The happenings of the Fowler Family!

 We have had a lot of happenings going on in the family these past few weeks. Let's start with the past happenings, shall we?
Happenings of the Past:
My Boy
My boy has turned 5. Five! How in the world can that be? He should still be 2! But at the same time, he is so smart he sometimes seems older. He has quiet the imagination. He is so silly and adventurous. Sometimes, he is even a deep thinker. He pulls out some serious thoughts that make you stop in your tracks all doe-eyed like! Such as, "How do babies get out of your tummy?" As I stammer over the answer of "Um...well...uh....Doctors cut them out."(Which by the way, not a lie.) He is unamused by my answer and decides to inform the family, "I'm the green ninja from Ninjago! What kind of weapon do you have?" Thankfully his interest change rather quickly. (Currently, we have two 5 year olds and a 7 year old in the house. Every year for 15 days we have 2 kids who are the same age but don't share the same birthday. Meaning no twins. Yeah, I'll let you do the math on that! I love to see the looks on people's faces when I tell them that. It never gets old! ) Here he is when he was a baby:

This was his first Thanksgiving! He was so tiny!

And this is my little guy now. Can we just rewind a few years? I miss my squishy baby!

He is all about Star Wars. I made him his R2D2 cake. I think he loved it!

Pictures
I just downloaded pictures from my camera to my computer. I had 418 pictures on there. Apparently, I haven't downloaded any since...um...July. Yeah. Here are a few from over the past few months:

Can you find the sleeping boy? I was in a moment of panic because I didn't see him at first!

Our family trip to a local state park!

The most important people in my life!

My boy spent the night with his Mimi and Paw on the 4th of July. He took a few "fireworks" with him.

The girls stayed home and enjoyed the fun from the front porch in their pajamas!

This little guy made himself a pallet and fell asleep one day after lunch. I knew it was a little too quiet!

My bold Sweetie Pie full of sass!

First day of 2nd grade.

First day of Kindergarten.

First day of K4.

My Sweet Pea found a butterfly friend!

Veterans Day
Yesterday my love had a day off from work. We were able to actually go on a date and do a little Christmas shopping. We also got to eat Chinese food and see a movie. A rare and appreciated treat!  We saw Thor: The Dark World. It was awesome! We also saw a few trailers of some upcoming movies we can't wait to see: The Hobbit, Captain America, Catching Fire! I cherish our time spent together. We always have so much fun!

Now on to the Future Happenings:

Thanksgiving
Oh Thanksgiving! How I love you...let me count the ways! It is a time for family, food, and fellowship. We have our menu planned from the smoked turkey to the pies. Thanksgiving is a time for pies. What about cake you say? That's what birthday's and Tuesdays are for. What about cookies? Have you heard of Christmas and Friday's? Thanksgiving is for pie! We currently have 4 pies on our menu. If your nice, we might share. Unless you talk to my Sweetie Pie about her beloved chocolate pie. I'll warn you, she is fierce! I wouldn't try to steal a bite. She will put you in your place. We working on the whole sharing thing. We may need to work harder on the sharing thing. I think this is our family's favorite holiday! We are beyond excited!


Christmas
It's November and the excitement is building for the upcoming holiday! I feel ahead of the game in ways. Such as: Most of the kids Christmas shopping is done. This year we are taking the kids individually Christmas shopping for each of their siblings! Saturday, I took our oldest girl shopping. I had so much fun! She had very creative ideas. She has such a big, giving heart. I love that so much about her. If she could bring the moon down, wrap it up with a bow and give it to you, she would! I also had to remind her of her budget. Ha! As the saying around here goes she has a "wine taste on a beer budget"! Once she was reminded of her allotted amount of money she could spend, she was eager to do so. We have the two smaller ones to take shopping. I'm looking forward to it; It's going to be a blast! I have a plan for my husband's gift and few other people's gifts. I am excited to get my tree up. But, in the Fowler house we have to wait until after Thanksgiving. Waiting is hard for an impatient person. Not that I would know about it personally. Not me...not even a little.

