sooo good!

Miss Doorfee and her hat.

Wisdom was sitting with me last night. And drew this. She was so happy to show me Miss Doorfee and hers hat. I love it. 

   Miss Dorothy was a very very sweet woman that loved my children. She nearly always had a hat on. And The children loved her too. 

   She died at the end of July. A horrible sad time for our community. She was 92. 

  I am so glad Woo still talks about her. And draws pictures of her and her hat.  Dorothy would have loved this. 

Narcissism...

I was looking around on iTunes this morning. I am wanting to find music and some sort of tv or movie to add to our days. But I got sidetracked in the books... This one so greatly has me curious... I want to read it. If it wasn't so costly I would have ignored the limited Internet and instantly downloaded it. 

    I wonder their ideas on it. I wonder how we can have low self esteem and high narcissism. 

   Ok maybe I don't wonder. I believe it is lack of us relying on God. I also think it is a cover. A front. Something that starts out as a way of hoping it will boost self worth and becomes an addiction. An addiction that shows up in many ways. And takes many forms. 

A sad thing. And I am craving this book.... I can't go to iTunes. 

Lil put Wis to nap...

With all 4 of her dolls. She has Too (Too Stay is her whole name) Oh Janet, Umm Duh, and Horsie.

These are Lilley's photos as she thought it was adorable and had to capture the moment. ;)

See the headband Wisdom made for Oh Janet with Lilley's help? I think it is adorable. Since Oh Janet is bald Wisdom likes her to have headbands. 

She is special. And so are her always dirty babies. It will be a sad day when she quits taking them all over with her. 

110th Annual Sheldon Picnic

The town near us has a mini fair each year. And for us the children's games and horse shoes for Daddy are the best part of it. 

This year not everyone placed like last year. Parris was gone. Wisdom had no desire to participate in what she could. And Judah only  entered the ball toss and DIdNT place. He was also a poor loser. Guess we need to work on that. We had no idea it bothered him til we got home and he started talking about setting the man straight. He said he needed to tell the man that told him his ball DIdNT go far enough and he really did win...

Malachi placed in the water ballon toss. He was partnered with a stranger. And was tied for 1st with his cousin A and her teammate. (Also a stranger) the stranger thing is big. They DIdNT want to partner with people they DIdNT know. But standing beside each other was good enough this year. :)

They each got a ribbon and 3 dollar coins. 

 

Lilley went down a age bracket to do the 3 legged race with cousin A. (Size wise she fit there better anyways. And got 2nd place. 

   Then, there was a girl in her age bracket that couldn't do it unless someone volunteered to be her partner. So Lilley was able to go again and got 1st place.

   Lilley placed 1st place in the ballon toss. 

In total she received $8  

Rhyyan got 2nd place in the bike race. 

Rhyyan and Joelle did the 3 legged race together for 3rd place. And third also for the water ballon toss. 

Rhyyan got $4.

Joelle got  $2.

I didn't take pictures since wrangling the children was enough work. And my sister B was taking pictures. I'll post some later if I get them. But for now I wanted to post results before forgetting what happened. 

Famous suicide

Last week a man died. At his own hand. He was sad, hurting, in physical pain and who knows what else. But his death has become a circus. A circus of media, people trying to boost their web pages traffic. People debating whether or not it is a disease or spiritual issue or selfishness or or or....

   It is terrible. Not many think of his family. And their hurt. And their thoughts and pain. I have great opinion on suicide. It has hit a little close to home for me. I hate it. 

    I do believe it is a choice. But I also believe that you have to get help sooner than you really think you need it. Because at a point I think your mind is so clouded you no longer see a choice. Or a reason not to choose it. I don't believe it is a cancer. But the root of it is the same. Sin. When sin entered the world things changed. They got worse. I do think diet and lifestyle have a lot to do with it. Lack of sun cuts down on vitamin d and happiness. And generally if you are outside your moving. Another benefit of the outdoors exercise. 

    One thing his family said was he tried to help his depression with exercise. But sickness had slowed or stopped that. So his help was gone. At least one of them. And his sickness compounded things. Depression in my opinion (opinion only since I am not a doctor) is a mix of need for God and nutrition. I fully believe here in America with all our GMOs, chemicals, and dyes etc that we are not getting much real food. So our brains don't work as good as they should. Plus plenty of what we eat stops the good stuff we eat from being used correctly. 

   Plus the disease he had, my grandpa also had. It isn't easy. Your brain cells die. Your body shakes. Your body loses its ability to move like you want it to. Not to mention his age was getting to where he had to keep up on things or see a decline. 

   He had a lot against him. He saw it wasn't possible. And he was right. It wasn't. But he looked to death rather than life. (In Christ. ) and he is gone. His family hurts. He always talked so much about his children. I hope they know his love for them.  And I hope they find The Lord. I can't imagine losing my Dad. But they have. It a terrible way. And now they also have to live with the stupid media. I hate that. 

