I am a Fine Musician!

Josiah's school band had a lovely Spring Concert this month.

He excels on the trumpet, if we do say so ourselves.

 Caleb performed in a Spring Recital.

He played 'Go Tell Aunt Rhody' with a piano accompaniment.

We loved seeing him on the stage.

 An entire semester of violin lessons and he learned 'Twinkle, Twinkle' and 'Go Tell Aunt Rhody.'

If you just pause to think about the fact that he practiced 5 times a week for 15 minutes a day, with the majority of that time spent on these two short little ditties, well the mind reels to think of how many times we heard each tune!

(Each note was a pleasure to hear, Caleb!)

And, last but not least, here are the cousins again.

Only one day left in the Little Bee Hive for Eleonora, and then she is off to kindergarten!

Happy Tuesday!

End of the Year

We were very busy last week with all sorts of end-of-the-year activities.

 Caleb had his last soccer practice.  Eleonora found her best buddy from school to play with while we were there.

 Josiah and his team won the 4-H Clover Bowl for our entire county, so he got to head to Knoxville to compete against 5th graders from all of east Tennessee.  We got to spend lots of time together studying his 976 questions and answers.  The topics of questions ranged from history to government to agriculture.

 Smart cookies!

 His whole team.

 They enjoyed a happy victory in the second round.

 Unfortunately, that was where the good times ended.

We had a smashing time, nonetheless.

 Eleonora has loved her Grandma picking her up early on Fridays to play, 

often with Anna Kate along for the fun.

 One of their traditions is baking pumpkin pies, and they got new aprons at the Strawberry Festival so they can bake in style.

 Caleb played in his last soccer game of the season, with lots of family there to cheer him on.

He played hard!

My favorite part of the season was watching his very restrained victory celebrations on the field after he scored goals.

 Yesterday the kids and I wrote thank you notes to teachers.

Eleonora also drew herself with each of her teachers.

Happy Monday!

Fall 2011

Happy Friday!

 Check out these two cuties!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Strawberry Weekend

This weekend was the Strawberry Festival in our neck of the woods.

 I had the pleasure of staring out the festivities by taste-testing my good friend, Amanda's entry into the baking contest.  The whole cake fit down in the truck.  It was delicious, and prize-winning, as her bakes usually are.

On Friday night, a local school was putting on the play, Aladdin, and we knew lots of the actors, so we decided to go.

 The auditorium was pretty packed, so we had our pick of the back row or the front, and we chose the front!

Aladdin, on the flying carpet there, was in Jennifer and my Sunday School class in 1st and 2nd grade and he works at camp, and Jasmine used to go to our church as well, so that was fun to see.  Now that I think about it, he was the one who gave Jennifer the nickname Louise, in fact, even better than that, he came up with 'Late Louise', so we all owe him a debt of gratitude.  

Eleonora asked for 'Jasmine' hair after the play.

Chris had a booth set up at the Strawberry Festival Friday and Saturday.

He had a good time, but he is allergic to Spring, and is still recovering.

 On Saturday morning, our church hosted a lovely Mother's Day Tea.

 A lovely time was had by all!

The boys hid out in the church library.  I took some snacks down to them.

 The weather forecast showed rain all weekend, and we were prepared, but the rain held off until after the parade.

 Fun times!

May 5, 2015

Good Monday morning!

Today, I bring you another blast from the past, simply because I am having technical difficulty and can only access old pictures to blog about at this time.

But just look at this girl 4 years ago.

Playing Ring-Around-the-Rosie with her brother and cousin, Lydia Joy.  

Caleb's sporting his second set of 'monkey clothes.'

'Monkey clothes' were his summer wardrobe staple for quite a few years!

Also, Caleb must have been 5 in this pictures, and headed to kindergarten in the fall, just like Eleonora is now!

Eleonora - September 2015

Here are some pictures of Eleonora when she was 18 months old.

 She was a joyful toddler!  (And she's still a rather joyful child!)

 You can see the log cabin was in its early days of life in our yard as well.

 Lest you think this is all just too sweet for words, here is what was actually going on under her arm during this little photo shoot.  She and Caleb both had some serious impetigo going on at that time!

Oh, well, while I'm at it, I'll show you Caleb, too.

Sorry, folks, those are just sort of fascinating to me.

Look at sweet, little 5 year old Caleb!  He still looks the same to me!

Baked Oatmeal

Good morning!

It looks like I never published this one before, but here it is, as I wrote it back in Shady Nook.

The boys and I have been enjoying a new warm, delicious breakfast treat - baked oatmeal.

The boys love to eat grits, and I've tried mushy oatmeal in a bowl, but that's not my idea of a good time.

This recipe was called Cookie Dough Baked Oatmeal,
but it is nothing like eating oatmeal cookie dough out of the bowl - that is what I was hoping for!

Still pretty delicious!