The last couple weeks have been filled with picking apples, drying apples, and bagging apples.

Picking blueberries, smashing blueberries, and preserving blueberries.

Washing cucumbers, slicing cucumbers, and pickling cucumbers.

And we haven't even started on the green beans or tomatoes.

No wonder people went to bed at 7:30 pm in the old days!

I'm pooped!

I'm so tired that I can't even think of anything to write.

Sunday my parents took us to the Grandfather Mtn. Highland Games. We had never attended anything like it and my mom thought it would be a wonderful learning experience for the boys. The night before, my dh called a cousin of his, whose husband is of Scottish descent. When he asked about the event he found out that his cousin and her family were there with their clan. She told him that she would meet us in a parking lot and take us up the mountain to the site, so that we wouldn't have to take the shuttle which cost $5.00 a person to and from the site. It would have cost us $70.00 to take the shuttle! She also told us that we could sit in their tent with them and offered us any food that we wanted to eat. Our boys wanted to participate in the kids kilted mile race and they had to wear a kilt. Well she just happened to have kilts that fit the boys. So we registered them to run and got them fitted in their kilts. Believe it or not they actually liked wearing them!

We watched the Parade of Tartans which was really awesome. The bagpipers and the drummers were so good that it gave me goosebumps. I could have done without the people in some of the clans who were scantily dressed and the ones who were gothic. It was neat to see how many clans were there and to see the smallest of children in kilts.

The boys have never run in a race before nor have they run a quarter mile, which is how long the kids kilted mile race was. We tried to explain to them that the lap around the track would be longer than they thought and that they would need to start out slow and then pick up their speed towards the end of the race. I wasn't sure how they would do and like any loving parent, you want your child to succeed. So when it came to race time I just told them that would do wonderful that the Lord would be with them. Our 6 year old went first and their were quite a few boys in the race. He finished the race and he wasn't last! Yay for him! We were just happy that he made it all the way around! He's number 75.

Our middle son raced next he is 8 and he raced in the 7-8 year old lad race. I think there were about 15 boys that raced in this age group. I told him the same thing as his brother, that the Lord would be with him. The race started and he paced himself really well. He came in 4th place! I couldn't believe he did so well! We were so excited for him. Our oldest son did not want to run and we were not going to push him to do something that he didn't want to do, so he just cheered his brothers on! Our 8 year old is number 74 in the picture below.

We ended up having to leave early because the bottom fell out of the sky and we got soaked to the bone. We rode the 2 hour drive home soaked and cold. We had a great time though and plan to attend next year and that time we'll bring umbrellas!

Ok,

 I have tried to put a video on my site, but as usual, I'm not sure I did it correctly. If you can't hear the song or see the lyrics will you let me know on my comments page? This song is so awesome and my oldest son along with about 30 other fifth and sixth graders learned the sign language to this song and performed it on the last day of VBS. It was absolutely breathtaking to see. I was almost in complete tears because my son is so shy in front of an audience (especially mom and dad), but he did all the motions in seriousness and humbleness without a care of who was watching. To top that, when we got home that evening he said "mom, would you like me to show you the hand motions"?  He was touched by God during vbs last week and I am so thankful!

This past Saturday, while the boys and dh went to a father/son outing at church, my mom and I went to our local park to hear the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra play. It was wonderful and I was delightfully surprised that they played God Bless America and America the Beautiful and asked the audience to sing along. The one thing I could have done without was people consuming alcoholic beverages which are prohibited. Of course when there are fine upstanding citizens drinking it doesn't matter if it is illegal or not.

Sunday started another week of VBS at my parent's church which is awesome(by the way). Actually, our two oldest boys go to church with them because they have an awesome children's program and they love it there. Our church is very small and has two very dominate families who control everything. Because of their control our church is slowly dying. Anyway, this VBS has been AWESOME! It has been worth the 40 minute drive to get there. We have been exhausted every night and my housework is falling behind, but there are only two more nights left and we can catch up on our chores. 

Have a blessed rest of the week!

Mondays we go to a friends house to swim. On Tuesdays during the summer, our local movie theatre shows free children's movies and also an old ice cream shop serves free kids cones Tuesdays so we make a day out of it.

We've also had VBS all week and though it was fun... I'm glad it's over.  I'm not used to being out of the house every night of the week. 

