Lemonade anyone?

Last week, Noah had the brainy idea to have a garage sale. Of course, I had no interest in trying find stuff to sell or draw people to our house on the outskirts of town, so....

Noah convinced his brother and sisters to join him, and they took it upon themselves to make the signs (written in pen on colored paper that no one could possibly see while driving 50 miles/hour down our road). They found toys that they were willing to part with, set up a little yard sale, and held signs out by the road. I was actually thinking they looked kind of like little disgruntled workers that had decided to picket our house.

After an hour or so with nobody stopping, I suggested that maybe they'd do better selling lemonade. After all, it was HOT and sunny (and I have 6 kids willing to drink it if they had no takers). After they hauled all their toys back inside, I set them up with a comfy lemonade stand and some large signs.

They stood at the edges of our property holding up their signs and it didn't take long to get their first customer. By the end of an hour and a half, they had pocketed at least $10 (which is good for the amount of cars that travel on our road) AND had convinced some of the customers to come back the next day to buy cookies too. (Unfortunately, their Cookie and Lemonade Stand got rained out, but I'm sure they'll be hosting it another day.)

Time to update...

It's been a while since I've done any blogging and much has happened (as always) in the meantime, so I'll start from where I left off....

Caleb had a piano competition in May at Bolingbrook High School. He played Moonlight Sonata by Beetheoven (I'm not sure if I spelled his name right, but to be honest, I'm too lazy to walk over to the piano to check right now). Each competitor played their piece before a judge and then went on to play another piece by sight without having seen it before. He didn't win, but he did an excellent job and I was very proud of him for taking the challenge. Growth comes when you step out of your comfort zone.

We went to get out our pool from the playhouse last week during the 90 degree heat and found that it had been eaten through several times by a mouse (or two). Bummer. We really need some cats. We're not sure what happened to ours, but they're gone and we need to replace them with some female mousers... Anyhow, instead, the kids had fun on the Slip 'n' Slide for a half hour at a time (after that, our well water would run out and they'd have to wait until it made a comeback).

The girls weren't so keen on sliding on their bellies through the water. They ended up running down the plastic, or army-crawling to the end.

Noah looks totally cute right now with no front teeth. It took forever for his right front tooth to fall out (even though he could push it all around with his tongue). When that one finally came out, the adult tooth was visable underneath. I've seen kids with one big tooth in front and one baby tooth and it looks so goofy... I was afraid that was going to be Noah's fate being that his other front one was hardly even loose. No worries, though... Just a day later, he went with his brothers and Daddy to a friend's house to pick up bees and they played some game called Starlight/Moonlight that gave him a bruise on his temple, a bloody nose and a seriously loose front tooth. The next day it came out with a bite into a bagel...

Memorial Day started out innocent enough. Paul and my dad worked on putting up our new fence and the boys and I were cleaning the junk hay out of the barn to get ready for the new spring hay...

Then the rain came.... and came... and came...

For about 2 hours it down-poured and our yard looked like a moat around a castle. It was a repeat from last year around Memorial Day. (Only this time, Paul wasn't camping. He was here to experience the whole thing ;)

Here's our pool rafts that floated from the back playhouse to the driveway.

And here's the aftermath. I think every piece of corn stalk and cob that was in the field next door got stuck in our yard. The rushing water and debris took down our fences again and left us with a lot of clean-up to do. That stuff is NOT light when it's been waterlogged and it takes quite a while to dry out when it's piled a foot or two thick. YUCK!!
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The next day, after a full morning of working very hard to shovel the cornstalks to our burn pile (we only moved a third of it), the boys and I came in to get a phone call asking if I called 911? "Ummm, no". Apparently, Gracie was playing with the phone and wanted to see our tax dollars in action... I'm not sure how she got those numbers in order as soon as she picked up the phone (I haven't taught her about calling in an emergency), but she did. The nice emergency lady said that she had to have a Sheriff come out anyhow, just to make sure. After I told Grace that a sheriff was coming to talk to her about playing with the phone, she went into a panic for the next 30 minutes and ran off to hide when he arrived. Just a guess, but I'm thinking that she won't be playing with the phone for quite some time.

