Clean Teeth

Today I had a dentist appointment. My teeth were very stained because of our water softener not working. I am so glad to have my nice-looking teeth back for a while!

Tonight Mike and the four older kids are at soccer practice. The little ones and I are working on cookies. At the moment, one is on the computer and two are in the bathtub.

Today we went to the park and then got a small treat at Dairy Queen before heading home.

A Little Bit Muddy

David decided to head outside to play in the mud the girls made up by the house.

I guess he wore himself out. :)

Famous Last Words

I gave instructions to each child this afternoon for an outside job. I told the oldest two to "clean out the shed," and this is what I got. I had actually been considering this for a long time but have never been ambitious enough to do it. It sure looks nice!!!



Does anyone want this smoker?








Ahem...did I say it looked nice???

(all the junk they took out) LOL!!!!!





Emily did a great job of cleaning out the sandbox so I took the tiller to it.

Jason was supposed to be picking up stuff from around the yard and putting it by the sandbox, but I don't think he did very well. I will have to go out and point some things out to him. He is, after all, a boy. (Most of this is what Emily took out.)

Laura and Melissa (along with a tiny bit of help from Jason at the end) put the soil from the box garden into a can to save for next year.

I took down the garden area and got most of that tilled. I still have carrots and onions in it, if they produced. Most of what I have pulled out of the garden this year has not been anything worth mentioning. I will see if any of it is picture-worthy. I had been lamenting about not having enough beans to can, but after thinking about it, I have never had enough beans to can from my garden. The beans I canned came from a friend, and she did not get many this year.



David crawled around where the excitement was best at the time. Here is a picture of him earlier today.
Dumbo-dog is barking at the shovel while Jason takes dead bean vines to the woods and Aaron tills the horseshoe pits.

Checkbook

I need a whistle or a call-back feature on my checkbook. I seem to always misplace it because I am so scatter-brained. I have been "missing" it for the past eight days, but I KNEW I did not lose it. I finally took the time to think back on where I was and what I was doing when I had it last and found it in the little van. :) I cannot spend any money though--I only have three checks left. I am here on the computer to order more plus send an e-mail. I wonder what else I will get distracted with before I actually complete the tasks... :) I put my last two stamps on bills to mail so will have to hold off on a letter to Mike's parents.

We have been busy with soccer, Jackpine, soccer, youth group, soccer, playing, soccer, school, soccer, shopping, soccer, cleaning, soccer, Awana, soccer, etc. I am sure you get the idea. I did manage to make a pan of bars for Mike's breakfast, and yesterday afternoon Tracy made him some cookies. He has a bag of chips on the counter, but I do not know if they are a good flavor or not since they are still there. (Or maybe I did not let him know they were for him!!!!!)

I hope everyone is asleep. I will get those checks ordered now.

This and That

Tonight I am wishing for another refrigerator and freezer for the weekend. My family is growing by three teenage boys, and I have been making food for the Jackpine Retreat.

I still have a bucket of apples in the refrigerator I would like to make into apple crisp, and I would like to make some blueberry muffins for a friend and possibly visit her for a few minutes tomorrow.

I made some refried beans for our taco dinner Sunday and splatted them out of the blender onto the ceiling. I certainly hope nobody gets a piece of my spoon because it is a tiny bit chopped up. ha ha ha (I guess I was not trained well in blending foods.)

Tonight I sent Mike and the older four kids to town for soccer practice and sent them a list of stuff to do afterwards. I was called about an hour later with the sound of, "Are you coming to the meeting?" I TOTALLY forgot about the meeting I was supposed to attend so threw the three little ones into the vehicle and headed to town. That is the fourth trip to town we made today.

David is getting ready to stand on his own and maybe take a step or two. We have caught him standing alone a couple times already.

Aaron and I picked up one of our lawn mowers from being repaired from one of the Jackpine boo-boos, and I about died when I paid for it. The belt was a dollar over the twenty I was expecting, but the labor is what got me. They had to nearly tear the whole thing apart to get the belt on.

After we picked it up, I had Aaron do some mowing at the church building. There was some sort of problem, and the deck is now smashed. He said he could fix it with a pipe wrench though...

Melissa wanted a fire when we got home so I made her a small one. It was not as much fun without the big kids though--she only lasted around two minutes. It was enough to make her happy though. I suppose part of it is that we had no more marshmallows to roast. :)

We have a gentle rain falling. I also have the radio going. I love the "Music Through the Night" programming.

Hmm...no new pictures to post.

I will see some of you this weekend. The kids have a soccer game tomorrow afternoon.

Soccer Game

We had our first soccer game yesterday. Both the junior and senior teams lost but played hard.
If anyone who is coming to Jackpine is interested, they have games on Friday at 3:00 (Jason and Emily) and 4:30 (Tracy and Aaron) in Warroad as if packing for camping is not enough to cram into your day. :)

Happenings

Sunday
Church
Tracy went to a CTI concert.

Monday
Tracy and Aaron went to water balloon volleyball.
Mike and the four older kids went to a soccer practice for the juniors.

Tuesday
We did school work.
Tracy and Aaron had soccer practice.

Wednesday
We did school work.

Thursday
We did school work.
Mike and the four older kids went to soccer practice while the younger three and I did errands in town and went to the park.

Friday
We did school work.
We had a long day because we were supposed to have a soccer game which got canceled.

Saturday
Mike, Tracy, Aaron, and Emily went to a Kid's Day at our sporting goods store.
In the evening we were invited to a birthday party.
Aaron is now at a Bible study, and Tracy would like to drive to go pick him up.

I did not get letters sent out to the grandparents this week so hopefully some of them will see this. :) We did a lot more, but it is the "little" things I usually write to them about.

Three Down, One to Go

Well, we now have three mowers out at the Jackpine campgrounds not doing a bit of good. :( Did I ever mention I think mowing is a waste of gas, time, and everything else?????? It does smell good when it is freshly mowed though. :)

Canning

I have been busy canning tomatoes, applesauce, peaches, and jelly. We have been busy with soccer and other activities and will start on the fourth week of our school year tomorrow. Other than that, life has been happening; it is quite busy. :)

Congratulations, Tracy!

Tracy studied hard this summer memorizing Bible verses and studied the book of Colossians. Saturday she was in a competition in the cities. She placed 6th for her age group! Yeah, Tracy!!!!!

Itasca State Park

We finally made it to the state park with the youngest two kids.

David at the base of the tower. Because of the HUGE amount of people and limit of six on the tower at a time, I didn't even bother trying to take him up. Had he been awake, I would have considered it.
Laura climbed all the way up.


David at one of the pine trees.


Crossing the headwaters of the Mississippi River...






Trying again...

Art Around the World

Back in July, three of the kids went to some art classes. They studied three different countries and then did projects. They also discussed a bit of poetry.

Here are Jason's projects:


After the art classes, we went up to the depot where they were doing steam-roller printing. Here is Melissa's printing getting ready to be inked.



Here she is watching the steam roller.

Her projects:


Emily's projects:

Laura was too young to attend the classes, but she was able to take part in the steam roller printing.

Water and Rocks

Emily and Melissa went up the North Shore with my mom and my brother and families. Emily begged to take the camera and came home with 258 pictures--mostly of "water and rocks," as she stated. :) Here is a sampling...