Picture of the day:

This was on vacation last year in Lake Junaluska, NC

This is "Snowball" our Lionhead Bunny

This is Sgt. Wally

This butterfly came from a caterpillar that we thought had died. We put the little aquarium in our building for the winter and one day in the spring when I went to get something from the building, this is what I found

We were in Statesville last fall at Fort Dobbs and the Statesville Hot Air Balloon Show was also being held at the same time. When we left Ft. Dobbs we decided to stop and watch the balloons. My hubby used to live in Statesville and thought he knew  the general course that they take, so we decided to follow wherever the balloons went. As you can tell from the first pic, everything stops for the balloons.

One balloon caught our eye and we started trying to follow it. In the above pic it is the balloon in the bottom left corner.

What caught our attention about this balloon was the scene that was on it. At first we thought it was a pirate ship, but when it turned we saw that it was a nature scene with a bear, an eagle, and a pine tree.

Obviously this was before the cost of gas was an arm and a leg, because we were going all over the place chasing this balloon. Instead of storm chasers we called ourselves "Balloon Chasers".

As the wind carried the balloon we were going further and further into the country and we saw this trailer turning on a road and followed it.

We followed the trailer until it stopped at a house and we realized that the balloon was landing. We asked the person driving the truck if we could watch the balloon land. What happens is the balloon pilot finds a field big enough to land on and radios to his chase truck the location and they ask permission of the landowner to land the balloon there. They told that we could watch the balloon land and when we got to the field they told the boys that they could help with packing the balloon up. Besides our three boys there were two other little boys that were there also. The balloon pilot and his crew were awesome and so kind to let our boys experience something they otherwise wouldn't have.  The rest of the pictures tell the rest of the story.

This was my expression when we decided to camping a week ago. This was my expression when we got home Sunday afternoon! We are not new to camping and have enjoyed it in the past, but this weekend just about did me in! It took us six hours to get our car loaded up with all the gear and by the time we were finished, we looked like the Beverly Hillbillys driving down the road. We have a dog named Wally that we've had for about three or four months, well he has obviously never  been on a trip.                                                                                                                             

We were about ten minutes down the road and he was on my lap, everytime a car would go by us he would turn and try to chase after the car. I told dh that I was not going to ride for an hour and a half with him in my lap trying to chase cars. So we stopped at the local vet and they gave him a shot of tranquillizer, WOW sums it up! In about five minutes Wally didn't care what was going on. We arrived at our campsite and set up camp. We started blowing up our air mattresses and discovered that both of them had pinholes, so we thought we'd fix them with good ol' duct tape! Yeah right, by morning we were laying on the hard rocky ground. Day 2 one the two camp chairs that we brought bit the dust. So let's recap, two air mattresses with holes that the duct tape didn't fix and a chair that bit the dust, did I mention the temperature was 98-100 degrees everyday?!  We were beyond miserable!

Oh and just as we would get one meal prepared and cleaned up afterward, it was time to start on the next meal. For some reason I thought this was supposed to be a vacation.  The final night we stayed, I ended up sleeping in the van with the back seat reclined as far as it would go. But, through this whole weekend of misery I couldn't help but think how good we have it.We have absolutely no idea what "roughing it" means. Our ancestors built this country from scratch and many of them died as a result. Four days and three nights of camping and I was ready to throw in the towel...I thank God that our ancestors didn't do it!

Today has been, by far the busiest and craziest! I woke up this morning to the sound of vomit hitting the floor. Two of my three boys have had the stomach flu and yes, today the third one got it.  So, I cleaned up after him and got him settled and decided to mow the yard since it's supposed to rain the rest of the weekend. I went to get our lawn mower out from under our house and lo and behold there was a stray cat who had just given birth to a kitten! We don't have cats and we finally bit the bullet and got our boys a dog a couple months ago. So, first of all I'm thinking...how did the cat get underneath our house and is there more than one kitten?  The cat gets scared and goes to the farthest corner of the house and jumps up into an area where it had pulled insulation down. I figure we've scared her enough and I'll leave her alone for a while. I mow the front yard and decide to check on Mama Cat. Well, she had another kitten while I was mowing the grass. So, I'm determined to get Mama Cat and babies out, because I don't want her having babies all over the place and I don't want her destroying any more insulation under the house. I get the boys' headlight on and crawl under the house to where Mama Cat is hiding and carefully take the babies and put them into a laundry basket, Mama Cat jumps down to come to her babies' rescue and I catch her and put her in with her babies.

