Happy Birthday Levi!!!

It's summer again. Which means company, holidays, eating, swimming and most of all celebrating our oldest son. Fifteen years ago he made us parents for the very first time! I'm so proud of the young man he's becoming!

This morning I expected to have to wait hours to see his little 15 year old face peering bleary eyed at me from the basement BUT ... he bounded up the stairs dressed and in search of presents before 8am!!! What?! He has inherited the "birthday-excitement-gene" from his mother it seems. I hope he wasn't disappointed. This year there was no pony (again) but he seemed okay with that. Instead Kev put together a list of old cars for sale on Craig's list and gave him cash and a promise of help of work. I promise not to help, seems fair! We also gave him an enormous case of Dr. Pepper which he quickly horded, candy and some movies. AND this is the big one, I am forgoing my morning yoga DVD so he can play his stupid shooting game on the PS3. Love. It's an amazing thing!

What do you do on your 15th birthday you may ask? Well your mom makes a bunch of your friends food, feeds them ice cream cake and then you head into the bush to shoot paintballs at each other - true story. How fun is that? (nope, I don't see it either but I'm not a teenage boy) See why we don't invite girls to these things?

Happy Birthday Levi Peter Jay! We are proud ot have you as our eldest son and are excited to see what another year holds!

School is out ... for summer...sort of :)

It's officially summer for us! Amelia attended her Kindergarten homeschool wrap up party, Isaac and Maddy had their last meeting with the support teacher who oversees us AND Levi is done...
well sort of...
He has suddenly found his school mojo of sorts and will be doing his English 10 online in July. Yay Levi!! But he's done everything else.

So today I sit with nothing on my calendar. I'm not sure what to do. I mean, don't get me wrong, there is much to do. I just mean I don't have 3 things to race to back to back or baking due at some function or someone's gift to buy. I guess I can't avoid it any longer...I'll have to do the laundry...sigh.

In other news, we got the pool up! Which will ensure a summer time full of laundry for me :) just in case I was to run out.

Sometimes in the midst of the laundry and the vacuuming and the millions of meals and snacks, I forget about the joy.

The joy in that first gasp as you break the surface of a cold pool.
The joy in sucking on a Freezy
and feeling it run in sticky streams down your chin.
The joy of eating snacks for lunch
and having bag after bag of chips.
The pure joy in running.
and screaming.
and laughing until your sides hurt.
The joy in plucking something out of the garden.
and eating it with while the dirt crunches between your teeth.
The joy in late bedtimes
and sleepovers.
The joy of having late night bonfires.
and early morning birdsongs.
The joy of reading a book just for fun.
The joy of warm sun on wet skin.
Pure summer joy!

It's great to be a child at our house! Here's to a summer of joy for everyone.

brrrrrrrrrrr....

So I'm not sure what's up over here on the West Coast of BC but...WE ARE FREEZING TO DEATH!!! Where oh where is summer?? Where is the sun? Where is the heat? My poor garden! My poor kids!
We are trying to fill the pool and get the yard and deck ready for a summer of BBQ's and get togethers and fun (and even grow our own food) but we need the heat to come on! Please!

Let me show you where we are so far....
This is our new two tiered garden on the left side of the path. Notice the tiny new grass coming up?! YAY - it's the upside of this cool damp weather. See the pool? This is the downside. Takes FOREVER to fill cuz we have a well and it messes with the water pressure. Also, at this point you risk hypothermia if you attempt it...
Here's the other side of the path. I wasn't quite sure how to handle the whole apple tree, garden situation so...it may change next year. (I know, I should move shovels and bins and garbage - sorry!)
My mom and dad worked like dogs last week when they came out as hubby is still broken AND they love to garden :) Did I mention I have the best parents in the world?? Well it deserves to be repeated!

And here we have the far side of the tiered yard. That far garden always existed but my dad cleaned up the roses (thanks dad) and generally weeded. Our plan is to dig steps into that far end. It's going to be a beautiful thing!
Also, yay for tomatoes :) Hopefully if it ever warms up we'll get a bunch of fruit!
So onto my veggie patch which after all this cold wet dark weather is looking less than stellar at this point in the year. I think something may be eating my peas, but that's a conversation for another time.
Also see all that hose? This is the upside of the rainy, yucky weather. No need to hurry on the watering system..sigh! ( I think my poor plum tree may think it's fall)

And the far side of my veggie garden. See that box in the front? My girls planted this in a random, kid garden patch kind of way. Notice how it's the only place anything is really thriving? So weird!
Oh and one day, we'll have grapevines growing over a pergola! Stay tuned! Maybe the sun will come out too which would be amazing at this point! I'm very thankful for all the help and support we've had to bring it to this point. Kev has been literally on the couch (herniated disk) for the last almost 3 weeks and still God provided for this to all move forward! Awesome!

Well...there's my garden update for the week. I'm off to put on my wool socks!

Finishing up and looking to next year...

It seems that the older the kids get, the shorter the break between finishing up for this school year and beginning to think about next. So this year? I feel like I'm planning next before we're even quite through this one.
Son number one is to blame (but in a good way). He decided quite suddenly to get serious about his school life which means, summer classes and planning for next year and thinking about what he wants to be when he grows up. What brought this on you might ask? Well I'm not quite sure but let's just say that giving him a concrete short term goal (a new laptop) and a long term purpose to shoot for (working toward an Engineering degree) has certainly worked for this one!

