Vacation

We are taking a break from the blog for a week to spend some time together as a family!  

I'll be back next week!  

I hope you have an awesome week despite the lack of Benedict Blogs ;)

Tea Party

We were asked last week to a tea party...the girls were so cute and had such a great time!

Thanks for the invite...it was so sweet to watch them all be super girly and cute!

Puppies!

A good friend at church breeds labs, and her lab had 12 puppies about 7 weeks ago (when these photos were taken).  She obviously struggled letting them all outside with that many to watch so she asked if the girls and I would come up and help one day.  Of course she knew we loved animals anyhow and wouldn't say no, so a week ago we grabbed Hillary and the kids and we all headed up there to play/ help with the pups.  We all had a blast!

The kids and pups didn't hold still very long to get great pictures of them individually with the puppies, so you just get the moms :)

I love this picture!  Thanks Hillary :)

(I didn't even realize I had one of each color!)

Chloe is on probation...

We all know I love my dogs to pieces, and Chloe has always been a pretty easy dog...especially for being a terrier!  She has been doing an amazing job at hunting already this summer...however, her recall up at Doug's parents has been not so good.  Sunday we had to go looking for her and when Doug finally located her and brought her back to the house, she had a torn ear and some scratches.  I'm guessing by the looks of it that she got hung up while chasing something.  Anyhow, thankfully it is healing nicely and doesn't seem bothered by it in the least bit.  (She always has been a tough cookie!)

We definitely won't be giving her full freedom up there anymore, but at our place she has been sticking around the house great, yet still getting her hunting accomplished.  Well the other day we caught her in the garden again...she polished off 7 more cauliflower plants!  I have never seen such a thing...she ate the whole thing!  She got 3 of them before we ever even got them in the garden...but she had been good about them once they were in.  

Oh my word!  

I have to stop at the greenhouse now today and hopefully I can get another dozen plants.  For now, there is no more leaving her outside unattended.  Unfortunately, that means our moles have gone crazy and we have new holes popping up all over the place.  :(  

We may have to consider a "deer" fence for our garden just to keep the plants safe!  That way the dogs can still spend time out having fun....AND we can still enjoy our veggies!

Sign Language

 The girls have recently shown an interest in ASL.  I've always had a love for it.  With the coming adoption, we decided it was time to start learning.  What a great project for this summer!  I wanted something we could take on the road with us and learn throughout the summer.  I picked up these two DVD's and we are starting there, but also bought a couple books to go along with it.  We started our first lesson on Monday and it was awesome!  The girls wanted to do ALL the lessons.  They are so excited to learn!  I don't know whether we will ever use it, but if anything they can have a language that they can speak together!

This week...

...is going to be one of those crazy weeks. 

Packing, shopping, laundry, and my last week of babysitting for the summer! (Although this is going to be a tough one to swallow...I'll miss my extra little man for the a couple months!)

I have a bunch of pictures that need to be edited and uploaded, so expect those sometime this week.  It's going to be a great week!  

What do you all have planned?

The tandem

After having a pretty busy day, we decided to take a relaxing bike ride tonight after dinner.  The girls had ridden the tandem in the yard, but we have yet to take it out for a really test.  Tonight they decided they would take that.  Since we were all 4 riding, and we were riding the road, I don't have any pictures.  They sure were cute though!  What a great way to teach them teamwork!  They started out a little rocky, but quickly caught on that they needed to communicate in order to make stopping and going successful.  They picked up on it fast and did an awesome job.  Madalyn is still a little short for it so she kept loosing her peddles, but even caught on to picking it back up easily.  They both tried so hard and I'm really proud of them.  We kept to an easy route tonight so that they could get a better handle for the bike before doing any major downhills or uphills.  

Can't wait to take it out again!  Maybe one of these days I'll get brave and take my camera!

Really proud of our girls!

We had a few struggles this school year with each of the girls, on different levels and honestly, I was pretty stressed about their CAT's at the end of the year.  I know they don't count towards college or anything like that, but at the same time no homeschooling mom wants to see no progress being made either.  

