Puppy Love

 For my birthday this year, I tried something new.  I got myself a puppy!  I know, who'd have thought?!  It was rather a surprise to us all, but he's cute, he fits what we wanted, and he's a sweetheart.  I had expected we'd get an adult dog when the time came, but alas, I'm dealing with housebreaking and a baby dog who doesn't want to sleep alone at night.  Fortunately, he'll grow out of that.

 

  So this is Levi.  He is a 3 month old Australian Shepherd with some good breeding (that I care nothing about).  He does have one blue eye and one brown eye and he's a "blue merle" color. He was a bit overwhelmed by all the children at first, but you can see he's settling in nicely.

 He was the runt, which is good for me.  He should stay around 35 pounds.  Isn't he a cutie?!  He's also quite smart and has quickly learned who's the boss (me!), and how to walk on a leash.  He's doing really well.  The children, especially Joshua, can't wait till they can teach him tricks.  I find it quite flattering that I am now the center of his universe.  Wherever I go, the dog follows.  Whenever I walk him, he has his eyes glued to me to see what I'm doing.  If I sit down, he sits under my chair or on my feet.  I think I like adulation!

Callie is in heaven.

Me too.

Fun with Water

Grandma and Grandpa have a water table that is a lot of fun.  Mostly before the novelty wears off.

Some children have fun in different ways.  for them, the novelty never really goes away!

Some of my other children feel the constant need for something new.  I told Joshua he could build a fun water playground here in Arkansas, because there is room here to do it.  There is not room at home to put it up and no room to really store it either.  If you want to make your own, check out Family Fun's Kid Wash.  I printed out the instructions, took Joshua to Home Depot and got the stuff.  Honestly, it was pricier than they projected, but I did buy the PVC pipe cutters (and I'm SO glad I did!!!).  I hauled everything home and let Joshua go to town.

 He measured the lengths and cut all the pipe all by himself.  I sat in the house.

He followed the directions and put it together.... all by himself!

He had help from his sisters to hang the sponges and towel strips.

I really only came out at the end to admire his work.  And to help drill the holes.  We did use the 1/16 bit- the smallest drill bit there was.  We drilled a few, turned the water on, and then drilled a few more.  We had plenty of water pressure and kept blowing the red noodle off the top.

I don't know if you can see the water in this shot, but it worked very well.  Thee kids were delighted with the project.  I was incredibly impressed that Joshua did it all on his own.  He would have drilled the holes himself too, but it was hard work for him and I felt the need to claim I was of some use!

If you do want to make this, Family fun does have good specs.  However, we followed the advice of others and put the fewer and smaller drill holes, and did not put in the gate.  I wish we had gotten some extra + connectors, because the tallest piece has no support and tends to fall over.  We may go back and give it a support beam.... or not.  We got cheap sponges at the Dollar Store and used towel strips rather than the lawn chair webbing.  The sponges have already been ripped off the twine, so I'm not sure we'll replace those.  Dollar Store noodles may be the next attempt.  So far- Super Fun!!

A Girl and her Horse

Summer Migration

Blogger is giving me fits tonight and won't let me do what I want.  I couldn't download some of the pictures, and it will not cooperate with some of the captions and spacing.  So my apologies for the weirdness that is going on with that.

I was going to say that the great summer migration has  begun.  3 states in 3 days for us!  Monday we were in Louisiana.  Tuesday it was Mississippi, and today it is Arkansas! Fortunately, we'll stay put for a bit.

Callie got her groove on and made me laugh as she "danced" to the music.

The kids were very good for the nearly 600 miles we covered.

This morning, Grandma took everyone Blueberry Picking!  I might have preferred to sleep in and as some children became increasingly cranky, I wished they had slept in later!  However, I was beyond delighted to enjoy the 60 degree morning weather.  6am wake up might have been worth it for that.

I had some very good berry pickers. Less whining than I expected as well. 

There was a lot of berry nibbling.  Yummy berry nibbling!

Rylee was awesome.  She was a very good berry picker.  The last 15 minutes, she realized that they were for eating and she stopped putting any in her bucket and just stuffed them into her mouth as fast as she could pick.  When she thought she could get away with it, she snagged them out of the buckets too.  You can see our bounty here.  Lots of berries!

This afternoon we busted out the slip-n-slide.  It was a mixed bag. Lots of fun in between lots of squabbling.  

They had a good time and were out most of the afternoon, when someone wasn't coming in to complain about someone else. But they were busy and that was good. 

Summer has Arrived!

At long last, school has ended.  Joy and rapture for the children.  Stress and angst for mom.  We went to the pool 3 times this week.  The kids love it.  We mostly went in the late afternoons, after nap time.  It has been fun.  Yesterday we went right when the pool opened and stayed till lunch.

Rylee is finally getting brave enough to let go and float on her own.  She has the "Puddle-jumper" floatation device and loves it.  But she still likes me nice and close. 

 Callie can touch the bottom and bobs very well.  She cracks me up in this mask.

Marian is awesome.  She can "swim" across the deep end.  She may lack finesse, but she gets the job done.

Poor Joshua has no body fat, so he sinks.  He's been working on his back float and its tough,  but he's sticking to it and he's improving.  He too can swim across the deep end, but you can tell he's doing the crawl stroke!

Delaney informed me that she knows how to swim now.  She bobs all over the pool, making friends with everyone.  

And check this out!  She can reach the bottom of the pool now!  All by herself!  She is quite proud of this accomplishment. 

And here I am.  Just for proof that I exist and I got in the pool with them! 

Poor Rylee got all tuckered out and asked to get out.  She was ready to go home.  No one else was, so I bundled her up on the chair and she sat there till the break- 20 minutes later.  And she went home and took a great nap!