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!

Eight Toads

Callie spent her first day of summer catching Toads.

And then she brought them home for me to admire.  I am impressed, I admit! 

Can you count all the toads?! 

Rylee was thrilled to hold a toad.  She did a pretty good job..... mostly. 

She's showing me how carefully she pets it. 

I love this girl!  She is so funny! 

And yes, since Callie did it, Rylee must do it too.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

I'm not allowed to plant a garden in my front yard, and I haven't got room in my minuscule back yard to plant anything, and I'm pretty sure the lawn guys would mow it down anyway.  So I felt very clever when I came up with a way to plant a little garden.  Delaney had broken her dresser a few weeks ago.  I used the remaining 2 drawers as planters and put them in the yard.  I got some tomato, zucchini, and cucumber plants to go in them, and found pumpkin and watermelon seeds for the kids to plant. It was all very exciting.

Here you can see how the zukes and cukes are thriving.  The pumpkin and watermelon seeds are sprouting and the kids are thrilled to see it happen.  I was disappointed in the tomatoes performance though.  They were not growing and looked rather sickly.  I wasn't sure if it was lack of sun or water or love. 

And then, yesterday, I discovered the culprit!  Do you see the gigantic caterpillar?!!  And do you see that my poor tomato plants have no leaves anymore?!! 

Yep, there's the fat little guy.  He was the hugest, roundest caterpillar I have ever seen!  Callie delivered it to the neighbor's dog, since none of us had the courage to squash such a monster!  I don't know if my tomatoes will recover, but I'll be more vigilant in caterpillar watching.