After the mini flood in our area, I found "Freddy" the turtle crossing the road on my way home from the store. I picked him up, stuck him in the trunk and brought him home for show-and-tell with the boys. He was a pretty large one, and they had fun playing with him, feeding him apples and getting in their hands-on homeschooling for the day. After a few hours of fun, I told them they had to let him go. They put him in our "pond" in the back yard... never to be seen again.

Gracie's 4th Birthday!!

My baby girl is growing up and is not so much of a baby anymore. She still loves to snuggle, but Gracie's growing out of that cute chubby-legged and plumpy-faced toddler stage. She's even started to decide how she wants her hair cut, much to my dismay. Recently, she's decided she wants to grow her bangs out (like her sister). Little Gracie has inherited her momma's forehead, so I prefer her with bangs, but if she promised to wear a barrette to hold them out of her face, she could grow them out. Well, that lasted almost a month. Between the time that the grandma's and grandpa's came over for her birthday on Sunday, and her actual birthday on Thursday, she decided that she didn't like the hair hanging in her face and wanted me to cut them. Awwww, bummer (can you sense the sarcasm?) You can see the difference in the pictures. I'm lovin' the bangs.

Gracie and her new doll (she's been asking for one ever since Ellie got her's in February).

Gracie got to stay overnight at Grandma Connie's and went mini-golfing and who know what other fun stuff... On the way home after picking her up, I asked Grace if she missed me and she said, "No, I miss Grandma." Gotta love her honesty :P

Grace picked out her birthday breakfast... chocolate chip pancakes with NO syrup. Why no syrup?? I have no idea. It's certainly not because she's gone on a health streak, because for dinner she chose to have cereal. We didn't have any in the house, so I had to stop at the store and let her pick a couple boxes out. I'm not sure if she could've picked out a cereal more full of sugar and food coloring... Fruit Loops! I just kept telling myself, "It's Grace's birthday, and it's only one day. There are kids who live on this stuff for breakfast, and they're still alive..." (Yeah, I know I have issues.)

We met daddy at a park for lunch on her actual birthday (as is tradition) and brought cupcakes and icing that we decorated on the spot (being that we had to grab them from the oven and run). We also brought bikes, rollerblades and a stroller for cruising around the pond at the park. It was a beautiful day and Gracie had fun being princess for a day.

Baseball, piano and kids

Well, it's spring around here... and spring brings busy-ness.

Baseball is officially in full swing. We've had two games so far and one rain-out. Whenever baseball season comes, we live and breathe baseball. It's not that we have a ton of games and practices, but the boys fill their days with playing baseball in the backyard. Even Nathan has a baseball obsession (any kind of ball, really, but his favorite is "bay-ball").

We tried to put all 3 of the boys on the same team this year. It would've narrowed us down to one practice and one game per week. The Christian Youth Center is pretty relaxed in their competition and if you think about it, baseball used to be played in the neighborhood park with kids of all ages, and everyone had FUN. At their age, our focus is more on the kids having fun than obsessing about a college scholarship, but we couldn't quite pull it off. We decided to move Caleb up to the next level because he actually needed more challenge to not get bored. He got to pitch in the last game and did really well.

Noah's one of the littlest guys on the team, but stands his ground pretty well. He can knock the ball over the infield's heads, but he insists that he's going to get a home-run which will earn him a "large" ice cream cone (instead of the usual "small").

Seth played catcher for an inning and loved it. It's one of the boys favorite positions (because it gets a lot of action, I guess).

Ellie, Grace and Nathan find ways to pass the time (since we're at the ballpark from 11 until 4). They make piles in the gravel, play at the park, OR have Grandma buy them funky colored candy from the concession stand (I'm sure the latter is the favorite).

