Sleeping Cuties

Often I feel the most love for my kids when they are sleeping. They are so sweet and innocent when they are in dreamland. Their bodies and faces are totally relaxed and they look so peaceful and calm. No one is whining or fussing, teasing or torturing each other!

Let the produce come forth!

Finally... our garden is starting to do something! It's been really slow to start because of our weird weather, but now we are getting zucchini and cucumbers. This week I harvested most of the onions and Len put them in the garage to dry out before we put them in mesh bags. I hope these last a while since we can't freeze them or can them! There is probably another 1/4 of these left in the garden yet. I've been grating zucchini and freezing it. Yesterday our neighbor was kind enough to let us come and harvest sweet corn. I shucked the cobs, blanched, cooled, cut the kernels and then put them in freezer bags from 8-4:30 yesterday. I keep reminding myself how much money we're saving on groceries. This is not my favorite time of year, but it is important to get us through the rest of the year.

Birthday cupcakes

Len made me my favorite kind of cake (german chocolate) into cupcakes on my birthday. I had a glorious 4 hour nap and the boys couldn't wait to eat them so they had a sample while I was sleeping. When I got up they got another treat for their afternoon snack. They weren't crazy about the frosting, but they like the cake part. They "wrote" a card for me which I loved of course. Len took me out for supper at our favorite restaurant in Decorah. Tom had given us a gift certificate as a goodbye gift so we were so glad to have that. It was a fun birthday.

New Window

Last weekend, Len asked a couple of guys from church to help put in a window that we retrieved from the other house. Len hadn't worked with vinyl siding before and wanted to see it done before working with it himself. He traded a week at the cabin for these guys (when it is livable) and they were really helpful. Because the tub is on the north side, there was only room for a window that was the same width as the one that was there before. Coincidentally, the width was the same size as one of the windows we salvaged, so it worked out really well. The window looks great inside and out. Eventually we'll have to figure out what to do for a window on the other side, but that's a ways down the road.

Party Pooper

On the way home from the cabin last week, I saw these little rides outside of an older drive-in restaurant. I pulled in and told the boys we were going to do something fun - a little treat. I got them out of the car and showed them the rides. Asher climbed up and was excited. I had to coax Josiah up into the seat. He frowned the entire time. Asher wanted to go on all three (they were only 25 cents!), but by the end Josiah said "I want a REAL treat, one I can eat." Sigh.... I'm afraid I have a little party pooper on my hands.