Summer.....

Welcome to the middle of May. Summer has finally seemed to arrive here in good ole Alabama. It has been unseasonable cold the last month or so. I'm hoping maybe that will mean a mild summer. 100 degree heat is not really my favorite! The kids were actually able to get in Mimi's wadding pool yesterday with their cousin, baby E. They had a blast! I am actually considering bribing them with water privileges so we can get the house good and cleaned today. I am not against bribing a child. Never have been. Especially when there is a chance of a clean home. Which, let's face it, doesn't happen to often!

My Sweet Pea has officially finished her 1st grade year! Woo! The kids are excited I am excited. Summer is finally here. I love the excitement that every season brings. We are beyond ready for some fun in the sun! And even some fun indoors. {You know I can only handle so much heat. I don't like to be sticky!} We are going to go to the $1 movies and bowling. Movies, I can handle. Bowling, well....the last time I bowled was in high school and I bowled an amazing score of 83. Boom! I'm also pretty sure I fell. Now, Wii Bowling on the other hand, I am the best. So, maybe the two will even out! ha! After summer my Sweetie Pie will be starting Kindergarten. Sigh. I try to push it to the back of my head. Then things like this arrive in the mail:

Sweetie Pie's Kindergarten books.

Sweetie Pie should still be 1. Could we rewind time? Or at least slow it down? Thanks.

I'm not entirely sure what this boy is doing but he is concentrating awfully hard his foot. I love that he is ALL boy!

 

My Sweet Pea! My little bookworm. I love that she loves to read. :) I love summer and all the adventures that await us. So here's to it finally being summer and a months of endless fun!

A picture post...

It's April and rather warm around these parts! Yesterday on the hottest day of the year so far, our air conditioner decided not to work. I believe it reached almost 90. Granted, our house stayed around 78 degrees yesterday so compared to 90 that's not bad. It's not my favorite but it didn't kill anyone. Today we have someone coming to fix it. Hopefully, it's a cheap fix. Mostly, because I hate to spend money on things I don't want to spend money on. Give me shoes or a purse and well that's a completely different story! ;) Anywho, at least it wasn't May through September when our air went out. I might actually have melted. You gotta love the humidity in Alabama! But, today it's going to rain{suppose to be bad, but praying it's not} and our heat wave will be gone for a few days and hopefully all of this pollen. But for now, for today I have for you a picture post. The computer Finally cooperated with me on it. Woot! 

Homemade Bread. I've been making homemade sandwich bread lately and it is amazing! What do they put in store brought bread? Homemade taste 110% better. {I'll post recipe later!}

My oldest baby girl, Sweet Pea, turned 7 recently. How did that happen so fast? She wanted a sock monkey cake. So, a sock monkey cake is what she got! Honestly, I wasn't sure I could pull it off. Alas, I did. I did this little monkey free handed! I am actually proud of it. I {almost} didn't want to cut it. Almost! ;)

Be still my beating heart!  This was on Sweet Pea's 7th birthday. Their ages here are: 7, 5, & 4. Please stop growing. On, the other hand, keep growing strong. A mother's heart is always so conflicted.

This was Easter. It started out a rainy day so we couldn't do our yearly Easter picture outside so we settled for my bedroom. These are the most beautiful children ever. {I'm not biased at all!} After this picture, we had to have a wardrobe change with Sweetie Pie since she was extra itchy due to the material in her dress. How do you like The Boy's suit? I almost died from all the cuteness this picture holds! (And also because everyone is looking at the camera at the same time!)

Last weekend we painted rocks. Sounds silly but it was fun. It did have a purpose. We painted the names of the veggies we planted. They are garden markers. So we don't forget where we planted what. It was fun!

Our little Corndog got in on the action. Of course it was because he was being lazy. When he laid down, his tail landed in the pink paint. We now have a male dog, named Corndog who has a pink tail. Never a dull moment!

Here is the finished product! I hope our garden does well this year! It is always so much fun when the harvest comes in!

Here is our Okra rock in our Okra garden!

Here are the kids in front of my weeping cherry tree. I love this tree! It has little pink blooms and is my favorite tree in the yard. It's grown a lot since last year. Yes, Sweet Pea is drinking some water, Sweetie Pie is eating a sandwich, and The Boy is doing something that has to do with Spiderman slinging a web. What? Don't your kid's eat sandwiches in pictures?

