6-29-11 Levee

by Jacob

I have spent a lot of time on the levee that is north of our farm. It has a lot of different kinds of flowers. A few of the most popular ones are purple clover, Queen Anne’s lace, and milkweed. I have found countless monarch, black swallowtail, and painted lady caterpillars on the Queen Anne’s lace, milkweed, and thistles. The monarch larva (the real name for a caterpillar) eats milkweed, the black swallowtail eats Queen Anne’s lace, and the painted lady eats the thistles. Yumyum :)  I have caught countless butterflies. I have caught almost all the different kinds of butterflies that live in central Illinois on the levee. And that is not a joke. Because of that levee, Jesse and I have a great butterfly collection.

6-28-11 Sunday School Picnic

[by Kaitlyn]

Sunday evening was the church picnic. Dad is a Sunday school teacher so we had to be there early. We had supper then we went over and watched the softball game. I got bored of watching so we started playing softball. Laura Sauder and I were the first girls to play. We stayed till about 9:30(I think!!) It was a good evening!

Sunday night it stormed. I woke up 2 or 3 times during the night and it was pouring down rain. I think we ended up with about one and one-half inches. There was some water sitting in some parts of the garden. But since Monday was so warm it dried up. Now there is no water sitting but  it is still too wet to work in.

Monday morning when Dad went down to check the flood gates as he was driving down the road he heard a little clunk and thunck and one of our kittens fell out of the car engine!! It was dead when Dad came back. While Dad was out of the car looking at the flood gate, another kitten climbed out of the engine and Dad found it when he went back to the car!! So he took him back home. Mom said it was all shaking and very scared but you’ll never guess where he ran when Mom set him down!! Up in the wheel of the car! We hope it learned its lesson but I don’t think it did!!

Monday night during supper we saw some deer across the field. Soon everybody could see them except Joshua! So Mom took him to a window that you could see our new van from.  Mom asked Josh if he saw the deer, and  he said, “Pitty ban” (pretty van).  Later he did see the deer and he got very excited. 

6-25-11 Saturday

Grandpa’s tractor is finally back from the shop. I’ve been patiently waiting for this old basketball hoop post to disappear; it’s been the source of many splinters and I’m glad it’s gone!

 

Woodcutting.

Teamwork.

 

Stackers.

Talent.

Picnic!

Can you count five kittens?

It started to drizzle after lunch and didn’t quit ALL AFTERNOON. Which was fine, because the plan was to work in the barn anyway.

 

After supper we enjoyed an evening of fellowship and wrapping Bibles at Dale & Meg’s. We were preparing them to be sent to prisons. It’s encouraging to see requests for Bibles are greatly increasing. In these tumultuous times where can we go but to the Lord?  Our prayer is that each Bible would lead its reader to salvation and the peace that only comes through the blood of Jesus Christ. Thanks Meg for the pictures!

 

 

Jewel helped for awhile, then she had fun with Maria’s toys.

After a snack and more visiting, we were home to bed – and it was STILL drizzling!

6-25-11 Beautiful Evening

Finally dry enough to plant a few more yellow beans - - -

- - - and cucumbers.

Work done, time for fun.

Beautiful night for a fire.

6-24-11 Ready For Summer

And another COOL day in June – feels like April!

Monday was rainy and cool. Inside messes abounded!

Tuesday was cool. I did errands in Morton in the afternoon and picked up this 3/4 size guitar at a garage sale. Kate was quite pleased, as was I. She’s been trying to play the full-size guitars but they’re just pretty big for her; she was wondering when we could get a small one for her. Guess now is the right time!

 

 

Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord.  Psalm 127:3

After Tuesday afternoon’s rain - -

And God said…I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. Genesis 9:12-13

Make a joyful noise unto the Lord….come before his presence with singing. Psalm 100:1-2

Wednesday was cool & rainy here (AGAIN!) but Dad & I were in St. Louis where it was warm & sunny. We were picking up a new van - - thanks for taking us down, Grandpa & Grandma! The kids did fine despite the drizzly day, but they and we are all ready for summer to return! 

A van is a van is a van. The old one was green, a bit smaller, a LOT dirtier, and it’s STILL at Mike’s Garage (going on 3 weeks) and he STILL can’t pinpoint the problem :(  (and he is a very good mechanic!).  We are very thankful our van search is done. And we really like our new one a lot.  Mainly because it RUNS!!!!   :)

Thursday ASK brought me some bars for my birthday since she will be in Alaska for the actual day.  Yummmm…

What do you do when LOTS of little hands want to taste and it’s right before lunch?

Pretty fascinating, all those lovely m’n’ms.

THANK you ASK for the wonderful scotcharoos. What a treat!

Some reading time…

…then the middle kids (Tori, Jacob, Kate, Ben) PICKED MORE WILD BLACK RASPBERRIES!!!!!

They are so good!!

Today was Friday job day. One of Sarah and Jewel’s jobs is to straighten the clothes in their closet drawers. They did their job quite heartily today, I must say!!!

And they were so happy working together today – what a blessing!! Just to set the record straight: not all days are this idyllic. Monday for example was not fun. Spatty, disobedient, whiny kids, lots of correcting and disciplining, WIPES ME OUT. So I don’t blog about it because it’s depressing to think about it again. But it does happen, although thankfully not often. So we had meetings with certain kids on Tuesday night and addressed certain attitudes which are not acceptable in our home, and things have gone much better since then.  Precept upon precept, precept upon precept ,line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little…Isaiah 28:13. Hmm.  More on that later. Must keep moving to get this done.

Happy helpers de-hairing all the hairbands (why in the bathtub?????)(I don’t know!!!!!).

Best friends…

…but not always, oh no. I just don’t take px when they’re hitting each other or crying or sitting on chairs!!!!!!!!!!

[for the most part though they do love each other a lot and get along really well together which makes life much more pleasant!]