The Present
Currently, I have a sink of dishes left over from breakfast this morning and bowls leftover from rice pudding last night. My table is full of home school work. We still have some work to finish from yesterday. I have laundry coming out of my eyeballs. It could also be flowing freely from my couch onto the floor. Not that I would be willing to tell anyone that. It is however clean and that's a plus.  Beds are unmade and toys are scattered throughout the house. Supper will need to be worked on soon. (Why do they always want to eat Supper?) It's cold and windy today. It will only be worse tomorrow. My feelings on the cold have changed. I actually don't mind the cold so much anymore.  I am grateful for a warm house and warm hearts that fill it up. It's easy to see that time is not always on your side. But it's even easier to see that time isn't what matters. It's the people you spend it with that does. Even if you have to do a hurdle jump over the four laundry baskets in front of the front door to do so.  Happy Tuesday to you and yours!

Back from an unscheduled hiatus/ Homeschool post...

Apparently, I went on a blogging hiatus. I'm still not entirely sure when I decided on it. I think the last time I published was in July. It is October. The 17th. Three months I have been away and it still seems like it should be July. We didn't have a "real" Alabama summer this year. It rained more than usual. Not that I am complaining because I actually love the rain. The temps were so fall like it is still unbelievable to me! Any-who, Busyness can control your life if you let it. I try not to let it but, alas sometimes it does. Which to my surprise has brought us to October. I have the kids entertained in front of Netflix, with Sweet Pea in charge of the remote. The peace may last long enough for me to finish one post. I hope. She thinks she is the Queen of the Remote. She is often told that she is merely the servant of the remote. I find it humorous. She does not. Ya'll, my babies are growing up! Sweet Pea is almost 8(eeck!), Sweetie Pie is about to be 6(what?), and my boy is about to turn 5(oh my heart!). It is an amazing thing to see the changes from pre-school to big kid. It seems like over night.

Here are a few reasons I've been away:

We are in school full force. This is our 3rd year to be homeschooling. I was slightly apprehensive before school started. This year I would be teaching a 2nd grader and a Kindergartner, with a pre-schooling boy on the side. I wasn't sure I could do it. But, we have worked out most of the kinks and we have a pretty good and easy going system. Turns out I had nothing to worry about. Except maybe Sweetie Pie and her natural desire to be stubborn. She has told me a couple of times and I quote,"I am not doing that today." Excuse me? This was followed by the whimpering that she is so very good at and the statement of, "I don't know how." Even though she just finished doing it and she is on her last two letters.  Needless to say, I asked her to rethink her attitude or I would take her change jar and put it on the table and if she didn't do her work, I would start taking pennies away and to my surprise she did. After two days she realized Mama wasn't bluffing and we've had no problems since. (Have I ever mentioned, I'm not above bribing my children?) Sweet Pea is loving school for the most part. She tries to get out of it every once in a while. It doesn't work but it doesn't stop her from trying! The boy is steadily learning his basics. I let him work until he gets tired of working and then I let him go play. I don't push him to complete a certain amount of work. He's learning just as much by playing with blocks and coloring. He'll be in school for the next 13 years, at least. I'm letting him have his last "free" year off.

OK, so looking back apparently home school is keeping me busy. Ha! Not to mention all of our "normal" house keeping duties. It makes for a very busy day.  I must say that being a home school family is just perfect for us. (Especially after hearing about all the common core horror stories. But I am not going there today!) I do enjoy it and so do the kids. This year we have started some new activities. Actually, we just started last week. I came across an amazing blog called Practical Pages and totally took her ideas as my own.(Don't worry, she gave away free resources. I didn't actually steal anything!) She has great ideas! So, last week we started an "Artist of the Month" and a "Musician of the Month". Our artist, one of my favorites: Vincent Van Gogh(that rhymes with cough, not "Go"-which is the way I was always taught. I like learning something new!) and our musician, per the request of Sweet Pea: Ludwig van Beethoven. I want the kids to know more and do more than just your regular run of the mill construction paper craft. There is nothing wrong with that and we still do those but, I want them to appreciate the work these men and others did. How God gave them a special talent and because they embraced who they where, we are able to enjoy their talents as well. These are extras that we do toward the end of the week, as a sort of reward for working hard on our core curriculum all week.