This is an up-close picture of my Cherry Tree blooms. The bees love it!

I took this picture one night after the house was clean and quite. All kids tucked tightly in their beds. I realized a crane truck here and a police badge there are little reminders that I still have little children. One day, there will be Teen magazines, video games, large chapter books, and iPods lying around. I like the reminders. I think I'll keep them for a while! 

 

 I hope you have a marvelous Thursday full of love and hope! {Hopefully, no bad weather for my local readers!} Have a blessed day! I know I will[Even if I don't have air!]

A random update on a Happy Tuesday!

Good Morning! Here is you a post of complete randomness to get your day started off right.

I am currently downloading 321 pictures and videos from my camera to my computer. I am the worst at remembering to download my pics. I am trying to upload some pics to my blog but my computer or the Internet or the forces of nature are refusing to cooperate!

Moving on....

I'm glad it's Tuesday. Monday's are always so busy for me and I'm not entirely sure why. Perhaps it's the umpteen loads of laundry I do every Monday. Or the dishes that I leave from Sunday. Perhaps, getting readjusted to Daddy going back to work. I don't know. But, Tuesdays are instantly better. Dishes are normally done. Laundry is done for the week. My only chores on the List are cleaning rooms, vacuuming those rooms, and dusting. Not to bad. Except the dusting part since the pollen seems to have covered every thing that can or is considered furniture. We had our windows open this weekend. Yesterday and today we are leaving them closed. Probably the rest of the week too. Our heads are going to become pollen volcanoes if we have to inhale it for to much longer! So dusting is in my very near future for sure.

Speaking of chores, I will be glad when chores are the only thing on my list of "Things to Do Today" this summer! I love home school but I will be glad to have a break for a while. We are almost done with school! Yay! I'm still asked daily if it's time to play in the sprinkler yet. Boy, will I be glad when it is! I love that they can play in the sprinkler, I can catch a tan and read a book, come in eat lunch, take a nap. Summer is awesome!

I just finished reading the book: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. It's a very interesting book. It's weird and fun. Eccentric and serious. Sad and happy. It's all over the place and strangely centered.  It's just unique. I have not seen the movie and don't know that I want to after reading the book. Mostly because stories are generally ruined when they are turned into a movie. Sad but true. Now I am reading The Lucky One. So far, so good. I will say that I have seen the movie and I thought it was pretty decent. Now, 4 chapters into the book and I'm glad I watched the movie first. I would have been extremely disappointed. Nicholas Sparks is an insanely amazing writer. His movies just don't compare. Just to say it, our local library is awesome! It's not very big but they are always on top of their game. I think the staff has read almost every book that we have asked about! I love it and it's free! :)

I was changing the sheets on my bed yesterday and the kids were outside playing. I had my blinds open so I could keep an eye on them. I catch a glance of something out of my eye. I turn to see a hiney that is as white as a cloud looking at me. It takes me a second, mostly because I am in shock. Apparently my son thought that it would be an awesome idea to just pull his pants down and pee on a tree by the garage. I was on the phone with my Mama and started laughing and couldn't stop. I could barely tell her what was happening!  All you could see was a white bottom and a tree that was soaking wet from about the boys' chest down. I will admit this could be my fault. {God knows I'll try and blame it on my husband!}My husband was fixing a little plumbing issue we had and The Boy had to potty. Seeing as we couldn't flush at the moment, I took him around the corner and let him pee-pee on the side of the foundation. Apparently, he thinks everything is free game to potty on. To Do List: have talk with son about not pee-peeing on things in public. {PS. Never thought I would be having this conversation!}

Since, I can't, for whatever crazy reason, upload pics I will be done with it for now. I will be back later with a post full of pictures! I have pictures from Sweet Pea turning 7 to fun things we have been doing at Destiny Kids{the children's ministry at our church}, to many many Easter egg hunts. I even have pictures of a special project we did for our garden this year. But that's an entirely different post where our little dog ends up with a pink tail. Trust me when I say, there is never a dull moment around here! Happy Tuesday!

Spring and National Water Fountain Day!

