Best Things About My Birthday

1.  God gave me another day on earth with my family and friends, good health, home, work, food, sunshine, and lovely fall weather.
2.  Cards, calls, and facebook messages wishing my a happy day.  I love an excuse to catch up with people and touch base.
3.  First Day of Homeschool Co-op this year, and my first time teaching a class in over a year (I was permanent substitute last year)... and I got told by many students that my class was their favorite!
4.  Cute new skirt from the thrift store (that my son told me I should buy for myself) and cool picture my son took of me.
5.  Date with my hubby to Planet Sub (which has special newlywed significance, from when we lived near Lawrence, KS and the Yellow Submarine sub shop) and to see the movie, Courageous... which made me laugh so hard my sides hurt, and cry a whole bunch, and pray, too.
6.  A wonderful young lady to stay with the kids while we went out.
7.  Sweet hubby driving to another town to get the Bordeaux Cherry Chocolate Frozen Yogurt I wanted.
8.  Enjoying the frozen yogurt shake I made at home.
9.  Safely home.

If only I had a cape, I think I'd look like a superhero.  :)

Homemade Snow Cone Syrup

I've seen this simple homemade snow cone recipe on several sites, but I believe the spot I originally found the recipe was the Hillbilly Housewife newsletter.  The formula is so simple, even Ellie and Wyatt have the ingredients memorized.

Homemade Snow Cone Syrup


2 cups sugar
1 cup water
1 package unsweetened Kool-Aid (or other drink mix)

Mix all ingredients together in a saucepan and boil, stirring almost constantly to make a syrup.
Then let cool and pour into your squirt container.

So easy!  I love that we don't have to have high fructose corn syrup in our snow cones.  Now I'd love to find a recipe that doesn't have any artificial flavor.  I have an idea to substitute the Kool-Aid and water for a cup of lemon juice... I think that would make All Natural Lemonade Snow Cone Syrup, but I haven't tried that yet.

We have a huge supply of Kool-Aid, because I used to buy the packages whenever they were on sale.  Even though the kids have been making at least two batches of syrup every week, we are no where near running out of Kool-Aid packets.

I don't make Kool-Aid very often anymore, because of the artificial flavor and coloring.  I especially like the Invisible Kool-Aid for the non-staining properties and lack of artificial color.  I grew up on Kool-Aid.  My "oldest" friend (because we've been friends since we were toddlers, ages 2 and 3... I'm the older one) lived right across the road. Her house smelled like Kool-Aid every time you walked in.  Her mom would never put a whole cup of sugar in, so whenever she left the kitchen, us kids (the two of us and our little brothers) would grab the sugar canister and add some more!

4th of July

Not only is the 4th of July our nation's birthday, it's Thomas and I's wedding anniversary.

This year, we celebrated 12 years as man and wife.

We got this cool patriotic shirts for the 4th and for an upcoming family reunion.
The shirt features Psalm 33:12.
We hadn't bought matching shirts since my second trip to the homeschool conference.
Ellie has now outgrown  her "I am homeschooled and so were..." shirt.

The free concert this year was BlackHawk.

This concert is so fun in the park, because Wyatt plays on the monkey bars...

and Ellie swings.

The boys relax in our lawn chairs.

The girls hang out on the picnic blanket.

We get to see my cousins and their kids.
This is the back of Thomas's pickup with some of my cousin, Ruth's, kids (she has five kids).

Ellie is only 3 months older than Elise.

My cousin, Ruth, and I (she is older than me, but I won't say how many years).
We try to visit her family once a year.
It's always a treat when we get to see them more.

Had to take one of the boys while they were looking, too.

We always  have fireworks on our anniversary!

Deanna Rose Farmstead

 We had a special treat last month.  My best friend from Jr. High and High School, who now lives states away, was in town for a couple days on the way to her sister's wedding.  I know we both had other friends we called best friends along with each other and along the way.  She is the only one of those girls that I still talk to and hang out with.  The rest have become Christmas card and Facebook friends.We just happened to have the day free and they were planning to visit Deanna Rose Farmstead.  My friend, Sara's, sweet mother shared the day with her daughter and grandkids with us.

This was Sara's pic of all the kids when we first got into the farm.

