In Dog Years, Neal's Dead

We finally top off our month of birthdays with Neal turning 35.  He had to work but his dad took him out to lunch at Brio, an Italian restaurant.  That evening, we took the kids over to John and Carly's and went to dinner at In N Out Burger.  Then we headed over to Watters Creek and took a dance class offered by Aurthur Murray.  We learned the basic steps of the fox trot and had fun doing it.  We even slipped in a few of the swing steps we used to do before moving to TX.  This weekend Keri is baking up some sweet glazed lemon bars for the birthday boy.

4 is Fantastic!

It's that time of year again, Birthday Month! From May 28th to June 29th we do nothing but party, party, party!  This time Sophie was in the spotlight as she turned 4!  My little girl is growing up so fast! All that Sophie wanted was a cake and people at her party.  This year we went with a Water theme - fish cake, beach towels for a table cover, and lots of opportunities to get wet.

The Party: 

The kids really didn't fully embrace the slip 'n' slide until a little coaching was provided by Neal and John with a water noodle.

 Our kooky kid singing along to "Happy Birthday."

 Last year on Black Friday, we got Sophie a bike inexpensively.  That was her main birthday gift and she did really great.  She only fell 3 times her first go around our circle.  We told her falling was part of learning to ride a bike and she doesn't get to upset when it happens.

 Sophie gave herself two thumbs up!

Her birthday party was on Saturday and her birthday wasn't until Monday so she partied for a while.  Here she and Rhys enjoy Sunday breakfast with Ducky Mo Mo (a well loved character from one episode of Phineas and Ferb). Neal actually had it made by a friend since Disney is not marketing Ducky Mo Mo.  As a side note, one weekend morning this month, our kids crawled in bed with us and watched the Ducky Mo Mo clip 16 times in a row on Neal's phone.

Sophie got this cute dress from Oma and Opa and wore it to church on Sunday.

When Sophie gets the occasional card in the mail, it is quite fun to watch her shred the envelope to pieces to get the card out.

On her actual birthday, we made pancakes with 4 and a happy face on them for her.  That afternoon we attended the David Chicken Show.  Who is David Chicken?! This is David Chicken, an Emmy Award Winning Family Entertainer! It's a young man with a cape, a chicken hat, and an appreciation for the King. He truly rocks!  As an adult, I even think he's ultra cool.

Rhys slept through it but Sophie even got to go up on stage to shake jingle bells and her booty.  

More cake and sugar coma has set in.

We love our Sophie!  She is very talkative, energetic, and a beauty.  She comes and wakes us each morning with two immediate questions, 1.) Will you make me breakfast? and 2.) Where are we going?  She keeps us on our feet!  Happy Birthday, Sophie!



Summer of Fun

We have been filling our summer days with fun ways to stay cool.  We love our local libraries' events and storytellers.  Here are Sophie and Rhys with their new friend, Slappy, at the Ringling Bros. Clown Show.

When it is cool enough or the right time of day we sometimes venture out to the parks to be with friends and burn some energy.  Sophie got her first bee sting, poor things (things being plural as the bee did not fair well from this experience either).  She was pretty good about it all.  She does pretty good at taking things in stride unless she is overtired.  I actually saw the bee land on her but didn't want to alert her to it, hoping it would fly away.  Well, she noticed it and then in her panic, smashed it between her arm and her body.  At least we know she isn't allergic.

And then there's always the pool and the local public spray parks to keep cool.

 And it seems that even though they have just begun, the annual Summer Sounds concerts in the park are already over.  We attended all of them. It's always to kick back, sing along, watch the kids run around, and hang out with friends.

We are loving this summer and always find fun things to do.

He's got "Dad"itude!

Neal is a kind, loving, patient, and fun husband and father. We love him so much we wanted to surprise him with something he had expressed interest in doing.  So to celebrate Father's Day, he was awakened at 5:00 in the morning the Saturday before. Keri had planned a fun day for the family. She handed her groggy husband a can of bug repellent with a sticky-note attached saying, "You're gonna need this!" Then told him to get dressed in the clothes she had laid out for him while she got the kids up, dressed, and in the car. After a short stop at the local donut shop we were on the road. We got to our destination after about an hour just south of the OK/TX border.