We take her to our upstairs bathroom which no one uses and put her in the bathtub with her babies so that she can have plenty of room. She had one more kitten and well, they're precious! Who can resist those little faces? My hubby isn't very thrilled to say the least and he wanted me to call Animal Control right away, but just because she is a stray doesn't mean that she shouldn't be allowed to have her kittens. So, I think we'll keep her just until her babies are old enough and then we'll find homes for all of them. We've already named the babies Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego!

While I was still mowing my youngest was trying to tell me something, he motions for me to come. I go over to where he is and there in the middle of our road(we live in a subdivision) is a field mouse whose little back legs are broken. He was pulling himself with his two front paws and looked so pitiful and of course, being the softy that I am, I said "we'll nurse it back to health and let it free when it's better". As I'm holding the mouse waiting for the boys to get something to put the mouse in, I look down and there on the ground is a butterfly that is not flying and I think Lord are we the animal rescue today?

Things settle down for a while and hubby comes home from work ready to finish working on our deck. The upper deck is about seven feet from the ground so he was having to stand on a ladder. I'm standing on the deck handing him the tools he needs and something starts to fall. Well, he tries to catch the piece that is falling and loses his balance, the ladder starts falling and he crashes to the ground on one of our bushes which didn't slow him down very much. I ran down to him thinking he's probably broken something and he came out with only scratches! Praise God, he wasn't hurt anymore than that.

The rest of our evening was just as eventful but, I'm tired of writing, so I'll spare you the details.

Have a blessed week!

As I was reading the news headlines on the internet this morning, a certain headline caught my eye.

The basic story is that a Pro Golfer, filming a show for tv, became angry when a hawk continued to make noise during the taping. He apparently started hitting golf balls towards it and eventually hit it, bringing it to it's death. The Humane Society is angry now and this is the ridiculous part: "Americans have no tolerance for cruelty to animals. Such a petty, mean-spirited act against a wild bird is inexcusable and prosecutors are right to hold Isenhour accountable to the law," Humane Society executive vice president Michael Markarian said in a statement released Thursday.

Now, I understand that the hawk is part of Adonai's creation and that he( the golfer) should be held accountable for his actions, but what if the subject of the headline was about the killing of an unborn baby?Would the public reaction be the same? Let's change the comment a little: "Americans have no tolerance for cruelty to unborn babies. Such a petty, mean-spirited act against an innocent baby is inexcusable and prosecutors are right to hold all involved accountable to the law." Why don't we see this comment in the headlines every time an abortion is carried out? Because our country has twisted what's right into wrong and what's wrong into right.

Lord, forgive them for they know not what they do. And forgive us for not taking up the fight more for these precious lives.

There is obviously more going on with the toy situation than just some accidental use of toxic chemicals.

I can't believe that these major toy companies aren't already out of business! Here is the info on the latest recall:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119445657913685394.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Wow! I can't believe it's been almost eight months since I blogged, but I'm sure no one has missed me anyway. I love a fresh start, there is nothing better than to have the slate wiped clean. There is only one who we can thank for that and it is GOD, my Savior, my help in times of trouble. To be totally truthful, I have been and still am battling bitterness towards my neighbors. These people profess to be Christians and are pretty good at acting like it when they need to, but any other time they are anything but Christian. This couple has four children ages 9, 7, 4, and 18 mo. living with them and one that is 13 living in Illinois. Here is the background to our situation, this family moved in last April and we were so excited because the house they were moving into had been vacant for about 9 months.

We were also excited that they had kids and that they were supposedly Christians. We hit it off right away and everything was fine. Then in June or July the wife said she was going to have to get a job to help out with the bills and she asked if I would be interested in watching her children to make a little extra money. Sure, I said, being the helpful person that I am. Well, I ended up watching her four children who at the time were 8, 6, 4(and not potty trained), and the 10 mo.(who couldn't sit up or crawl). I babysat them 12 hours a day 4-5 days a week. It was a nightmare! These children were absolutely awful. When I would ask them to watch their own brother( the 10 mo.), for a second, so I could go to the bathroom they would refuse and my 8 year old would end up keeping an eye on him for me. Then one day the 8 year old girl told my son that I was a dumb idiot. It would take twenty pages to list everything they did, but the last straw was when the 6 year old called my son an SOB!