This week, before their games, Caleb and Seth had their spring piano recital. They both have the "getting up in front of people" jitters, but Caleb can hide it a bit better than Seth. At the Christmas recital, Seth absolutely refused to go up and play his piece, and as soon as the first student began to play, we could see that this was starting to turn into a repeat of Christmas-time. Paul was trying to give him a pep-talk throughout the first 4 students to no avail, so he moved back a row so Seth wouldn't be able to express how he "didn't want to do it". Right before he was to play, I got up and walked to the back of the room as well. When his name was called, he didn't move. Everyone was looking around trying to figure out who was next and after an awkward minute or two, the piano teacher flagged Caleb to go next instead.

Seth had practiced his piece a lot, so I knew that wasn't the problem. He just has the same phobia that I had when I was little. I HATED anything that had a recital at the end. Ballet, piano, tap... it didn't matter. If it had a recital at the end, I'd quit. But for Seth, I decided that he WAS going to go up. If he didn't do it now, he probably never would in future recitals. I sweetly told him that if he didn't choose to go up by himself, I would have to drag him up. Then I asked if he wanted me to walk all the way up to the piano with him, or halfway. After he got the "Do I have to?" answered with a firm "Yes.", I walked him halfway up the aisle after Caleb was done, and he did FANTASTIC!

Caleb played a piece from Bach and did great too. Next week he has a judged piano competion where he's going to play the same piece, but he has to have it memorized.

And in-between the action on Saturday, we had our final baby goat bringing our total to four kids (two boys and two girls). They are so fun to watch. The newest babies are only 2 and 3 days old, but are so cute how they romp around and play with each other. We have been getting fresh goat's milk from the first doe for about a week now and it is soooo delicious. We all prefer the raw goat's milk to cow's milk any ol' day. Mmmmmm-mmmmmm. Just gotta get one of these kids (MY kids) to bake up some chocolate chip cookies....

Busy weekend

Our New Kid

Our biggest excitement of the weekend was the birth of our first baby goat of the year. Our goat (the one I said was NOT pregnant) had a single boy. I'm not sure where she was hiding it, but it's hers. Caleb went in to feed and water the goats in the morning and found a little baby. What a great surprise! He is soooo cute. He is full Nubian so he has adorable long ears (like a cross between a puppy and a lop-earred bunny). Last year's babies were half Nubian and half Lamancha so they had very short ears (Lamanchas are known for having no ears).

When asked if it's a boy or a girl, the Ellie and Grace will announce that "It's a boy and it's going to get butchered, but not when it's a baby." Such farm girls.... My kids are enjoying the new kid.

Livin' it up

The boys have been having a blast riding the go-cart around the cornfield, so daddy found another go-cart and mini-bike on Craig's list. The owner couldn't get either to start after the winter, so we got a good deal on them. After an hour or two, Daddy was riding around the yard on the mini-bike.

Seth was learning how to ride in the front yard (the steering of the front wheel takes a bit of getting used to), and after about 5 minutes, he forgot to let go of the accelerator when he used the brake to stop and he wiped out. Thank goodness there was no major damage, but when he fell, he jammed the handlebar into his cheek and formed a nasty looking welt.

He got back on his "horse", but if you look at the picture below, you'll notice that they took it upon themselves to use their catcher's helmet (complete with face mask) instead of the red helmet when riding.

The girl's can't drive yet and are imploring me to buy them a pony, OR a little pink 4-wheeler that "takes gas and not batteries". They have a rechargable "Gator" with an old battery that takes about 5 minutes or less to run out of juice. For now, though, they'll have to be content having their big brothers chauffeur them around.

They're Back!

We finally have both sets of Grandparents back! My parents came home last week from Cancun, and on Saturday, Grandpa and Grandma Larson got home from their month-long stay in the Mexican paradise...

Grandma Connie got to relive her farm-girl days and Grandpa Les gave the boys some baseball pitching pointers.