Weekend at the farm

 We spent last weekend at the farm.  All the siblings but the wandering hokies. I forgot my camera so these are from the rest of the family.  It was a great, relaxing weekend. 

 

 

Happy Birthday Joel

Today is Joel's birthday.  Sweet honey badger turns 4. 

This boy is something else.  He is definitely a honey badger through and through but also has a sweet side to him that is so precious.  We do admire how determined/stubborn he is and have no fear of Joel sucumbing to any sort of peer pressure whatsoever.  He wont budge from what he does/does not want to do.  So we're learning how to teach him to use that for good.  It also brings me to my knees daily because I have no idea how to parent him.  My mom once said raising kids requires lots of prayer.  And trying to figure out what this boy needs requires lots of prayer. But oh how he melts my heart.  He loves to be snuggle buddies and just come up and randomly give me kisses. And he gets so excited about just the littest things. Its been so fun having Joel the past 4 years. Oh so sweet. Joel, you add so much joy and good to our family.

Joel has been talking about his birthday party for months now and its funny but when he would get mad at me say "I'm not inviting you to my birthday party"  Thats when you knew he was upset with you or didnt like what you were saying :) 

I sat next to the Kona Ice's wife the other swim meet and started talking to her and on the way home thought about having him over for a birthday party.  We looked into it and the more Brent and I talked about it the more we wanted snow cones on a hot summer day :) so we booked the snow cone truck to come to a park near our house.  And during the week its even cheaper - sold!  So it wasn't too hard to get Joel on board!  So we had a playdate party at a park in our neighborhood.  Although I'm afraid now when the kids want to bike to that park that they will always want the kona ice truck to come!

And I think it was a hit!  The kids got to add their own amount of syrup to the ice.  It was fun to see who had more syrup or more ice in their cups.  My boys snow cone philosphy is a little ice/lots of syrup :)

Brent crashed the mommy/kid party for his own snow cone and then headed to work after :)

He loved it and I'm so glad. I hope its the start of a great year. 

4th of July

We had a very laid back 4th of July.  Brent had taken the boys wednesday night for the fireworks in chesapeake and then on the actual 4th we went to the chesapeake 4th of July parade with some friends. Then came home and had to set another nutria free.  But all the animals Brent keeps trapping in our garden deserves its own blog post.  I think he should write that one!

My pretty patriotic girl.

This picture makes me smile looking at all the kids. I think since I was determined Joel would be born on the 4th of July I now always look back to that day 4 years ago when I was waiting for a baby. In fact I can still hear my grandpa singing "born on the forth of July" to me since that day he was in my house singing it the whole day :)  But Kelly and I were both waiting for babies to come so its fun seeing how RJ and Colin have grown in the past few years and also how we've added a few more along the way.  I'm very thankful for Kelly and her freiendship over the years. 

Joel

This guy is turning 4 in a little over a week.  Crazy how fast time flies

another swim meet

Another swim meet.  This time at our pool.  We had to be there at an insane hour for a Saturday - 6:30am.  Well that's actually not too early around here but on a Saturday when all our children are sleeping in for once seems ridiculously early. (a shame to miss out on the sleeping in we could've done! Just another hour maybe but still...) 

 

Although my parents got less sleep since they drove over to watch.  We have 1 more swim meet at our pool in a few weeks and the rest at different away pools.  I'm getting used to how this league runs the meets so now I can figure out times for him to swim so Brent can bring up Joel and Norah when its getting close. 

 

Colin swam free and back.  The back was in the 9&10 group.  He dropped 10 seconds in free which is HUGE!  Back wasn't so great since he was almost perpendicular swimming backstroke :)  But he swam hard and had fun this week. 

 

I think its safe to say he's enjoying it this summer!

 

First swim meet

 We had our first swim meet today.  I just took Colin since it was at an away pool and we had no idea what time he would be swimming.  We were there 6 hours so I'm glad Brent stayed home with Norah and Joel.  Norah would've hated it.  The next meet is at our home pool so thankfully Brent can walk up with Norah and then go home a few hours to wait until the next event Colin swims. 

He did really well.  Colin was a little nervous - he must have gone to pee about 5 times before he swam but he did great.  He swam free, breast, and then a free relay.  He false started on free and got halfway down the pool before they jumped in and stopped him. And then started him again right away so he wasn't as fast but thats ok.  He swam his heart out.  He then swam breast-stroke and I was nervous for him.  He had only swam it once in practice and lets just say wasn't legal in any way :) But I worked a little bit with him and he did great. The coaches were amazed - at this first meet they just throw people in different events to see how they do. I heard them all cheering for him at the end and one saying - he's a breastroker! A proud mom moment right there.  I took a video - he did finish strong - I stopped the video so I could cheer my heart out and then remind him two hand touch :)

The timer didnt think he got DQ but I looked at the official time sheet later and he did.  In fact all but one kid got DQ in his age group.  A kid on the other team.... oh well.  I'm so proud of him. I teared up watching him.  I didnt think I would get so emotional watching him swim but its so different watching your own kid do it.  I spent a few years coaching other kids so having my own son out there is completely different.  And so much fun.  I'm so proud of him. 

 But I dont really care at this point what place he comes in and how fast he swims. (It is disappointing to have him DQ since he doesnt get a ribbon for his hard work - and he wants the ribbons)   Until he gets serious about  swimming these next pictures are what are important to me for  him to love this sport.  Because without the fun part the rest of it is just a lot of hard work. 

I think he's going to have a lot of fun with this group of boys this summer. 

Snow Peas

 This is how the kids get their lunch everyday.  They have to go pick it :) 

Crazy kid - but he's proud of his garden. 

Our snow peas are doing great - I think its our best year.  Norah eats about 10 every time she goes outside.  And so do the rest of us. Our beans are coming up and wrapping around the wire to create a tunnel for the kids to play under (thank you pintrest) we have tons of blueberries almost ready, a few zuccini, some squash, raddishes, and I think that might be all so far.  The kids are really excited to eat their veggies now. Our tomato plants are doing well. And our pepper plants. Only thing we dont have doing well is our cucumber plants which a mouse/rat was eating.  Gross but Brent trapped one already and I heard from the kids caught another one today.