We were the third to arrive at Bailey's Berry Patch and were soon picking thornless blackberries in the morning sunlight with the kids tagging along. In about an hour and a half or so we were leaving with nearly a 5 quart bucket of berries.

The blackberries were pretty much picked clean by the city folk after an hour so I was glad we got there early as instructed by the owner. There were still loads of people coming in to get started as we left. They would have to fill their buckets with the other wonderful option still remaining, blueberries.

Then we were on the road for another 30 minutes or so when we came upon fiberglass statues in the middle of nowhere, which, might I add, was right next to the Red River Peach Orchard we picked at next.

This time the orchard offered a wagon for us to haul the peaches and kids--a lot less whining this way! There was a nice breeze so it didn't seem too hot. After a lemonade stop we were on our way home.

The real "peach" in this photo is Neal!

That afternoon we made low sugar blackberry peach jam. Yum! It was fun and tiring. We were refreshed by joining Oma and Opa for a swim and dinner at their house. It was a terrific day and a fun, new experience.

Provident Living

The prophets have urged us to live providently — in other words, to live in a way that will provide the necessities of life not only today, but tomorrow as well. But living providently encompasses all areas of life. If we want to face the future with confidence and peace of mind, we must prepare ourselves in six areas: literacy and education, career development, financial and resource management, home production and storage, physical health, social-emotional and spiritual strength.

All individuals and families have strengths and weaknesses in these areas. As a family, we continue to work on these areas but recently we have specifically addressed continuing education, gardening, canning, grain storage and grinding, weight loss, and more consistent evening family prayer.

Neal and Keri took a Saturday morning class offered through our city to learn about rain water harvesting and build a rain barrel. The parts were cheap but it did take a bit of time to hook it all up. We have had very little rain this year and are experiencing drought conditions but have been able to provide additional watering to our vegetable garden with the harvest water. Our garden did very well this year. We even were able to learn canning to store up some of the bounty from the cucumber and pepper plants. Our friend, Heather, also reintroduced Keri to canning beans. It's easy! Just takes a bit of time and the right equipment.This year we added a grain mill to our kitchen tools. We went with a manual grinder because it is fun, easy to crank, and usable in a black-out. It takes about 10 minutes to grind 3 cups of flour but it's good exercise and, again, fun. Sophie does need a little assistance but is very excited to grind wheat. She should have no trouble turning the crank by age 7 or so. We refridgerate our freshly ground wheat and use it within 2 weeks otherwise flour goes rancid and loses its nutritional value--on of the reasons we try to avoid store bought flour.Our friend, Jessica shared some of her whole wheat sourdough starter with us. We have been pretty busy and haven't baked bread with it yet but have enjoyed some yummy sourdough pancakes.
Learning these new skills has been a blast and we are thankful to our friends that willingly share their knowledge with us. Thanks for blessing our family!

Birthdays - The More You Have, The Longer You Live!

Keri partied like a 37-year-old with two toddlers on her birthday! Neal went to the car races with his dad on Saturday so Keri was treated to a bit of celebrating by her best bud, Kari. All Keri wanted for her birthday was a cinnamon roll. Kari picked her and the kids up and took us for cinnamon rolls at Panera at Watters Creek. Afterwards we enjoyed the live concert on the green and hung out for some time while the kids ran around and got extra energy out. It was a perfect birthday - good food, good music, and a great friend!

Neal took Keri out a few days later to try some salvadorian food (um, Yum!) and then a movie. We were thankful for John and Carly who took the kids for us. Undistracted adult conversation over a nice meal was very appreciated. We saw Midnight in Paris, a Woody Allen film. We liked it very much. It was fun! And Woody Allen did not star in it which was a plus in Keri's book.

Memorial Day

Our computer gave up the ghost so I took a month long blog vacation until it was fixed. Hello pretty new computer!

Okay, Memorial Day we got together with a large group of friends at the Lindemans for breakfast. We ate, chatted, ate, laughed, and well, ate. It was great. That afternoon the family took naps except Neal who got some things done around the house. In the evening we joined some of the same friends for a game night. We were all tuckered out after a late night.