   I didn't use his name or his disease in this post. I refuse. I don't want to add to the frenzy of info. I think it is sick and horrible that people are using this death to benefit themselves. But I was in the mood to write down my thoughts. 

Lilley made brownies.

Wisdom was super excited! Happy girl she is!

Saturday morning green beans

My friend Lu got me 30 LBS of green bean! Ours didn't do more than enough to just eat. I need to plant way way more next year. My seeds were also old. Likely really old. Leftovers from my mother in law a couple years ago.

I read the rest of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang to them. It is a hard book to read aloud. The sentences are long or something. Anne of green gables is hard to read aloud too...

They are a funny crew to work with. 

Snack time. They got hungry fast doing this. And lilley decided that fresh green beans and peanut butter is tasty! she is odd!

They had about a 1/3 done when I joined in snapping. And we made quick work of the rest of them. 

After this it started to sprinkle as we were cleaning up. So the girls ran out to get clothes off the line while I finished clean up. I was shaking a rag out the back door and Parris was coming in with a load of clothes... So... I stepped out of her way,right onto a rock on the sidewalk and twisted my ankle and landed on the sidewalk in a pile. So much for getting out of the way. ;) I was so annoyed. Wasn't sure if it was angering or funny.

   I was annoyed that I couldn't see a bruise unless the light was right. If it hurts and you can't walk on it it should look more hurt than that! Now my foot is still sore. I have to walk on my heel. Not cool. And it is a greenish tint of brown from the bruising. 

    Boo. I need to quit wondering what things would feel like. I really DIdNT need to know. ;)

My movie night date

A little Woo! I love her. She is a good movie buddy. 

Cool Runnings!! I love this movie! Tons. I looked around for it a little for a long time. I found it as a VHS. But quickly lost it. Plus my VHS player eats videos. I have since found it. But only after a very sweet friend gave me a DVD for my birthday this year! I was so excited! 

   It has a few unneeded words I it. We watched it our family and 2 others. And after hearing a set of words twice one of the 8 year olds ( we each have one) turned around and asked us what it meant. We all fell silent and let her dad answer. 

So needless to say I only let wisdom watch it with me so we don't have repeaters. But I still find it awesome! I hadn't remembered off words when I was a child. Not sure if I didn't notice it or if it was a cleaner version. Oh well. Memory. Can't count on it. ;) 

I also brought my knitting along. It is a TGV shawl from ravelry.com 

  My friend,noelle said it took her almost a year to complete. I hoped it would go faster for me. But quickly realized it won't. I am using sock yarn and largish needles. So it takes a bit not to have stitches slip off the needles. I feel like I have to concentrate to knit it. I am about 65% done. I am finding that my limit is around two rows at a time. More than that and I get sick of it and tuck it away for a while. I hadn't worked on it in months til this week. I looked on ravelry and found that I started it in December. I really like that feature! Keeping track of start dates is something I didn't see a need for. But it gave me a goal to meet. I don't want to pass the 1 year mark. We will see if I make it!

Rhyyan is quilting

Designing and starting a small quilt. 

When I don't get in their way (prefer other things done, no mess, nothing out in the way like this table etc...) my children make and do amazing things!

Rhyyan (10) set this all up and did this on her own accord. I *almost* stopped her. Why? 

She is fully able to do these things! She is careful and does pretty well watching so littles don't get into the tools.

Just needed one more block cut! She is considering how to make it bigger. She ran out of white. I'm certain her idea will work great. She plans to embroider each block. And asked if I was willing to do one. I am excited to help with this! And I'll keep you updated!

Bath time.

The bathroom w busy so we improvised. :) a fast bath in the sink. 

Made them happy! 

The greatest woman there ever was

And I greatly miss her. 

Bach rescue remedy

Today has felt long and trying. No reason for it. Just feels stressful. 

This stuff is so helpful. Am from the flowers below. I have used it on little children fits. In labor. On trying days. During times of grief. On the road in heavy traffic and more. I hate to be  without it. 

I have used the spray. The drops. And the gummys. All are great. But children prefer the gummys as there is a sweet taste rather than alcohol. 

Have you used bachs rescue remedy?

Joelle's hair

This girl has had masses of hair since birth. I am certain she has as much as the rest of us combined. 

She is finally fully able to brush through it. It just takes forever. And ever. 

She requested a fish tail today. She wants her hair wavy tomorrow. This time I used large sections of hair. I used to use tiny pieces and liked the delicate look of it. But now that would take forever...

Looks good and my girl is pleased. Hair. I am trying to like hair. It is hard. 

Lilleys tower

Lilley put the math u see blocks to good use today. :)

Rhyyan's fun time idea.

On Saturday rhyyan decided that the children needed an indoor activity before lunch and nap. 

She worked hard to get it set up and ready. Precut out several hearts. Cut straws for decorating. And got out supplies. 

All three littles were thrilled with the idea and couldn't wait to start! 

Judah ran off so I didn't get a photo of his finished. But he said it was fun and he wants to do it again soon. :)