I got their test results back on Tuesday and both of them did superb!  We need to work on spelling with both girls, but not too bad, but everything else they tested at their level or higher.  In multiple areas, they tested 3 grades above where they are at!  That is extremely encouraging!  

Mommy and Daddy are so proud of you two.  Not only do you try your best at everything, you do with a great heart.  We love you both!

Another beautiful day...

We certainly have been blessed in the weather department here lately!  Thursday, we spent the afternoon outside digging in the dirt with our extra little guy.  The girls had a blast with him!

Madalyn's look makes me laugh and oh my that bunny is big!

Pretty girl!  Getting too big :(

I love listening to the girls giggles!

Helpers...

Saturday when we took the tree down, I had filled the wheel barrow with as much small stuff as I could fit.  Tuesday, Hillary and the kids were up visiting and she said the kids love picking up sticks and we should go out and put a dent in the mess.  After supper, all of us headed out.  With that many hands, a job that would have taken me all week, was FINISHED!  All the kids, right down to Jubilee, helped carry sticks of all sizes!  Thank you so much to the Cross family for not only your help, but also your friendship.  God certainly is good to us!

 One more big job off our list...The yard is now cleaned up and ready to be mowed!

Memorial Day...

Doug had the day off for Memorial Day, which is always a huge blessing.  We had plans to get the garden planted, weather permitting.  God was so good to us and held off all rain so that we could get that in.  While we were planting, our phones rang, but we let them be since we were disgusting.  Next thing we knew, Doug's dad was bringing us down a load of dirt.  We had asked if we could use some of his extra dirt to fill in the hole that had settled after we fixed our basement wall.  With our water issues, we didn't want water sitting in the that low spot and encouraging it to find its way into our basement.  We had planned on taking our trailer up there and loading it with Dad's tractor and then unloading it by hand.  So it was a huge surprise to see him come down with a loaded dump trailer!  What a blessing.  We were able to get the garden all in, and get the sides of the basement entrance fixed with dirt.  We felt really accomplished...two big things off our list in one day!

Then we headed up to Doug's parents for a picnic.  We had a great time of fellowship.  The kids all played and wore out.  Food was amazing!  So thankful for another beautiful day.

I'm also very thankful for Doug's parents.  It's nice to be able to be a help to each other and trade off things.  Thanks again for the dirt! :)

Monday morning...

This is how Monday morning started out...

I'm so thankful for the relationship that these two have and pray that it continues for years to come!

Saturday...

My parents came down for another visit on Friday.  They watched the girls for us while we took the teens on another outing.  We got home and headed right for bed because we had a busy day scheduled for Saturday!

Saturday morning, we got up and got ready for the day.  We loaded the bikes and headed to Boonville to ride the Erie Canal trail.  What a beautiful day!  The girls had planned on riding the tandem, but changed their mind last minute.  Bummer!  I didn't want to force them and then have them get frustrated and ruin the ride for everyone.  We rode 12.5 miles and then headed to get some ice cream at Mercers.  We realized once we got back to the house that it was 99 degrees outside, and it felt like 102!  I wasn't complaining though!  It was so nice to be hot!  

We headed out shortly after getting home to pickup our plants for the garden.  Mom and Dad were so gracious to allow and even encourage us to do that to make planting Monday a little easier.  I was a little concerned that our local greenhouse would be cleaned out, but they were loaded and their plants were HUGE!  Mom and Dad even found a few things that they had been looking for.  

After we got back to the house, Dad asked Doug when we were taking the dead tree down.  Before I knew it, the chain saw was out and the two of them were working together to get it down safely and land it exactly where they wanted it.  Doug has taken down quite a few trees, but its always been in the woods and not around anything that needed to be avoided.  Thankfully, it came down nice and easy and they were able to even avoid my lilac bushes and peonies.  We got it all sawed up before calling it a day.  

I'm so grateful for my parents, but especially Dad.  We were both kind of dreading taking that tree down and really needed that extra push.  Now we don't have to worry about the next wind storm and wondering when it will end up falling and what it will land on!