Just A Farmin'

Tuesday Daddy wrote some lyrics to the John Anderson song, "Swingin" in an effort to make our friend feel better who had been sick for over a week then. Wednesday a group of us filmed in our pastures (with our digital camera no less :P). Thursday I edited the videos and we finally got it on DVD. Late last night the final version made its way around the neighborhood. :) This morning we shared it with the Lingo's....




Can you tell we had fun? ;)

Splish Splash

Maryland was hot while we were there. We went over to Aunt Dora Jean's pool for a refreshing swim.

Yes, 100*.

Even Daddy got in! He *hates* being wet, but it was hot enough for him!

This doesn't look good...

Yup. Back-smacker. :P

Perfecting my back dive.

Emma was kind enough to take continuous shots of me diving, so I was able to see where I needed to improve. To keep track of them, we took a picture showing which number dive each was. This was dive 5. :D

Willa began diving, too!

By dive 8, I was wrinkly!

oo, another smacker??

Hey! I made it! :D

Emma kept telling me to point my toes. :P

Eventually I got tired of back dives.

Ha.

It was so much fun to swim in an actual pool! We had not done that since our trip to TN last summer where we swam in the hotel pool! 

Our Time At Mema's

After our trip to the Clarke's, we headed to Mema and PapPap's house.

Who doesn't love the food at Grandma's?

One day Aunt Bobbie, Ian, Tyler and Rachel came up to see us!

We had a little celebration for Willa and Seth's birthdays that week. Emma made a delish ice cream cake *and* cupcakes!

Attention hog.

Willa was so excited to get a long-awaited dagger for her birthday!

More Clarke Pictures

I only posted some of Rachel's pictures before, so now I'm posting ones from our camera. :)

Fishing!

Showing off!

"Swimming!" okay. Not really. My lovely friends there decided there were too many fish to actually swim. *rolls eyes*

Seth and Olivia Hopkins

For your FYI, that's a fish!

But you knew that.

The Yum Grub

"Oh no! They've got me surrounded!"

Emma, Jo, Tessa and moi.

Hehe, such cuties.

This Day Last Year

I'm so thankful that in only a year since first visiting (not even moving!), we are able to have 71 people in our home after church on a Lord's Day afternoon with undeserved ease.

Granted, at times it felt a little... smushed... but I'm not sure anyone noticed! We were able to spread outside, although the majority opted for the air conditioning.

There were just a few cars in our driveway...

The food on Lord's Days is just amazing. Every lady (down to age 9!) and many men are experienced southern cooks. Everything from bacon wrapped around things to cream cheese chocolate chip spread to muffins to dips to I don't know what else! We enjoy sugaring ourselves up. :) Or, as was the case yesterday, we had a caffeine overdose- Jacob made coffee ice cream and I made coffee frappes!

Camille, Kenan, and Emma matched! They've accidentally done this several times.

(view a little later)

This, friends, is what the face of uncooperation looks like.

Unfortunately we didn't get a picture of the silliest part of the day: teaching the Hoedown Throwdown! When we were in Wheeling, Ruby and Chloe and Jordan were good enough to teach me the fun dance. The vote for me to pass on this knowledge was unanimous (among the girls, anyway...) so we spent a good hour and a half doing it over and over and over out on the deck in the dark blasting the music. :) I think the caffeine helped.

Around 8 pm the crowd began to disperse, although the Lingos and Stouffers stayed until way after 10!

Elsie brought out the Wac-a-Mole game. She didn't get to play it though. :P

We were so happy to host fellowship at our house this week. Hopefully we can do it again soon!

Life Pictures

I really enjoy these random shots of life posts. Not sure why.... maybe because they are random and don't have to make sense and it lets me actually do something with the hundreds of random pictures we have on the memory card?

Seth caught a really pretty butterfly in his butterfly net.We have a TON of butterflies 'round here. Just now on the way home from the neighbors I ran over 2 and saw a dozen more.

Emma made a really yummy Shrimp Bisque for dinner the other night and was able to use up all the homegrown squash we had!

There are times in life where it is best not to ask questions. Emma was wise one day this week when she found me on the front patio with the food processor on a chair and piles of weeds all around me and she decided to just not ask. :)

Several times a week when the kitchen is piled high with dishes and its really hot and we're stuffed from a yummy dinner, we'll declare it time for a "brisk after dinner walk". So, we head off walking usually to the mailboxes or the perimeter of our yard. When we return, we are refreshed and ready to dance to some Elvis (or Josh Turner) as we clean the kitchen in record time!

Willa wrote a post on her blog this week about our room.

Yeah. That is a moth. As long as my hand. It was perched on our big glass door in such a way that you could see all its amazing detail. Yes, bugs are gross. But they are also amazing creatures.

Saturday as I was preparing food for Sunday, I decided we needed to test the frappes I was planning on making. Emma and I declared it a fantabulous pick-me-up for a hot, busy day.

Another dish I tried was to use up all the squash we've gotten from our CSA basket. There were these weird "patty pan" variety that just looked so cool. I googled some recipes and out came a "bacon and squash casserole". It was delish, despite not having cheese or butter.

We got cherries this week from the Co-op and they are so good! We froze them all in anticipation of cherry pies or smoothies or something. I put some in coffee ice cream last night and it was surprisingly good!

We make a lot of food these days. Saturday is pretty much nothing but cooking for me, and boy, is it cooking! This Saturday was a light day with only bread, squash soup, squash n'bacon casserole, test the frappe, sugar syrup, iced tea, pitting and freezing a whole box of cherries, and spaghetti. I love to grab the camera as I'm cooking and just snap pictures of it all.

Emma actually made the soup... this is squash, not peaches.

3 loaves of bread, 10 bread sticks, and 30 some rolls!

Little Jo-man loves his Ergo carrier. Emma was able to put him to sleep while she chopped all the squash.

Elsie loves cherries!

Yesterday Daddy mowed. Emma and I laughed when we looked outside and saw him holding a long stick- it looked like he was jousting!

Well, there are this week's "bits of life". Next up- Lord's Day pictures!