Hello, Spring! I have so missed you. I have missed the pretty green grass. The birds chirping around my pink flowering weeping cherry tree. The warmth on my skin and the nice breeze through my hair. The ability to send my children outside to have as much fun in the sun as they can stand! Maybe Spring was just waiting on Easter to pass? Whatever the reason, I am glad it's here! Things I am ready to accomplish now that Spring is here:

•  I am ready to paint my living room/kitchen area. It's an open floor plan. Which I love since  I am constantly in the kitchen cooking, cleaning, teaching....this works great for our family to be able to be together. What I'm not to fond of is the basic beige of  color on my walls. So, I'm(by I mean we...me and the husband) are going to paint an accent wall in red and the other walls in a yellow color. Kind of like the color of butter. It's going to be pretty and full of color to help lighten things up! Now, that we can open windows and not die of  paint fume inhalation, we can do just that.
• I can't wait to plant my garden! We are doing raised beds again this year and I can't wait to harvest our crops. 
• This school year is almost over. The kids are ready for a break and so am I. Summer fun in the water is coming our way. Even if it is from the garden sprinkler!
• To plant our grapes that my father in law brought to us. We have enough to make a small vineyard. I see lots of grape jelly being made in my future. 
• To be able to play outside with the kids. Yesterday was so beautiful that we played hopscotch and rode bikes for a while. 
• To possibly {try} camping. 
• To absolutely go fishing. Everyone in my family loves to fish. I'm not sure how my Sweetie Pie is going to handle touching a fish since she hates to get dirty. That's why I know it's going to be fun.

Things I could probably live without but I'll try {NOT} to complain about:

• Allergies. Pollen is what makes all my flowers happy. It makes my head wish it were buried in the flower garden. I'm trying to be positive. 
• I think the sun makes my kids a little crazy right before bedtime. Last night, as they were brushing their teeth, I hear, "It's National Water Fountain Day!" In the two minutes all 3 kids were in the bathroom they managed to fill a sandwich bag(that smuggled peeps into their rooms and was never thrown away)with water. The water was then "sprung" out like a water fountain. All over the bathroom. And the carpet outside the bathroom. National Water Fountain Day has for ever been canceled. Too much celebration caused the kids to be sent to bed 20 minutes early. {Wait a minute...maybe we will celebrate Water Fountain Day every day....}

Ok, so that's the only two things I could live without. I hope you are all enjoying your Spring weather. I know I certainly am! (Minus pollen and water fountain's!) I'll post some really cute Easter pics later. Until then......Happy National Water Fountain Day! 

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Long time no blog part #...

Ok, I lost count. I'm not really sure what part number this should be. I do know however that I have missed it. I just haven't had, or perhaps made, the time to stop and blog. I feel that I've been busy. Not the kind of busy that makes you want to curl up in a ball in a locked closet and cry. But the joyful kind. Busy but content. Does that even make sense to anyone but me? Anyway, as normal the house is semi-cleaned, the laundry 99%(ok, 89%) done, and the kids are as messy and as happy as ever. We are currently in the steady cycle of night shift with my husband's work. Which means being quite is harder than most days. I did however successfully clean/helped clean the kids bedrooms today. My sweetie hasn't waken yet, so I will deem this a successful mission! Wait...some one is jumping on the bed while someone else is banging on the window to get the dog's attention.....Ok, I'm back. See, so hard to be quite.

*not my picture*
Do you think I could hang my kids from the line like this?
I kid...I kid...maybe...

We are anxiously awaiting spring. It is weird to me that Daylight Savings time is this weekend. Why is it so early this year? I am ready for longer days if it means the kids can get outside more and run out their built up winter energy. I am beyond ready to get my hands in some soil! I need to plant something and watch it grow. I also need sunshine. I feel as though I look like a ghost. I need Vitamin C. Not to mention I need lots and lots of sunshine so I can hang out my clothes on the line.  I'm beginning to think I'm old fashioned. I'm not against it. Simplifying my life? I say bring it on! Also, my  Sweetie Pie asks me on a daily basis if it is time to go swimming yet. When I tell her sweet summer loving self, "No, not yet." She says, "Ok, well how about the sprinkler." She's persistent!  :)

