Growth

Back in May I wrote about planting the garden and posted a very cute picture of Riley helping Jared plant some tomatoes. Here is a reminder;


Here we are a couple of months later and our garden has grown from a patch of dirt and a few small plants to the bounty shown here.



But the picture that shows the most growth is this one....


The garden has exploded and we are starting to reap the rewards of our watering, weeding, and other work, but these three have grown even more. Noah will be 4 on Sept. 10, Seth 3 in Oct., and Riley will be 2 in Nov., we have spent the last 4 years feeding, nurturing, loving, and teaching them everyday. I have spent countless hours in prayer on their behalf and praying for God's wisdom and grace in raising them. And while we do see some rewards for all of this work, I know that it may be years and decades before we see the end results of some of this work. In fact, we might never see the results of some of our work.

It has been an amazing 4 years of motherhood, both harder and more fantastic then I could ever have imagined and there is not one single moment I would trade for anything in this world. Each moment is precious and fleeting. Watching them grow alongside the garden is visible proof of how quickly it all happens and how brief our time to nurture them really is. There are times I wish I could slow everything down and truly appreciate each second before it is gone, of course I would be lying if I didn't admit that there are also times I would love to fast forward through, but there is nothing I would rather be doing. I have been given 3 of the most precious and wonderful of God's creations to love and help grow, what could possibly be better? Now if it was just as easy to keep safe as that garden behind them!!!!

Peaches

Peaches, peaches, peaches. Those were the main things we talked about this weekend. Last year we did not get any peaches off of our two peach trees because of a very late freeze. This year we have 2 trees loaded with White Freestone peaches. On Friday afternoon I picked our first 2 peaches of the season and once Jared got home from work we picked an overflowing 5-gallon bucket of ripe peaches.

After eating at least a peach each, we cut up and froze a couple of gallon bags worth and are going to venture into canning a few quarts this week. I also made a fresh peach cobbler for dessert Saturday night. We still have a lot of peaches on the tree and one tree is still a couple of weeks away from being ripe and ready to pick. So, if you want some fresh peaches, come on over we've got plenty.


The kids and the 5-gallons worth of peaches piled up on the picnic table.



A picture of our homemade cobbler on Saturday night.

Summertime Fun

In a brief reprieve this week from our house of sickness, the kids and I were able to enjoy a morning of fun with our good friends Annalayne and Leeanne Lackey at the pool on Tuesday. While some of the bugs still remain, Jared is sick now and Noah has a new sore throat (we are awaiting his 24 hour strep test results) we did have a couple of days to enjoy our slightly cooler weather this week. Here are a couple of pictures of the kids enjoying rest/snack time at the pool.

In a comic twist on my strep throat, I started my penicillin on Monday with no problems as usual. By Monday night I had a very itchy rash on my back after taking some Benadryl it stopped itching and started to go away. Tuesday morning within 10 minutes of taking my third dose of penicillin the rash had spread over my whole body, needless to say, I am now allergic to penicillin and had to call the doctor and get a new prescription. It seems as though I am finally on the road to recovery, if I could just get everyone else well and life back to "normal".