Garden Update

Our summer garden is not doing so good.  All we have planted is watermelon and pumpkins, but they are struggling.  We started out with lots of baby watermelons growing, but now we are down to just one!  And the pumpkins were doing good, but most shriveled up and died.  I am definitely looking forward to planting my fall / winter garden, since we had such good luck last year with some of it. 

 This is what the watermelon plants are looking like.  They

are starting to brown and shrivel up.  Some of them are laying 

on rock, and Jaren thinks maybe the rock is too hot.

 The only part of the watermelon plant that

looks okay is the section that is growing

up the trellis.  I'm thinking this will eventually

die off too, but we will see.  

 Our only surviving watermelon. It's getting huge!  It's growing

up the trellis, so we had to set it on a bucket because it

just got to be too heavy hanging there.

 The pumpkin vines are growing out into

the yard.  They look okay at a distance, but up close.....

 The leaves are dying off, and some have powdery mildew.  

Recently

School is in full swing and things are going great.  Hailey loves her new school, and is enjoying making new friends and learning.  She is doing AWESOME at reading.  The girls have been enjoying the bunny, Buttercup.  Or is it Candace?  Hailey informed us this past weekend that we were picking another name...haha.  It is still so darn hot out, but the pool is definitely cooling off, which is a good sign of cooler weather....YEAH!!!

The girls are LOVING the swing set right now, especially

Addy.  When she is on it, she's all giggles, but when it's

time to get off....it's full on melt down most days!  Poor

girl, must be rough not to be able to make many decisions :(

Our little smiley girl.  She does wear clothes

sometimes...haha.  Not too often, but she does.

Hailey treats the bunny more like a baby.  

She walks around with her like this in

her arms singing to her...lol.

Cute girl!!

Someone gave us a blow up alligator for the pool.

The girls had fun airing it up.  They did not

want to admit that it was tiring them out...haha.
Hailey looked at it and exclaimed "It's a girl!"  When
I asked her how she knew, she said "Eyelashes"...haha.

All done pumping it up and SO excited

to swim with it.

But first they had to wrestle it...haha.

Take that!!!

This is how Addy was sleeping one night!  Must
be comfy!!

Addy giving the bunny a little wagon ride.

She is getting bigger.  

For the past two weeks, Jaren and Eric

have been working on making each of them

a smoker.  They have had many late nights, but

it turned out pretty good.  Jaren was saying "I'm 

gonna smoke a ham, a brisket, ribs..." and I was

all "yeah, I don't have to make dinner!"  Then....

he watches a documentary called Forks over

Knives, and now he says he is going to eat

a plant based diet!  LOL, I don't know why

this is so funny to me!  And sad too, because

I was going to be making less dinners...haha.  I even

came across a website he wrote down on a sticky that

said "dadcooksdinner.com".....and I was like

"OH YEAH"!!!!!

Preschool for Addy

Since Addy is turning three, I thought it would be a good idea to start some preschool type learning things with her.  She is so excited to go to school one day, and is always saying "when I get bigger, I go to cool too!"  To make it more fun for her, the girls and I decorated a corner of the playroom to resemble a little classroom.  They were both SO stinking excited about this!  Addy was thrilled because, as she says "I have a school now", and Hailey was excited to play teacher with her. I am going to start off slowly with her, learning letters and doing crafts.  Thanks to Pinterest, there is a plethora of preschool ideas floating around out there!

 Getting the cut outs ready for our calendar. 

 Our "little school."  I hope Addy realizes she won't be

able to go to real school one day in her undies...haha.

 Do A Dots!  These things are AWESOME!  Addy

loves to do all sorts of art projects with them.

 I love that they are perfect for her little hands to grip,

and not too messy...yeah!!

 

 Proud of her big A.

We went to the dollar store a few weeks ago, and

these little plastic letters were Addy's pick.

She calls them her ABC's.

 She loves to practice her letters with these.  Jaren and I 

were sitting with her and were so surprised when she 

picked out the letter N, O, A and X.  Way to go

Addy.  We hadn't even worked on those yet. 

Guess the learning apps she plays on my

phone are really working!!

 

Hailey Loves Art

One of Hailey's absolute favorite things to do right now is draw pictures and make books.  She will literally spend hours recreating a book she read at home or school.  She either staples the sides of paper, or punches holes in it and uses some ribbon to bind it, and then she writes her story and draws her pictures.  She LOVES to show us as each page is done.  She will come read the first page proudly, then go back and finish the second, and then come back to us and read it from the beginning again.  She will do this until she has the entire book done.  This is usually right smack dab in the middle of dinner time, and I hurry her along as she reads each page, until she gets to the newest one.  I always feel guilty for rushing her afterward. This is something I am really trying to work on.  She's so proud of her work, and wants me to be proud too.  I AM proud of her, and need to really be patient and slow down and take my time with her, so she KNOWS it.

This is one of the cute books she made, called

Who Do I Look Like?  She took her time on each picture,

doing the best she could.  I love that this also helps

her practice her writing and spelling skills without

her actually knowing it!!

Another book she made. This one was called William 

Watches from the Window.  I am pretty sure she has

been reading this book at school.  She did such

a good job on it.  She even cut out little 

snowflakes and glued them on one of the pages

when she talked about the snow falling.

 Another favorite thing for Hailey is drawing.  She is 

especially loving all things fairy right now.  She worked

hard at these, and then taped them all up by her

bed so she could see them every day....so cute.  

Here we have "flower fairy, water fairy and orange fairy."

 Her we have "tornado fairy, and Tinkerbell

Lost and Found Fairy"....so cute!

 About a month ago, we told Hailey Addy's birthday

was coming up at the end of August.  She didn't

care that we had almost two months to go, she started

making her cards ASAP!  And boy did she make cards.  

I should've taken pictures of them all.  I'm guessing she

made about fifteen.  She drew her pictures and wrote 

her cute little notes on them and tucked them in

envelopes for her to open on her birthday.  

Another thing Hailey likes to do is wrap stuff we

have laying around the house and give it

to people as gifts...haha.  This one is for

Addy.  I'm not quite sure what it is, but

it is definitely something from her room!

 The other day I woke up before Hailey.  When she crawled

out of bed, she was annoyed at me that I was already awake.  

Come to find out, she wanted to leave me a note by my bed

so I would see it right when I woke up, but she didn't have a 

chance to that morning.  So...a few days later, this is what

I found next to the bed when I woke up....

A cute little note.  She is so sweet

and thoughtful.  Love my Hailey Bug ♥♥

More Hailey art.  As we were getting ready for school one

morning, the kitchen counter slowly started filling up

with the letters of the alphabet!  So Cute!!

 

More bunny fun...

At first, I second guessed my decision to get the girls a bunny.  That first night she woke me up because she was playing with a bell in her cage.  Nothing too annoying, and I just wheeled her cage into the office.  I was thinking my kids get me up at night enough, now the bunny?!  The second thoughts on getting her only lasted a split second, and now I am thinking she is the perfect pet for the girls, for their age.  She is quiet, not messy and very low maintenance.  All we have to do is clean out her cage, which takes about two minutes flat, and make sure she is fed and gets exercise.  The girls are having SO much fun with her.  They want to see her first thing in the morning when they wake up, and have to give her a hug before they go to sleep.  Every evening when the sun goes down we take her outback and run around with her.  She's so cute hopping alongside the girls, and they giggle while they chase her, so cute!

 Six week old Buttercup.

 Can you tell Hailey adores her?!

 Addy feeding her the tops of some strawberries.

 She looks like a squirrel.