Speaking of this sweet girl. I just enrolled her in Kindergarten. How in the world did that happen? She is super excited to learn how to read. She knows all the letter sounds and when she is helped can sound out small words with no issues. She loves it when Sweet Pea helps her out. Until, Sweet Pea corrects her when she doesn't "need" help. Then we have all kinds of attitudes. We are going to home school again this year. We all have really enjoyed the freedom we have with home schooling. We can do the work in the mornings, in the afternoons, or at night. This works out rather well when Daddy is on night shift. We get to eat a big lunch with him and spend time with him during the day. At night, after he leaves, we do our school work. The way his schedule falls, if they were in public school, the kids would never get to see their Daddy. This makes me happy that we can bend our schedules and still be a family together. :)

*not my image*

Speaking of family time, we are about to have a lot more of it. We made the decision to be a....Duh, duh, duh....Cable/dish free family for a while. Maybe forever. Who knows? We had cut back on our TV viewing time. Especially when doing school work. Starting next year, we will be adding Sweetie Pie to the home school mix as well as The Boy with some pre-K work. So, that would be even more time with the TV off. Not to mention, the ridiculous  amount of what we call "non-view-able" shows. We have no desire to watch shows with nude people, extreme foul language, or an obscene amount of violence and gore. Even the news is depressing and almost unviewable. I have no desire to watch that mess and I absolutely have no desire for my children to walk in and see or hear it. Sometimes, we were more concerned with our shows than spending time with our kids. The only "family" shows that were ever on, were on the Disney channel. Turns out we get all of those shows on Netflix. We are keeping our extremely inexpensive Netflix and got rid of Dish all together. The few shows we do watch are on the networks website for free the next day. The news is also on the internet...for free. So we were actually paying for nothing. So here's to saving money and bringing the family closer together! We are currently on day 3. We have yet to kill each other or have withdrawals  Mostly.( Ok, I kind of miss HGTV.)  It's also not as loud as has been known to get around here. That's a plus! (Oh, how I wish House Hunters was on Netflix!) Ok, I'll  survive. I think. Maybe

Micah and I were talking and decided that the Fowler Family are officially Conservative Hippies!  Hanging out my clothes, eating things that we grow, no cable, home school, saving money, me being a homemaker,  anti-big government, loving God and life....Yup, Conservative Hippie.  I think I'll take it!


It's almost the weekend, chin up! Happy Thursday!








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Just a portion of my crazy week....

I must say that I am always happy when Friday rolls around. This year I'm even more excited because my wonderful husband is off on Fridays. That makes me super happy! It's been a busy week. Last week I had the wonderful privilege of doing this:

What exactly is this? Well this is about 1/4 of my son's toy cars. I got to wash them! Why? Well, apparently, he needed to pee-pee and the bathroom, that's exactly 7 steps down the hall, was just too far away. So he decided to pee on his cars and the car holder. Yup. That smelled lovely. So, after a long soak in a bleach, soap, and hot water sink, they are now back to being carpet mines.{carpet mines: small weapons, aka toys, that are placed on the carpet where hard working responsible adults step on them, barefooted, quickly losing their religion and the feeling in their foot. May also cause one to hop on uninjured foot, causing one to not pay attention and step on another carpet mine. Note: This will bring tears to your eyes while children look at you as though you have lost your mind.}

One of our dear little pets, Corndog, brought home a nice little treat yesterday. Only, it was an entire fried chicken breast. I feel the need to mention, our Corndog is a weeny dog. He is small. The chicken breast he brought home, and into my house by the way, was two times bigger than his head! We were just minding our own business, doing school work, and we hear him crying outside. I told Sweet Pea to let him in. Upon entering I see this monstrous something in his mouth. I'm thinking, what in the world is that? Sweet Pea was laughing so hard, she couldn't form a sentence. All I got was.... Corndog...something....I....don't know...So, I run and chase after him and alas find out it is a fried chicken breast. I start telling him to let go. He doesn't listen. He's worse than the kids. I try to pull it out of his jaws, I only remove half of the chicken. I have to pop him on his little nose 2 or 3 times to get him to drop the rest. He follows me to the trash can and starts crying. I mean, he is moaning. He is a sad puppy. He finds Sweetie Pie and jumps up on her knees and starts crying. Like he's tattling on me. He was mad the rest of the day. He didn't even curl up by my legs after the kids went to sleep. I have no idea where he got it. I'm sure there is a doberman somewhere with a chicken wing saying, "What the what?" 

