More grows in the garden...

An Old Spanish proverb says "More grows in the garden than the gardener sows." This year Anna and Riley have really gotten into gardening with me. They've helped me dig the earth and plant the seeds. They've helped me keep the ground moist for the seeds to sprout and protected the plants from "The evil weed monsters" and "The slimy slug bugs". Then we begin harvesting and that is everyone's favorite part. Early in the season we start to get our blueberries and strawberries. The kids loved moving the leaves of the strawberry plants around to find the sweet little red berries that hardly make it inside. Now, though, we are finally beginning to harvest the things that take awhile. We planted carrots of every color, shape and size this year. Red, yellow and purple, round as a ball or as small as a finger. That is their favorite. We have harvested our broccoli many times, but we let some go to seed for next year. If you have never smelled a broccoli flower, you should try it sometime. It smells nothing like broccoli, believe me. More like the sweet sent of honeysuckle mixed with lilies. We have more zucchini than our friends can bare (Here, have some zucchini bread!) Our tomatoes are just becoming ripe and even though the children say Yuck to them, they can't get enough of the spaghetti sauce that they turn into, cooked up with our onions and green peppers! We are so blessed to have enough space and sunshine in our yard to grow such a variety of foods. We even grow our own pumpkins to carve. We planted things so late this year that we thought we wouldn't get any pumpkins, but just this morning, we found two huge ones that we must have missed! More has grown in my garden this year than I ever planted. There may not be a seed for love, but it certainly grows well in my heart towards these beautiful children that Heavenly Father has lent me for awhile.

"Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own." Charles Dickens

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Dinner and a Bookstore?

We decided to spend our Friday night date with our kids. I know what you are thinking, but we owed them one. We were supposed to go out for dinner on Wednesday to celebrate the first day of school, but our lovely little Evan decided to get sick and we didn't think paying $50 for dinner out would be great if we had to endure his screaming humiliation in the middle of a restaurant. So we had pizza and a movie on Wednesday and postponed dinner until Friday. The kids chose Red Robin (YUM!) and we all had a great time.

Anna kept wanting me to pick the strawberries out of my lemonade for her to eat. Evan saw this and said "Me, too!" I offered him a strawberry, but he said "NO" and pointed to the lemon that comes on the side of the glass, you know, so you know it's lemonade.
Anyways, we gave it to him.

He thanked us kindly and gave it back.

So after dinner we weren't quite ready to go home, but didn't want to go anywhere expensive either. I thought "Border Books!" We have never taken our kids to the bookstore before. For me that was a terrible realization. Some of you may know I have a fond love of bookstores. Libraries, too. When I grow up I want to be an author, and sometimes I get overwhelmed walking into a bookstore just thinking about all of the people who contribute these stories to our lives. Fact or fiction, doesn't matter. It just overwhelms me. So there we were, introducing my children to something that I love, and guess what, they loved it too. Anna ran off with Daddy and Evan. They found what they wanted in the bargain section. I found a children's book written by Mary Higgins Clark, my favorite mystery author. Of course I got it so that I can introduce my children to her, too. Riley couldn't find any chapter books in the bargain section, so he and I ran off to the children's section. He was so excited by all of the choices. He just couldn't decide. We were probably at the bookstore for about an hour and ended up coming away spending only $25. Not a bad price to pay to watch your children's imaginations take flight. -P-

Back to School!

Another one of those big moments that I thought I was ready for. I was wrong. I am not ready to have two kids in school. Anna is so excited about getting to be a "Big Girl", but I'm not so excited. It means she is growing up. They are all growing up way too quickly. These milestones are just coming at us from the left and the right. If we're not watching, they'll fly by and leave us wondering were they went. We put together a small slideshow of the last two days. I'm not sure when I'll stop crying, but when I do, I'll post a slideshow of our summer. I'm sure that will make me cry, too. Frankly, there isn't much that doesn't make me cry. In an effort to make some of you cry too (MOM), before you open the slideshow, scroll down and click on the song "You're gonna miss this" in our song player (it's the last song) and then look at the pictures. I especially love the last verse of this song. Thanks for sharing this moment with us. -P-

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