Sara's son, Cael, wanted to push the stroller, but without him in it, the stroller wanted to tip backwards.
Ellie was happy to help him keep the stroller upright.

This is one of the smaller of the huge wind chimes the kids got to make music in the woods with.

This is one of the kids pulling on the wind chimes strings.

This is a little more animated of Sara's little guy working the chimes.

I could not believe there was a bench with Ellie's name on it!  Spelled the same even!

An attempt to get a picture of the four together like stair steps.

I just thought this carving was neat.

I sometimes call my hubby a turkey (affectionately), so I couldn't resist this pic.

Thanks, Sara, for the ice cream pic.
I can't believe I didn't take one myself.
Ice cream and our family go hand in hand.

There was a little black goat Wyatt started to feed, but this spotted one head butted the black one away.
Wyatt was pretty upset with this goat, but couldn't get the bottle away; he tried to smile for me.

My kids could not wait to get to the baby goats so that they could bottle feed them.

Wyatt found his little black goat.
He even memorized the goat's number... number 28.

The goats were actually more excited than the kids.
Someone needs to teach them patience!

We all bought another round of bottles, but Sara's kids had had enough of the aggressive goats.
They gave the rest of their bottles to Ellie and Wyatt, so they got to feed two fisted.

Two happy goats, and more hoping for a taste.

This was grinding corn into flour in the Indian Hogan.

Payton, with the cook pot in the middle of the hogan.

Inside one of three tepees.

Wyatt and Ellie fought over pushing Sara's son in his stroller!
Wyatt was so fast, but I promise Cael was smiling really big while Wyatt raced around the path.

Me and my kids in front of the one room school house.

Wyatt and Ellie in front of a tepee.

I love this picture Sara took of Wyatt and I.
Thank you, Sara!

Inside the one room school house.
I love Ellie doing her "thinker" pose, while Payton looks on at her.

This is one of Sara's pics of the kids inside the schoolhouse.

Sara's Mom took this group photo for us.
I said no one should see it, but Sara thought it was cute,
and I think it's funny... so it made both of our blogs.

Here's the other pic that Sara's Mom took for us.
We really were mostly out of the sun,
but the girls look like they're grimacing...
I think they are just doing their
"I have to smile, AGAIN" face.

What I loved was that afterward, Payton was talking about how Ellie and Wyatt were her new friends!  I also love that although we hadn't seen each other in person for almost three years, it didn't feel that way...it never does.  That's one of the great things about good friends.  I'm sure that blogging helps... that last time we saw each other was when Sara convinced me that I was capable of such a feet. ;)

Wow, after seeing our pictures side by side, I think my camera is due for an upgrade.

Vacation Bible School: Fruit of the Spirit at the County Fair

This was the first year that the church we attend had a traditional Vacation Bible School.  Well, I would say semi-traditional, because we had the classes in the evening.  When I was growing up, we always had VBS 

during the morning.

The theme was Fruit of the Spirit and a County Fair. I did the actions for the songs.  Ellie and Wyatt, and some of their friends, wound up being my backup dancers; that is why Ellie and Wyatt are dressed country.  The volunteers were supposed to dress up every night.  I wish I would have had the kids take pictures of me, because I wore a different outfit every night.  I still like playing dress-up!

I added this because it shows the awesome stage that some of the volunteers created for the skits.

This is Ellie during recreation, using a fly swatter to put stray balloons into the corral.

Ellie and her BFF.

Wyatt modeling his green house.

I only remembered to bring my camera two nights.
This night, the Farmhand Fun was all about goats.
The kids got to try goat milk and goat cheese.

And meet a live meat goat.

Wyatt at Farmhand Fun.

They made garden stones.

Ellie, her BFF, and a friend from church.

Ellie at Farmhand Fun.

A fellow homeschool mom teaching the kids about goats.

The "actors" for the skits.

Wyatt working his stray balloon into the corral.

My ladies Bible Study group, the inspiration for our first ever traditional VBS.
Just for fun, we are three homeschool teachers and one public school teacher.
Wonder if anyone could guess who was who... there are pretty good odds.

Afterwards, people were asking if I had recovered from VBS.  I said there was nothing to recover from.  Truly, I had fun.