What better than to make a mom feel her age then to have her oldest going into Grade 10!! He's almost 15 and really becoming a man. This would make him so embarrassed to hear but, I'm very proud of him! And really excited to see occasional glimpses of the man that God created him to be peaking through the eyes of the boy he's leaving behind.

Here he is as I dropped him off at the airport last week so he could head off to Edmonton to attend a huge Christian Youth weekend with an old friend....


The crazy thing about kids is, we'll probably have to use something completely different to help motivate and inspire boy number two...and then girl number one and then girl number two...I think God designed it that way, just so we don't get bored or get any rest. Certainly keeps me praying!

Two in a row...what the ...????

I know they're dark and fuzzy and sort of hard to see but I have to share. Mom and I hit the nursery today and I've got a new addiction! Plants everywhere! Also we're getting closer to being done the new rock walls and gardens. LOVE IT! Maddy and Amelia shovelled "poo" (dirt) as they called it. And Mads made the little round garden around the apple tree herself. She's pretty proud!
(disregard the shovels and the crazy landscape fabric mess. A garden mag this is not.)
And I couldn't resist this beautiful Hydrangea (just trust me on this one. It's dark and far away.)
I even managed to plant up some of my planters but most of all...I found the torches I bought at mother's day and finally got them out. This is fun!
...and tomorrow? Well, I've hardly put a dint in the flats I've bought over the last few days. I have another table exactly like this on the other side of the deck too :)
Happy Spring!!!

I'm back!!!

I've been reading and lurking and just haven't written for what I now realize, is almost a year.

What have I been doing with my year you might ask? I'm not even going to try to go back over it all BUT I will say that the time between my last blog post and this one has been filled to the brim with people I love and who love me. People I gave birth to, or married, or whom I've known as long as I can remember and new people whom I've grown to love.

For me there's nothing like a friend. The time and effort are almost always worth it. God calls us to be part of community BUT I believe it's more than going to church or school or work, more than joining groups and showing up. It's more about making myself available. It's really knowing people rather than knowing OF them. It means I'm going get hurt or inconvenienced or uncomfortable. And worst of all...(for me) it means I'm going to screw up and hurt someone. It just happens. Real life, it's messy.

But it's fun! It's full of laughter, late nights and early mornings, of good talks and good cries and wine! Lots of yummy red wine.

I read this in a fav cookbook this am. I loved it!
"As much as I care about food, dinners like that remind me that the food is not the ultimate point - the people are. And when I remember that, it is much easier to have people over." (Perfect Recipes - check it out. Awesome cookbook!)
Whew - this makes me feel much better about Amelia's birthday when I accidentally burned the corn at our dinner for 20+ or Easter when I burned the mashed potatoes for 40+. If you can't laugh at yourself what can you do?! Hopefully everyone still loves me and had the fantastic time they said they did.

So here I am, back at this blogging thing. I'm going to try to stay with it as it's such an encouragement to me to read my own words from a year ago. There's so much going on, I need a place to document our lives.

So here's where we are right now:

The girls bedroom addition is almost finished, only the window trim and bathroom mirror need to go in. Mom and I plan to make the cushion for the window seat this week.

Oh and the built in is not quite finished but we won't think about that right now.


We've (and I mean that in the broadest sense of the word) have been building rock walls in our yard...and now I have new garden beds to fill and old ones to weed and plant.



Unfortunately my hubby has done something insane to his back so...he's off excavator duty for now and has to leave this HUGE and I mean huge job he's started almost done. Is it killing him to lay on the couch while he wants to be building a patio and moving rocks? Yes. Yes it does BUT he's in so much pain he is actually staying there. Lots of prayer is needed! BUT he is getting much needed computer work done so...it is not all bad.

And we're finishing up the school work for the year. Levi has decided that he's going to do some serious academics for grade 10, 11 and 12. It's taken us all a bit by surprise but he's motivated and I'm very proud. He's decided that he'll do Grade 10 English this summer - wow!

Today however, is a lazy day. The kids danced in their year end show last night until very late and today is a definite day of rest. Rest and cookie decorating :) The best kind of day!
(not sure what's up with the oldest and his crazy face - ignore please, it only encourages him!)

My summer baby.

I've had a baby in every season but our first born. Our son was born in the hottest middlest swealteringest (I know, but I like to just make stuff up) Okanagan summer. July 14, 1995.
I was sure there had never been a better, cuter, boyisher baby ever born! Man we adored him! I think we just couldn't believe he was ours. I mean would you trust these two kids with this baby? I'm not sure I would! It's still amazing to me the faith God shows in us when he entrusts these precious vulnerable people to us!

It's been a joy so far to raise Levi Peter Jay, to watch him become a man. We're so excited to see what God has for him next week, next month, next year! He's fun and smart, a good friend and brother (and he's kind of annoying but comes by that honestly too).
Happy Fourteenth Birthday oldest son of ours! It's been a joy to watch you go from this....

to this....