my new yellow door

our freshly painted house.

don't make me sing...

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this!

{this moment}

a friday ritual (inspired by soulemama) a single photo capturing a moment from the week. a simple, special, extraordinary moment. a moment to pause, savor and remember. if you're inspired to do the same, share a link to your 'moment' in the comments!

our first CSA box!!

We got our first CSA box tonight from an organic Amish farm in Fertile, MN. We tried the watermelon right away and it was yellow(!!!) and possibly the yummiest watermelon I've ever tasted. I can't wait to eat the rest!

backyard camping

first we ate some of these:

then we got all situated in here:

then we set up the movie projector to watch this:

and got comfortable,

and some of us fell asleep :)

I slept in my bed in my bedroom(of course) and Jeffrey came in at 2:30 to sleep in his bed. Everyone else made it until morning- John said Mary Beth had so many blankets piled on top of her that he couldn't even see her. Then John said that Mickey slept in the longest this morning and he said "no I didn't! I was reading my new books." that would make way more sense.

a new adventure

today was a busy day full of family fun! first we decided to try something new: geocaching. we went to Buffalo River State Park and they let us check out a GPS for the afternoon.

and off we went on our hike through some trees and a lot of prairie land.
we saw some pretty flowers, wild rhubarb, milkweed, and lots of butterflies.
the one downside was the unbelievable amount of mosquitoes- there are NO WORDS to describe how many there were! they were swarming all over John- it was like a scary movie.

Jeffrey loved the GPS.

we would have found the treasure way before we did except John entered in Eastern Hemisphere instead of Western and so we took off toward China...

after we figured out what happened we turned around and headed back toward the only tree for miles... and low and behold that's where the box was hidden!

the kids were so excited- it was like a real treasure hunt!

they each got a "critter card" to keep and we dropped in a little treasure in exchange for the one we took out(a little toy). :)

we could have done another one but the extra 50 miles we walked and the malaria that was setting in made us think twice. better save it for another day...

then off we went to begin the 2nd part of our day of family fun: camping out in the backyard! pictures tomorrow.

flashback: 1st day 2008

I was just looking at some back to school pictures from 2 years ago and I thought I'd share them... they(of course) made me all teary-eyed.

Mickey: 2nd grade and Jeffrey: Kindergarten
the are all 2 years apart in school so 2 years ago was the same senario we are in this year- but this time Jeffrey starting 2nd and Mary Beth starting Kinder. Where did the last 2 years go??

Mary Beth was 3 and starting her first year of Pre-school.

Look at how teeny-tiny she was! My little peanut...

Tonight when I was giving Mickey a hug and kiss goodnight he told me to stay in his bed hugging him forever and ever. I quickly thought about how I had to go do about a million things(like laundry, dishes, paying bills, ect.) but then I realized how insignificant all that stuff was. So I stayed with him a LONG time because I wanted to cherish the moment. I told him that pretty soon he wouldn't want Mommy and Daddy to hug and kiss him goodnight. He looked mortified, gasped out loud, and asked why. I told him he would think he was to old for that. He got a very sad look on his face, hugged me super tight and said that he promises that will never, ever happen. I hope he's right because I don't think this Mommy's heart could take it. I don't like this whole growing up thing AT ALL.