Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to this man - the father of my eight children, a man of God, who works so hard every day to provide for his family!!! I could say so much more but there is not enough room to write all the things you bless this family with!!! I love you sweetheart!!!

And Happy Father's Day to this man - my Daddy, also a man of God who blessed me with the best upbringing ever!!! I love you, Dad!

Strawberry Picking

Strawberry season has arrived in Washington state. Before Washington berries ripen California berries are shipped here to satisfy the cravings of those too impatient to wait for our own fruit (that would be me). In my family, there is every year, a discussion among some as to whether California berries are even fit to touch the lips of a Washington native. So, since the time to pick berries has arrived I dutifully packed up the pickers (um, kids that is) and headed off to the fields to pick these red pieces of delight to freeze for smoothies in the dead of winter. Well, some picked:

And picked:

While others ate:

And ate:

And ate:

After several trips across the big field to the porta potty and picking tiny berries for a long time we called it quits - only 1 flat to our name!!! Seems our temperamental Washington berries didn't like our dry spring and didn't perform. Last year they didn't like our wet spring either!!

Time to go:

After several traumatizing mishaps (one involving the back end of my van jarring the back end of another vehicle - no damage to the cars, thank goodness - just severe damage to my mental state, the other involving the many already chewed strawberries making their way back up the throat of a certain 4 year old into his lap and all over the car seat. - yuck and double yuck!!!) we made it home with our few puny berries.

We had this for dinner - the day we pick berries we get to have dessert for dinner - yum! Although this year that's all we got to do with the berries - none for the freezer.

Licking of plates is allowed this night of dessert for dinner!!
This year California berries win hands down!! And after all the drama I'm thinking as nice as it sounds to pick our own berries and preserve them myself - we're buying our berries at Costco!!!!!

Holely Love

There are many ways a man can show his wife he loves her. He can bring her flowers. He can say sweet words. He can take her out on the town. Or...He can dig holes.

My hubby showed me lots of love this weekend by digging lots of holes. And because of him we transformed our yard from this:

Into this:

I love gardening and this is truly love - for my hubby who is not enamored with yard work like I am to spend the day shoveling, hauling and generally doing whatever I asked.

We did have lots of help:

When she wasn't eating dirt that is:

I'm so happy with how my gardens have turned out and as they grow and fill in and bloom I will remember how my husband spent the day loving me!!!

Irish Dance

Ruthie did so well in her dance recital!! I am constantly amazed by her!! It is such joy to watch our children do what they love!! Here's a couple of video clips of a few of the sets the girls did (Remember to turn off the music at the bottom of my page - the music they dance to is so beautiful!!)

The music man put on the wrong music for this next dance and all the girls danced like champs in spite of the confusion - I would never have been so poised!! Ruthie also let me know after it was all over that her ghillies are too small and her toes hurt a bunch the entire dance (I checked and indeed her feet grew far more than I realized this year - off to find bigger ghillies!!)

Relaxing with best friends after it's all over. They all did so well and needless to say I'm so proud of them all!!!

Cute and not so cute

Yes, this is a picture of a picture of a big old slug hanging upside down from my hose the other day. It looked so funny I just had to snap its picture. It didn't turn out - not that slug pictures ever look good anyway :0)! I am convinced that slugs came after Man sinned in the garden of Eden. They serve no purpose (other than once in a while being mildly amusing early in the morning to an overtired Mom) All they do is eat tender veggie and flower starts - not even weeds! Have you ever seen a weed with slug bites - I haven't!!! Plus they are slimey - anything with slime had to come after!! Anything with slime or eight legs - they both are creepy!! I know some things with eight legs do good - like eat things with six legs - but still - creepy!!!

Okay, to counteract the picture of the slug:

Baby in a basket:

Esther loved being carried around this way - and Ruthie loved doing it!

Ruthie has a dance recital tonight. The tradition for Irish dance is for the girls to have curly hair. This presents a big challenge for my daughter (no hair straightening products will ever be needed by her :0)!!!) We have to begin the hair curling process at least 24 hours ahead of time.

Dance pictures will come soon!!

Baby News!!!

We have news!!! Baby news!!! No, not me. Remember our new neighbors?

Well, they made their home nearby and the other day they came visiting our next door neighbor's pond - with 11 new babies!!! Of course I had to sneak into their backyard with my camera and take a few pictures:

Aren't they just so sweet?!!! Almost as cute as my own kids - almost but not quite!!

Tomorrow I will share a picture of the acrobatic slug that lives in my backyard!!

An Excuse

Yesterday while Daddy entertained the young'uns:

I got to spend the whole day doing this (after church of course):

Now I know Sunday's are to be a day of rest - but oddly enough I find digging restful. Looking for worms, pulling up weeds, enjoying the smell of the soil - ahhh wonderful! My garden ended up ready to put in all the new plants I was able to get at Flower World (isn't that name just heaven for a gardener?!). I can't wait to plant!

Today in spite of amazingly sore muscles (better get back to the exercise DVDs!!) I was energized by my day of "rest" and I got a lot done:

Fed kids (they must be growing - they keep wanting to eat :0):

Made yogurt:
Weeded the veggie garden (I'm not going to let those weeds get the upper-hand this year - I hope):

Washed and hung several loads of laundry:

And for Mom - yes I wore sunblock and a hat (even though the hat was hard to keep on while hanging clothes):

And while I did do all those things the real reason for this post was an excuse to play with my new camera (do I really need an excuse?)