Caramel Apples

I want to make homemade caramel apples. I don’t particularly like to eat these messy treats but I think my children would like to try them. We bought a bag of apples today. It’s odd that my children asked why I would buy a whole bag of apples? They don’t remember a bag of apples in the house – we buy individual apples. We spend time in the produce section painstakingly picking out apples, pears, tomatoes, etc. So…today when I grabbed up a 5lb bag, they were perplexed. Funny – the things that children find interesting.

Anyway – we’re going to check in to making homemade caramel. Sounds yummy.

A laundry list since my last post.

I think blogging is a great reminder that time passes so quickly. I can’t believe it’s been since October 11th that I posted last. Wow.
It’s Monday. A new week has come again. It’s a chance for another new start. Mondays are like little mini re-dos. We get to set new goals, new plans, and mini resolutions. Each week my list is crisp and fresh. I have the absolute best of intentions to get everything accomplished that I failed to do the week before. But alas, I fall short repeatedly! I’m really not sure what would happen if I completed everything? Would life be at its end?

This past weekend, we traveled north to play in a soccer tournament. It’s our first season on a co-ed team. At the end of last spring, the all-girls team decided to move back in to age appropriate divisions. We played well enough. After losing two matches, we came back to win the third match in a much heated double overtime, shoot-out. It was hair raising. I know, I know….we love to blame a bad match on the referees but really – these guys were AMAZINGLY HORRIBLE! They called the match well enough. It was the overtime periods that became a fiasco.
For posterity sake, what I’d like to post and remember about this weekend – we had a great time with friends, watched super kids play soccer, won our first game with this team. Enough….and enough…..

The youngest two spent the weekend with grandparents and visited with cousins. From the sound of their constant chatter, they also had a great weekend. It’s a good thing that we live close enough for the cousins to get together, we just don’t do it enough. The lack of visits will be one of those topics of conversations when we’re old – “why didn’t we do more of that?”

A Fall Saturday in the South

It doesn’t get much better – a cool, autumn, Saturday in the South. Dear Hubby started my day with some tasty, warm coffee while girlies cooked breakfast. I love having them in the kitchen at the ripe old age of eight and nine. My mom would be happy to see this. After some serious dancin’ and sangin’ – we prepared for a day of football, shopping, yard attention, and serious dress-up time.

Oldest girlie and I headed out with friends to shop for the day while hubby and other girlies watched SEC football and cut grass. There is something soothing about football and the smell of fresh cut grass in the fall. The shopping didn’t take long and we were back for an evening at home with the family. The original plan was to enjoy the first batch of chili but ultimately, we decided to have a hodge podge dinner instead. All the same, it was a great day. So many of our weekends are consumed with soccer tournaments, church events, runs, etc. that we relish the time we have together at home. The winter days are coming and our weekends will be free of all of the many activities. We’ll hunker down together and long for spring when we can get out and back to all of our crazy activities.

The public shools are out for fall break this week. I don’t really schedule a break for our homeschool but we’ll plan some outings so that oldest girlie can join us. Maybe today, we’ll decide what fun we can muster up. I think our traditional trip to the pumpkin patch would be nice. We have an old farmstead close by that offers not only pumpkins but a corn maze, cotton picking, wagon rides to the fields, sunflower picking, and refreshments. I’m not much of a farm girl in reality but I always have a longing while at this homestead to put on some overalls, grab a tractor and head off to the fields.

Where do you find God?

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The Last Time

This post is one that I’ve played over and over in my head. I actually think about the last times. Maybe it comes from the loss of family members over time that I worry about relishing all times – just in case it’s a “last time”. Bumbling – I knew I would – this is hard to explain. So let me ask…

When was the last time….

that you fingerpainted?

you sang out loud in the shower?

that you danced – I mean really danced?

Now, you see where I’m going? Here are the real questions that cause almost a tear sometimes because I know that these “last times” have passed – and I don’t get them back.

When was the last time that I held my son on my lap for a snuggle before he was too big to do this?
When was the last time I changed my children’s diapers? (really, I miss the little swooshing fannies in my house)
When was the last time before my mom died that we laughed together?
When was the last time my oldest son or oldest daughter held my hand to cross a street?
When was the last time I stayed up all night to study for a test?
When was the last time I played the lullabye tape for my babies?
When was the last time my sister and I went shopping before she died?
When was the last time my grandma cooked a meal for me?
When was the last time I picked up and carried my son or daugther before they were too big?
When was the last time I brushed my older children’s hair?
When was the last time I snuggled my children in a towel after a bath?
When was the last time I heard my daddy play the saxophone?
What was the last bedtime story I read to my two oldest children?
When was the last time my oldest two climbed in to our bed because of a nightmare?
When was the last time I traveled with my grandparents to the country?
When was the last time my grandma and I picked a tomato?
When was the last time my babies wore swim wings?
When was the last time I put a band-aid on my oldest children’s boo-boo?
When was the last time we used a high chair?
When was the last time my babies slept in their baby bed?
When was the last time we sang “Pat-a-cake”?
When was the last ride with training wheels?
When was the last time I helped with dance tights?
When was the last time called out spelling words to my son?
When was the last time I used a baby dropper for medicine?
When was the last time my girls wore those cute white sandals?
When was the last time we’d walk down the kindergarten hall?
When was the last first time we took our children camping?
When was the last time I jumped over waves in the ocean as a carefree child (before I worried about critters in the ocean)?
When was the last time I held my husband’s hand?
When was the last time I was tickled by my dad until I screamed for mercy?
When was the last time I would play my clarinet in a band?