When I asked him where he had heard such a word, he said "from my mom and dad when they fight". Well, my hubby and I decided that they were going to have to find someone else to babysit for them and walked over to tell them. The wife started bashing her husband in front of my husband and I, saying that he was lazy and good for nothing and if he would get a second job she could be home with her kids again. After that night, the problems started and still continue to this day. So far they have accused my boys (who are 10, 8, and 5) of breaking into their house when they're not home and watching movies on their tv, accused my 8 year old of taking their keys and locking them in their brand new van, accused them of breaking into their storage building, placing a flower pot with soil on it's side and locking the door to their building, and she told  my children(who were in our own yard) that she was going to call the cops on my boys for kicking her daughter(who was hitting my son with a stick).

I know this sounds horribly childish, but I have tried to talk to her and she proceeded to scream at me and told me to go home and educate my children. I later found out that she told her husband that I had gotten in between her and their door and that I was blocking her from getting in her house.  Her continuous lies about me and my children have caused me to have bitter feelings towards their whole family and I don't know what to do. PLEASE Pray that this situation will be resolved and that we can spend time in our own yard without wondering what they're going to do next. I would love a new start with them, but I can't trust them now, especially not where my kids are concerned.

I need wisdom on what to do and how to handle this. Has anyone had similar expaeriences with neighbors?

Wow, here we go again, another month since I last blogged! I don't do it on purpose and I really want to keep in touch with everybody, but busyness keeps finding it's way into my life. I finally went to the recording studio and it felt like a scene out of a movie. It was really fun, but you know you are your own worst critic. It was pure agony having to sit there listening to myself especially if I had missed a note. Ugh! I sat there with my head buried in my hands because I couldn't  bear being under the microscope like that. It came out well and I plan to go back, but the next time I will be more prepared.

I have so much that I want to write about but I have 3 boys to read to and put to bed. I'll have to finish later. Hopefully it won't be a month later! Ha Ha!

Tons of things have changed in the last two months. I have decided to follow the Charlotte Mason method of teaching and have been reading, reading, and reading some more on her methods. It is sooooo logical and complete common sense!!! We have been making friends in our local homeschool group and have just been horribly busy. I am still trying to get used to scheduling things, I am used to following them, not making them!! That has been the hardest part of homeschooling is keeping on track.

Christmas was great and my husband totally pulled the wool over my eyes! Money is very tight around here even when it's not our Lord's birthday and I had told my hubby not to get me anything(I was being serious). He needed new clothes and shoes for work and I knew if he spent money on me, then I couldn't spend as much as I needed to on him. But, on Christmas morning he handed me an envelope and I thought "what can this be?"

So I opened and read the contents and was floored by what I read. You see I have a passion for singing, always have and always will. When I was young and naive, I wanted to be a star, but as the Lord has been working on me in the last 11 years, I have become content with singing in church.

Well the contents in the envelope said: Gift Certificate Redeemable for 1 hour of Studio Time at Son Sound Music Group! I was completely speechless, but after I came to my senses my first question was: "how did you pull this off without me knowing?" It turns out that my mom and dad and my in-laws were also in on the surprise and they helped my dear hubby with the financial part of it! Wow, talk about being blessed!

So, I will go to the recording studio to make a demo and who knows where the Lord is going to go with this. I know that he is in total control of this and that he will open and close the proper doors as he sees fit.

This is "Hootie" modeling the finished product!

I can't believe it's been almost two months since I've been on my blog!

Things have been very busy around here, but this whole time God has

been teaching me about balancing my life and cleaning out the clutter in

my life as well. The only things I've been focused on are: my relationship

with God, my husband, homeschooling, keeping the house tidy, and a little

knitting. Which brings me to the hat I just finished. It is for a 3 yo little girl

whose babysitter also keeps my nephew, when the babysitter saw my

nephew with his hat on, she loved it so much that she wanted me to make

one for the little girl. So voila! Many mistakes and 3 weeks later( I only knit

after everyone has gone to bed) here is the hat!