Gratitude Mondays....

What I love day......


~Snow crab dinners eaten on my living room floor.....
(all dinners on my living room floor)

~22lb watermelons from my garden...

~A little girl who wants to learn to cross stitch...

~A little baby who can suck his thumb....
(seriously, the cutest thing)

~A little boy who has no problem expressing himself...

~A partner who says we complete each other...
(I think so too)

~Happiness...

~Kittens who play into the wee hours...

~Quilting supplies, and the promise of future quilts...

~An Etsy Halloween....

~Restocking craft supplies....

~Knowing that even when our society seems lost, fearful, and angry, that there still are people out there fighting for the rights of others.

Here's to a beautiful week!

apple week 2010....

 

 

Have a great weekend everyone!  

fat baby smiles...

Sleeping...

 Or awake...

 

 

fat baby smiles can't be beat.

Number three...

On our magical day at the apple orchard something unexpected happened.  Ava lost her third tooth.  Eating an apple was the trick.

I can hardly fathom how she just keeps growing.  She is so little.  Still a baby.   My first baby.

 

I am sure the Tooth Fairy wasn't surprised.  Somehow the Tooth Fairy knew just what Ava wanted.  Maybe she (Ava assures me that the Tooth Fairy is indeed a girl)  overheard Ava saying how great it would be to get a little bit of her fairy magic.  You see whenever a fairy visits our home (the Room Fairy who sets up or changes bedrooms, or the Tooth fairy) they leave behind an unmistakably magical trail.   I am  sure that the Tooth Fairy is always prepared.  She fully expects teeth to just fall out at any moment, while a family spends the whole day together out of the house.  She never has to stay up late at night throwing something together.  Nope.

 Thank goodness for glue guns, beads, silver paint pens, and teeny tiny bottles.  
a side note.. the glitter is pink and silver, I don't know why it photographed as orange white and black.

Date Creek Ranch...

Over the weekend my family headed just a few hours out of town to an organic apple orchard.  Right in the middle of the desert.   What a treat to be out on a farm.  All of the sights and smells that one might find were there to great us!

I love these cow bottoms. (I accept that might be weird)

The trees were gorgeous and and heavy with fruit.  They offered us some shade from the extreme summer heat.  

 

I sat with Sol in my lap, the two of us resting under this canopy of fruit while the others were hard at work.

 

 

Towards the end of our stay Cyrus wandered off the path and found himself covered in pokey  seed pods.  Matt carefully and patiently removed each little offender.  Cyrus decided to gather sticks and eat apples, no longer interested in adventuring.

 

By the end of our stay we picked 15 pounds of apples. We certainly could have picked more, but I am not honestly sure how to use more than 15 lbs of apples. 

On our way out we enjoyed big icy glasses of freshly pressed (as in 3 minutes old) apple cider.  It was heaven in a glass.  We had a wonderful time at the apple orchard.  I am so grateful to have this opportunity.  A beautiful day sure to leave us memories for a lifetime.

Gratitude Mondays...

What I love today....

 ~A trip to the apple orchard...

~Long weekends...

~Watching bad movies...

~Starting our 2nd week of homeschool....

~A little five year old girl who lost her third tooth this week!

(more on that later)

~A little boy who tries to go everywhere in tights, a leotard, and tutu.  When told he should wear something else, so his pretty clothes don't get dirty, he opts for a 'baseball worker man' outfit instead.

~A little baby who lets me photograph his perfect fat little baby smile...

(more on that later..)

~A partner who seems to read my mind.  

(Often about the dumbest things too.)

I love being in sync with him.

~Playing "Eye Spy" and other games on long car trips with my family.


Here's to another week...  I wonder what it will bring

First annual Rainbow Challenge...

Its hot.  Like oh my.  Its tricky enjoying nature while its nearing 110*...
Enter our official Rainbow Challenge.
Here's how it works...
Each of us goes out to our backyard with the camera and takes a photo of something to represent each color of the rainbow.  Very simple!  (This is not about taking very pretty pictures.  It really is 110* outside, and its pretty miserable.)

Here's our results... (all 28 of them)

Red....

Ava

Cyrus

Matt

Me

Orange...

Ava

Cyrus

Matt

Amanda

Yellow...

Ava

Cyrus

Matt

Amanda

Green...

Ava

Cyrus

Matt

Amanda

Blue...

 Ava

Cyrus

Matt

Amanda

Purple...

Ava

Cyrus

Matt

Amanda

White...

Ava..

Cyrus

Matt

Amanda

In the end it was HOT, true.  But we all had fun.  It was interesting to see who thought of using the same objects, and who found something unusual.  As a bonus, Matt was home sick, so our whole family participated!  I am looking forward to the next time we do this.  In another season we will have a whole new rainbow in our garden.

Thank you to Magic Onions for bringing us together each and every Friday to celebrate nature.