Category: General

Isabel has been wanting to know how to braid hair for a while now and today I decided it was a great time to learn!

We tied 3 pipe cleaners together and sat on the sofa for about 15 min. or so just going over the leap-frog concept of braiding. She tried it twice and then declared she didn’t want to do it anymore because she’d never get it! After a bit of encouragement from Gino and I, she surprised herself when she got it…

Her first 2 braids! She did a great job! With practice she’ll get better.
She worked with the pipe cleaners for awhile and then took them apart to make a crown for Daisy.

What a week!…

1. First with my mother-in-laws major surgery and now the waiting to see what her diagnosis is. (She still can not see properly) Please keep her (us) in prayer…
2. Second the busy work week I had at school. The kids seemed to be flying by the seat of their pants! Craziness everywhere! In the moments I’m with them, am I really getting through…
3. Third the passing of my Uncle, who had just recently celebrated 48 years of marriage to my Auntie last month. The last time I saw him I was Isabel’s age, but he was still a great husband, father, brother, son, and friend. He will be missed dearly.

Even when my life is in chaos; my calender devotional says it all…

“The Lord doesn’t always remove the sources of stress in our lives…but He’s always there and cares for us. We can feel His arms around us on the darkest night.”
– FOTF: Loving My Wife Back to Health

“He takes care of his people like a shepherd. He gathers them like lambs in his arms and carries them close to him.” Isaiah 40:11 

Even in all this stress, sadness, worry, and grief, I can feel His arms around me, comforting me, carrying me. He’s there. Just within my reach…

 

I’m a bit behind on posting things and probably won’t get around to doing it all. I just want to keep moving forward. The next few days, I just want to relax and reflect…

This morning we decided it was time to trim down one of our tomato plants. It was looking really sickly and we didn’t want the fruit to go bad.

Our other tomato plant is doing great, is still very green and is producing bigger and bigger fruit! So we’ll keep that one and harvest the rest.

From just one plant we have this many plus more that we have already given away to neighbors and friends! We have eaten a lot more tomatoes this year as well. All those vine fresh fruit were like candy in your mouth! Sweet!

This little tomato reminds me so much of a pumpkin. Same color, same bumpy shape (can’t really see it in the photo) but when you turn it around…

It has this weird growth (hook) coming out of it. The hook even had (came off when I washed it) leaves sprouting off the top of it. Weird.

It was a great first year for tomatoes, we learned a few things along the way of what to do and what not to do. Like trim the plant to get bigger fruit and water, water, water (very important) and all the little frogs (BIG ones too!) in our yard love love love to sun themselves while our tomatoes ripen on the vine.

This evening Isabel chased one of the bigger frog’s around the yard. We’ve only seen two larger ones in the yard and they aren’t hard to miss! It put up a fight and really didn’t want to be caught but she finally got her hands on it and her smile was priceless!

It’s 2 handed!

She finally got it under control, it was trying to jump in her shirt!

 

Back in May I had written about our backyard.

Well, after a period of drying out and then adding some organic soil, lime, fertilizer, and grass seed, we finally have a green lawn again and not a pond. There are still a few patchy spots but those will hopefully fill in over time. Gino also found a organic product that is top rated at breaking up clay in the soil, so he will apply that to the yard in the fall and then again in the spring.

Looking better.

Isabel loves playing with my hair and I love her playing with my hair.

Today’s hairdo was her version from a certain Disney movie from 2010. Enjoy!

My “Tangled” inspired hairdo.
Thank you Isabel, I love it.

Throughout the summer, we’ve been doing homework. At the end of the school year, Mrs. Boettcher gave out a huge stack of paperwork and then I have workbooks that I’ve purchased just for summer time homework as well. Today’s lesson was mostly focused on math with some writing.

We worked on greater then and less then, counting/writing numbers 1-30, spelling simple words, addition, and learning spheres, cones, and cylinders. I added a few photos below. Enjoy!

Spelling simple 3-letter words.

Spelling number words.

Beautiful job on the dot-to-dot!

Problem solving with simple addition.
Beautiful job!

Learning what a cone, cylinder, and sphere are.

She was a bit confused at first so afterward I had her run around the house finding as many cones, cylinders, and spheres as she could find. I didn’t think she would be able to find the cone shape but she surprised me with all the items she found and brought back to the table.

All the items she found in our shape game. Great job!

Later in the afternoon she did a watercolor picture of a “cone” shaped volcano erupting with a forest fire burning in the background! I love it!!

This afternoon Isabel’s sixth tooth became loose and fell out this evening just before bed!

It had been dangling at odd angle’s all day, after she had bumped into me while I was tickling her. She said she finally just gave it a little tug and the tooth came out. Exciting times! As another piece of her childhood gets placed in the past. She’s growing up so fast!

Looking in the mirror at her “new” toothless smile!

She must have a “thing” for loosing teeth on Sunday, since she’s
lost most of them on that day.