No, this is not a recipe :-) We had a very busy week. We had a good family friend stay with us. His son was awaiting the birth of his first child. He was blessed to be here to see his new grandson. This was so weird for me. Robert, our friend's son, was only eight...8....years old when we first met them. And this week he became a daddy! Wow, makes me feel old :-)
The oldest two girls and Jeremiah went camping this weekend. They had a lot of fun. While they were gone we did our grocery shopping. Nothing unusual about that....except that by the time I got out the door it was 5 PM. In my world, that is very, very late for a full grocery shopping. However, we didn't have much of a choice. There have been many late bedtimes this week. Come shopping day it was apparent that those late nights were catching up! Naptimes were required. Poor Jonah was a puddle. After naps and some food we headed out. I don't have a watch, so I didn't really know what time it was. I'm pretty used to people looking/staring at us, but for some odd reason there was a difference this night. I finally figured it out when I got home. It was 10 PM!!! People must have thought I was crazy to be out grocery shopping with five kids at almost 10 o'clock at night. :-)
To make sure that the five kiddos who were home with me had a bit of fun we had our own s'mores...right in our kitchen. I just turned one of my burners on and 'roasted' marshmallows over the hot burner. Worked like a charm. Though, I have to say, it lacked that nostalgic smokey smell and glowing fire.
Tonight I finally got around to making another batch of soap. We ran out of our first batch last month. Not too bad for our size family. We had homemade soap for six months, which included having given some away. This time I met with a bit of a mess. I was just finishing up washing the utensils I used to make the soap. Flannery came into the kitchen, screamed and pointed to my crockpot (I was making soap in the crockpot). I look over to see that my soap was foaming up and over the sides, all down the outside onto my counter. UGH!!! It took me at least 20 to 30 minutes to clean it all up. I decided to make my water portion out of a calendula/chamomile tea. I'm excited to see how it turns out.
I have some pictures to share this time. I'm trying to make another go at doing some seasonal crafts. We bought some small 1$ pumpkins a couple of weeks ago. It has taken me a while to get around to them. I took them all out on the porch with some paper and paints. The kids had a lot of fun painting their pumpkins.
Almost the whole bunch. I kept looking and looking at them trying to see the "many" of them. For some reason it doesn't look like I have a ton of kids. They fit all nicely into one shot on our porch :-)
Aubrey had a pumpkin to paint....a few days before this picture was taken. However, he threw it on the floor of the van. So now his pumpkin is here:
The chickens were pretty happy with it.
Jed and Jonah decided to do a bit of a rainbow theme. It even seems that Jonah was planning out his pumpkin art in that notebook.
It was interesting to see what ideas the girls had. I still am not sure what possessed Saoirse to paint her pumpkin stem.....brown. Hmmmm.
Jonah getting colorful. Believe it or not none of the kids made a mess with the paints!!! Truly amazing.
Flannery wanted to paint one of our cats paws and stamp it on her pumpkin. She thought better of that idea and decided to just free hand some paw prints. Smart girl :-)
Aubrey was very good just hanging out watching everyone paint. But at some point he wanted to do something else.
That something else was to go around picking up all the acorns on the ground. Here he is putting his finds in my pocket.
Jonah was done next. He came to join us on the ground. Jonah was just one constant blur. I suppose it was from all that pent up energy...ya know, from sitting so long painting. Actually, he did a fabulous job sitting still and painting for so long!
He was armed with some sticks. Thankfully he only used them to draw in the dirt.
This area is a testimony to what mulching can do. This area has always been covered in 7 to 8 foot tall weeds by the end of the summer. I think I spent a total amount of 30 minutes all spring and summer weeding this area!! Our only problem now, and we are assuming it is due to the past weeds, is that nothing much will grow here. We plan on raking back the mulch and putting a heavy layer of dirt and compost down.
Aubrey just looking cute.
Aubrey wanted to move on to somewhere else.
Jed eventually joined us on the ground as well. He was trying to dig up the brown/grey powder. I had to tell him to stop. That powder is diatomatious earth. Let's just say a certain someone,
me, has been a wee bit unhappy with the amount of a certain type of bug entering our house. We can't put borax down due to the chickens and cats. The borax will kill the bugs quicker, but it would kill the chickens and the cats as well. The DE will work slower, but is totally safe for animals and humans.
Jonah changed implements...a feather.
Inspecting his work.
Jed asked for some help to ride his bike.
After a while I went back up on the porch to see how the girls were fairing. This is Isabella's pumpkin. I am sure I didn't have to tell you that :-)
Moira did a night sky theme. You can't see them, but she painted a husband and a wife on top of a hill looking up at the stars.
I decided to take this opportunity, of having all the kids outside at the same time, to get a group shot. Take one.
Take two is much better.
Take three. Get a load of Aubrey's expression. Too funny!!
Afterwards Saoirse asked me to take a picture of just her. Um, really?
My silly girl. I asked if I could get one shot of her looking more normal. What's normal again?
Today found us outside again. I had bought some extra organic garlic while shopping. I had remembered that garlic needs to be planted in the fall. We headed out late in the afternoon. It has been so odd for me to be reading about other people putting in their fall gardens. They are talking about how cold it is. For us, it was warm enough to go shirtless. And if you are one of my kids....sockless :-)
Not sure if you can make it out, but on the ground we drew a rocket ship. Jonah if piloting the ship.
Looks like he had a crew member join him on deck.
So sad, disaster struck and they crashed.
The left over garlic that I planted. I took a picture of where I planted it, but this was a much more interesting picture :-)
Look at that cutie pie playing in the tent that Daddy was trying to air out.
Two little boys being silly.
Oops, looks like Blogger messed up my pictures again. This was from our pumpkin painting day.
Aubrey showing me his acorns. He loves to go and feed them to the goats.
The end. A picture of my shoeless Jonah.
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