This past week my entire hall was filled with baby dolls. From one end to the other. Sweetie Pie decided she would line them up and take a tally. She even had a notebook and pencil. She was calling roll and taking names! Her brother was "helping" her. By helping I mean he was made to help. She put him to work lining up baby dolls. I wish I had a picture, I didn't think of it until after the fact. 

My son has started calling the potty the "Oval Office". I completely blame this on that Clorox commercial with all the different names for a toilet. I also blame this on my husband.  He finds it hilarious. Why is toilet humor so funny to males?  He says, "I'm going to have some fun in the Oval Office!" "I'm going to poop in the Oval Office!" SIGH. That child is only 4. Dear Lord, please help me. He is not even a teenager yet. P.S. Why are boys so gross?

So, as you can see it's been busy. This is only a portion of my week. It snowed yesterday! I have pictures I'll post later. It was a fun day. We only get one snow day a year. We had to go out in it! 

I hope ya'll have a good weekend! I hope I have a weekend that doesn't include oval offices or chicken breast. 

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A recap of the new year...thus, far....

It has been a glorious new year! I know, it's only day 4 of 365 days but, it's still good! I've been out of the Facebook loop for about 5 days. I must say it feels nice, to not be at the computer every few hours just scrolling up and down. I feel much more relaxed. I still occasionally fight an urge to go "check Facebook, real fast"(like, that's ever possible!) but I have been strong and I have stayed away. I find I spend more time with the kids when I am away from FB. Which, is slightly awkward to admit. I should always make time to build the Joker's layer with my boy and congratulate my girls on what amazingly stable Lincoln log buildings they have made. And yet, in the past, it would be, "I will in a minute" or "In just a little while". How disrespectful I have been. I'm glad I decided to take a break. I realized just how much it had control over the little things. The little things that will not always be around.


I finally finished the The Inheritance Cycle. It's a really great set of books(4) that has everything fantasy you could want: dwarfs , all kinds of strange creatures,  elves, and the best part of all dragons. I never thought I would love this genre of books but alas, it's one of my favorites. Thanks to my husband! It really left me wanting more. If you ever have the chance to read it, you should totally pick it up! Now, I'm just trying to figure out what to read next. I always have that problem!

We woke up to 27 degree weather this morning. That's cold. This would normally not really be that big of a deal but today it is. I parked in the front of the house. Instead of the garage. I promised I would take the kids to Wal-mart(which by the way, I am certain is one of the entrances into Hades) to spend their gift card they got for Christmas. I'm waiting until after lunch so that  no one is Hangry (angry because they are hungry). Pray for me.

I am ready for Spring. We've been getting planting magazines in the mail almost every day since Christmas. We've made a list of everything we want to plant. It makes me so excited! The kids are by far warm weather kids. They love to be on their bikes, running around outside, playing sports, and chasing the dogs everywhere. I like winter a lot. But, I am also looking forward to warmer weather. :)



My brother, sister in love, and Micah and I decided to get my parents a picture of all their grand babies for Christmas. We decided to do one really big picture and then an album of all the other pictures. This was 100% easier said than done. We had two cameras, about 30-40 minutes and four grand kids. We needed just one picture where everyone was looking at the camera and smiling. And that my friends was exactly what we got. One picture out of all the pictures we took. My sister in love captured the one picture with her extremely nice, extremely fast camera. I think the more kids we add to the family, we're going to need an even faster camera. Here are some of the "outtakes" from my camera! Enjoy!

Only the boys are looking at the camera.

Ok, no one is looking at the camera, they're throwing leaves. 

Yeah, the falling leaves were much more entertaining than two mommy's taking pictures.

I love the looks on all of their faces in this one! They all crack me up! 

I think they are getting slightly disgusted. 

The boys have the exact same look as each other. So do the girls! lol! 

Did I mention, we had to keep this a surprise from my parents for a month. We had to be all Mission: Impossible with it. They were surprised and happy. I hope to get more Christmas pictures loaded from my camera to the computer then to the blog, soon. I hope. I must leave now, my son just said, "I'm going to go kick some honey buns " Well, that wasn't as nice as telling his sisters he loved them because they "had big hearts and are nice!" like he did the other night. At least they haven't offered to "Let's make over brother! That's a great idea!"  Happy first week of 2013!



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