Free $10 Gift Card

Really! It's free!

All you have to do is visit the Emergency Essentials blog, follow the directions to add their button to your blog, and they will send you a $10 gift card.

Awesome right? Who couldn't use ten dollars?

Anyone?

Anyone?

Fly Away

As I told you before, our garden is really producing well this year. While this is a tremendous blessing, there IS one drawback.

Fruit Flies

These little pests are the bane of my existence during the summer months. You may not notice the little creep when he sneaks in on your tomato, but within a few days, you have a whole colony alive and well in your kitchen.

They make me CRAZY!!!

They can hide everywhere. Even in plain sight. I have even found several concealing themselves inside of a medicine dropper for no apparent reason. They are very tricky little buggies.

During the heat of the day, you can often find me stalking them in my kitchen. It's too inefficient to try to squish them all by hand, so, with my vacuum wand in hand, I hunt them down, one by one. A soldier, armed and dangerous. I suck them up as fast as I can find them. I stir them out of their little hideouts and watch them scurry to find a place to land, then I whip around in a very stealthy fashion and POUNCE! HAHAHAHA! Sometimes if you're lucky you can see me trying to catch one while he is careening through the air. I resemble a lunatic waving my magic vacuum wand at an unseen entity.

Maybe I am a lunatic...

There's one thing I know for sure.

If I have to be a lunatic to get rid of these creatures.

So be it.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

We have been so blessed this year to have a very productive garden! I have had so much fun harvesting everything and learning new ways to can things. Without our garden, I don't know that we would have been able to add to our food storage this summer!!!

Here is Eme picking raspberries. This is the kids' FAVORITE thing to do. We don't get to really make anything with the raspberries, but the kids sure love to munch on them. And the best part is that I don't have to prepare them. The kids just go outside and eat them straight off the canes!

Our little patch of raspberries has been producing since late May, and it is STILL going. Raspberry plants anyone?

This picture is of my little Gabriel holding a couple of beans from our garden. 2 to be exact. They are called rope beans and come from Thailand or something like that. A custodian at Ryan's school gave him some seeds and we planted them this year. They have been FANTASTIC. They taste pretty much like regular green beans, but sweeter. And a great perk is that in a minimal amount of space, these beans can really produce! Just a handful of these beans produces 2 dinners worth of green beans. And you can pick that many every week! Best of all, these seeds are organic, so we can harvest some seeds for next year!

Our tomatoes have SERIOUSLY gone crazy this year. We have an overabundance of these little suckers!

I have canned 24 pints of diced tomatoes and I am about to can at least that many of tomato sauce. This is after we have given away baskets and baskets full of tomatoes to our neighbors!

These are Gabriel's sunflowers! He planted them all by himself and has been so proud to watch them grow!

These are our squash plants. I didn't know these plants could get this big! They were taller than Eme! And did I mention that we had more zuchinni and yellow squash than we could eat? Anyone know any good ideas for canning squash? Pickled zucchini anyone?

This is the very first year that we have had any success with watermelons. Usually the plant rots away before the melons can get very big. So far we have about ten that look promising!!!

So, I thought that I would plant a little jalapeno bush so that I could have one or two jalapenos. Well, instead of a little bush we now have a jalapeno tree! It is as tall as I am!!!!

Needless to say, I will now be canning jalapenos.

So, that's it. Our little garden project that has turned into a mighty undertaking! We are so thankful for this amazing blessing. Our garden is truly a miracle sent from above!

High Falls

This year we purchased a state parks pass, so we've been using it as much as possible. The kids have loved being outdoors so much. Unfortunately we've had a couple of REALLY hot spells.

A month or so ago, we went to High Falls state park.

Gabriel taking pictures with the camera that he got for his birthday.

One of Daddy's "picture spots"

My daredevil girl.

Did I mention it was hot? We found a nice calm spot where the kids could touch the bottom, and let them get a little wet to cool them off.

Eme was the only one who REALLY took it seriously.

Oliver wasn't so sure about it. But he was the one who probably needed it the most. The poor little guy overheats so fast!

Just chillin'.

All done. They didn't complain about going to bed that night.

Wet and Wild

One of the things that the kids have done a LOT of this summer is playing in the sprinkler. It serves a dual purpose. The kids have fun and the grass gets watered!

Oliver is "washing his belly."

Eme's pose.

Getting a drink.

One wet little group!

Kick Off

We kicked off our summer in the only way possible.....the end of school!!!!

These are a few pics of Gabriel's field day. He really liked the water games!

And he was very good at getting everyone as wet as possible.

This is Gabriel chasing the little girl that he was in love with.

(His words).

And then she was chasing him....

Luckily, I brought my sunglasses to entertain the other two kids.

Otherwise I would have been even MORE crazy trying to keep track of them, and stressing out about trying to get a good picture while not getting wet!

This is Gabriel with his teacher and the assistant teacher. He really loved them. We couldn't have asked for a more perfect teacher.

And this is his class on the very last day of school!

Hooray, we're off to 1st grade!

Holy cow....my little guy is going to be in 1st grade!!!!

Playing Catch Up!

We've been SO busy this summer! It's incredible how many things that we have done. I feel a little guilty about not blogging about it. So I am going to go ahead and start from the beginning. Hopefully I can catch up and feel a little less guilty.

So, check out my blog for the next few days and I should start posting again! Pray for me.....