Oh – it just goes on and on. It nags at me that I’ve already been through these “last times” with my oldest two children or with family that have already passed away. There truly was a last night in that baby bed – the bed that all four of my children slept.
There really was a last time that I sat and listenend to my dad play the saxophone. Most likely, I was rolling my eyes hoping he would stop soon. Oh, what I’d give to hear that sound again.
And my mom…she loved to cook. There was a last meal that she cooked for me – wish I knew what it was so I could relish it forever in my mind.

This post is sad – but it inspires in me a need to love every minute. I don’t do it all the time. But I do make sure that I make an extra effort to make these childhood times last longer. I can’t pick my son up and carry him in the house while he sleeps on my shoulder, or my daughter for that matter, but I can make the most of the where we are now. I can break out in song in the kitchen with a spatula as my microphone and watch my children laugh hysterically. Everything we do is in the present – we just don’t realize how precious the present is until it’s the past…..

Blog Quickie

Great day back in the saddle for us all! Hooty Hoo! We all seem to be feeling better. The girls and I started our school day around 7:20 after dropping off the middle school girlie. We worked through the morning, came in for lunch, back to it around 2:00. Very productive day. Nice. After being home for most of the last week sick, we are so behind where I wanted us to be by now with our schoolwork. Oh well…we’ll have to add a little here and a little there.

This afternoon we had the pleasure of spending an hour or so with two boys that we love dearly. We tried to do a little homework before mom and dad arrived. One of these precious boys is in the same grade as baby girl. It stresses me everytime I look at what he’s doing in school! I scrutinize his work in comparison to what I think baby girl could do. How awful is that?!?! Most often, she’s somewhere in the ballpark but there are some things…not really. I think that we made the right decision for her to home school. It’s more and more apparent that there would be hard times in the public system and it hurts my heart to think of what she would go through daily. Her self-esteem would really be damaged – through no one’s fault. She just learns differently. I’m so thankful that I can work with her daily and that we have the advantage to slow down when she needs to – or like today, when we’ve been away for a few days….WOW…we have to back up!

It was soccer this afternoon and then dinner with great friends. Dinner on a school night? Out of the norm for us but hey…we’re “grown-ups”!

Soccer All-Stars

Pancakes, Crazy Eights, & Oatmeal

We sit around the table with fresh, warm pancakes (compliments of daddy), hot oatmeal, a little music, and precious children. It’s bright and early on Labor Day and thankfully, most of us are home. One is off in college town – and we miss him. The girlies are all here bright-eyed and ready for another day.

It’s been a good weekend. We’re all finally well. After two weeks of sickness, wow, it’s nice to feel better. So far it seems that we’re on the mend. So many have been sick with this nasty flu in town. I hope that we won’t have some different type of flu to deal with in the real “flu” season.

I’ve tried to upload pictures from our fun in NC this summer. Maybe this time it will work?

Nantahala Falls

Sweet College Boy trying to balance. HA!

Singin' Cousins

Here they go!

Spiderman in deep thought.

"Are you sure?"

Days Go By

My last post was not so nice. Hmmm just needed to vent I guess.

Another week is flying by with the girls off in their activities. I know now what my mama meant about time going faster and faster as you get older. We’re dancin’, flippin over at the gym, cheerin’, churchin’, schoolin’, playin’ some ball, and trying to find our new normal after a summer of chillin’. We’ll have Open House at the school tonight so that we parents may meet the heroes we call teachers. Every day, these individuals get up, get ready (early), to head off to educate our children. These are the people! These are the ones – shaping lives, every single day! And…they do it through the prosperous times when they may get an extra ream of paper and in the lean times when there aren’t enough books, and more children in a classroom than there should be. They have chosen to spend their lives trying to educate a generation of our country – of our world! Why???? They don’t make millions of dollars. I completely get why professtional athletes get up and go to work each day – who wouldn’t for multi millions of dollars a year? These heroes do this because it’s a calling, a gift, and a God-given talent. There are those that have a special talent to teach but I honestly think that the gift and talent is the ability to love – to love children. How happy Jesus must be with these people! The picture that comes to mind when I think of Jesus is one where He is seated on a rock with children surrounding him. He’s laughing and happy. How much more do we need? Children are the very essence of heaven right here on earth. So to the teachers out there that get up each day with new re-vitalized energy to love these children another day, kudos to you. I see you sitting on a rock, beside Jesus, smiling and laughing with children all around you.

I don’t understand

I don’t care how old I get or how many times I ask – I’ll never understand. God doesn’t tell us that we can’t ask “why” – he’s okay with it. I’m sure of it. But like so many prayers that go seemingly unanswered, he doesn’t promise to answer in ways that we can understand. And so, I don’t understand. I truly struggle with childhood sickness. I mean true, childhood, deadly, life altering sickness. I just can’t wrap my mind around it. It makes me mad and sad and frustrated and aggravated – ALL OF IT!  Sweet children – innocent children just shouldn’t have to endure the pain and suffering. Not to say that adults do but babies…BABIES…not babies! Not children.

Nothing more today -