Summer days

This summer is flying by! I am NOT ready to give up my random, easy, and fun days with my boys. I love having them home and I love being with them. 

I never want to forget these days. 

We have had dentist appointments. They love their dentist. It's so fun for kids!

We have celebrated Father's Day with the best man in this world! Our daddy :)

We have swam many many times in mammaws pool. 

We have also swam many times in Nana's pool. Karson is swimming with no swimmes and can swim like a fish under the water. He loves to dive for rings and jump in cannon ball style. 

He MUST have his goggles on :)

We have had picnic dinners with cousin Dane under the big oak tree. 

We have also rescued a cat that showed up on our front porch. We have grown to really love him!

He was very skinny and had a flea collar embedded in his skin. He is doing much better now. 

We have been fishing many more times. In Beech Fork Lake, the creek, Uncle Johns pond, and the river. 

We have attended a few birthday parties. 

And enjoyed sliding down slides at the water park!

On rainy days, Karson likes to organize his tackle box. He teaches me what the different baits are and what they catch. He loves to teach me and tells me to sit still :)

Hope your enjoying your summer. I am soaking every single minute. 

Strawberry Pickin

Last week, I took the boys to a local strawberry patch. This was our first time to pick, and I knew they would love it. 

There were about 5 fields. We were early to get there and had the whole place to ourselves. It was so nice, but hot! 

We all had a bucket. Karson was really into picking, and Kipton ate more than he picked, but that is ok. 

You don't realize how much work goes into strawberries until you are down bending over to pick them. God Bless all of the strawberry farmers who keep our grocery stores stocked.

Let me tell you there is a difference between just picked, and ones from the store. The freshness is out of this world!

After we got home, the question was "What to do with all of these strawberries?" So we first made strawberry shortcake. The next day we had them with our pancakes, and then again for lunch. In an effort to save some for later, I froze the rest. 

I'm thinking a strawberry pie, or fresh milkshake would be so good in July!

The chickens got all of the tops and boy were they happy!

I would love to have my own strawberry patch someday.

Summer Days

We are trying to soak up every ounce of summer. This coming week our county starts back to school and that means subbing for me. The first week of Sept Karson starts back to preschool 3 mornings a week and both boys are signed up for soccer. We love the slow mornings and the fun we've had.

This past week we took a trip to toys r us where kipton had a gift card from his birthday. All he wanted to buy was something for his brother. It was a true sign that they are so close. After much walking and looking he finally found a few things for himself. 

It's been such a fun summer. 

"You're gonna miss these days, your gonna want them back." 

Summer Days...

Have you ever felt like everything hits all at once?

That is the way things have been around these parts lately. But I know it's for a reason, just not for sure what that reason is. I mentioned before that I thought God was trying to teach me patience through the car wreck process. I still feel like it's happening in my life. 

Even though there is lots to do on our homestead, we do find time for FUN!

This week we:

-Swam at Nana & Pappaw Brad's house

- Went to the Ashland Park and Sprinkler Park with our friends Ashley, Jonas, and Jayden

- Went to Beech Fork to play and fish

- Played inside while it rained

- Built a fire, went on lots of walks, and rode bikes.

On our rainy day, we had a "pretend" birthday party for daddy. Karson LOVES birthdays, and we had a cake to make so we pretended it was daddy's birthday party. (even though he wasn't home) We wanted to surprise him with all the fun things we were making when he got home. The boys stayed in their pajamas all day, and we watched movies as well. They love being home!

We have Kevin home with us for 4 days. We sure have missed him! 

We are loving summer days.

Summer is Here!

Summer is officially here on the 21st of June. It is pretty hot and humid here and has been for a while now. I am loving the slower mornings, later nights, swimming, riding, playing, bon fires, and just being together as a family. The boys have been sleeping until 8 or 8:30 every morning and going to bed around 9pm. 

We have been coming in from playing at 8pm getting a bath and watching a movie/show on netflix. They love this routine. Here are a few pictures of what we've been up to. 

These two boys are SOO adventurous. They love anything outdoors. It KILLS me to see kids attached to their iphones, ipads, computers, game systems and staying indoors watching TV. With our times there is the advancement of technology, but too much and all the time can be really harmful. 

The best teacher is the outdoors. Kids really soak up everything they see. 

Summer Storms

I have not been able to blog because of a severe storm we had Friday, June 29th. It was a bad one and lots of power lines and trees were all on the ground. The boys and I were actually at my moms when the storm came and once it was over we thought everything was good. Until we drove home. There was a HUGE tree that fell onto our power lines and a live wire laying in our driveway. Nice!!!!

Here is our backyard. We did not have power for 10 DAYS!!!! Can you say HORRIBLE HORRIBLE AND MORE HORRIBLE!!! With 2 small kids and 102 degree days, this was HORRIBLE.

We stayed at my parents a lot but also stayed home. It was the longest 10 days of my life. We called and called AEP but we felt like because we were out in the country and alone that they waited until last to get to us. Finally the workers came on Monday July 9th. Then more bad news. They had an oil spill in our yard. So they will send more workers out to dig up the spill.

On top of the storm and the fact that we couldn't even get the van out of the garage for 3 days we had van trouble and our van had to get fixed and was in the shop. It felt like everything fell at once.

After the workers turned on the power I asked them if they would unhook our generator that we had been using for the past 10 days. We thankfully bought a new generator this past winter in case of a bad snow storm but we didn't have to use it. I had just told Kevin a few months ago how much of a waste that $600 was because we never used it. I was SOO thankful to have that generator. We were able to keep our fridge, freezer, fans, lights, and an AC window unit going to keep the house "kinda" cool. It would start out around 79 in the morning and then reach up to around 86 by the evening time. That is normally when we found something to do or went to my parents. It felt like an oven while trying to prepare for dinner.

We are now fixing all of the problems that the storm did. It damaged our furnace when the tree fell on the line and sent a shock back to the appliances. It also fried our dishwasher, DVD player, a TV in the boys playroom, and a VCR. I know these items are materialist but we are just thankful nothing was really hurt like people or our house.

During those 10 days Kevin was off work some of them and we found ways to keep the boys cool and happy during this time. Here are a few pictures from our long week.