Our typical day consists of breakfast, school, lunch, quiet time(reading, playing, napping, as long as I   they have quiet time I don't care) then play time outside or inside, followed by supper, showers(all they kids take showers, for the most part, by themselves. My back seriously is grateful!) then family time, family devotion(most nights...it's still a work in progress!), prayer, and bed. Then somewhere between quiet time, home school lessons, play time, I try to keep the house looking semi-clean. Whew. I need a nap just typing that out. So, busy, busy has been my agenda lately. Hopefully, I can get back into the drill of blogging. I do miss it, ever so much. I even cleaned off the office desk, which looked incredibly sad. And crowded.(OK, it looked like it could be on it's very own show of Hoarders.) I can't work like that. So, it's clean and ready for me to post more of my tales of being a relentless homemaker. It's never ending work. At the same time, the rewards are never ending either! So, until next time

Enjoy Life!
Jessica

Happy July and an update!

Where in the world did June go? It went by so fast. We have been busy being lazy. We did go to a couple of the $1 movies...that was fun! We didn't have to get up in the middle of the movie for anything! We had only one drink spilled and absolutely ZERO tears. What!?! We went to the local splash pad. It was hot. We also had a great time there with no tears while we were leaving. We've told our kids if they have good behavior they will get to go back and have fun. If you cry all the way home while yelling," Go back! Turn Left and go back!" You will not go back. I will not turn left. Not that we personally experienced this last year while leaving the splash pad. Yeah. My sweet little boy wouldn't do that........Anyway. It seems my babies are growing up. It makes me so sad and so happy. They aren't clinging to their running around naked, screaming like a crazy person ways. They have become much more civilized. Well....more civilized than a hyper 2 year old. I'll take it.
So here is some of our summer adventures  in pictures. Enjoy.

My Sweetie Pie lost two teeth. That was as fun as um...pulling teeth. Her adult teeth were popping in behind her, hanging by a thread baby teeth, so I had to help pull them. This grosses out her daddy. So I got to be the one to fight the jerking head and screaming when I said, "Open your mouth" little girl. Her big sister was all about pulling teeth so she could get a dollar. Little sister, not so much. I waived a dollar under her nose so she could smell the money. She saw the blood on the tissue and panicked. After much pulling we were able to get it out. She's so cute without her baby teeth.

My Sweetie Pie is growing up. She has lost 2 baby teeth and her 2 top ones are loose.

Sweet Pea got a new earring. This girl is the lizard whisperer. She catches them, wears them as earrings, names them, and even gets them to fall asleep while laying on her chest. This girl...this girl! I love her adventurous spirit.

Of course, The Boy had to try it out too. Sissy wasn't as brave.

Hmmm...let me think. He wanted his hair spiked before he got his hair cut the next day.

The girls were making sure he knew how cute he was.

This girl. Seriously, if she can't make you laugh, give her 5 minutes. She'll come up with some shenanigan that will have you shaking your head and laughing until your side hurts. 

My babies. We went bowling. I beat my all time high score of 32. Don't be jealous. I walked away with a score of 70 something. I will not tell you what my 7 year old got. She may have beat us. I don't remember....

The kids play in the sprinkler often. I came in the living room to find clothes, a swim suit but no little boy. Thankfully, he was wearing another set of swim trunks and wasn't taking a shower in the front yard with a garden sprinkler. Ha!

We played with cousin E. We had sprinklers, little tykes cars, and water guns that I regret to inform you also doubled as a water bottle. At least it was fresh water they had in the bowl.

This was right before we left for the splash pad. They were stylin'! Be still my beating heart.

We also had Father's Day. My awesome husband, my babies daddy got a Tardis mug. If you do not know what a Tardis is. You must not be a Whovian. We may or may not be addicted to Dr. Who. 

Well this is summer so far. This week The Mr. has the entire week off and we have an entire week of fun planned. The kids and I are equally excited about it. I can't wait to post pics. Have a happy Monday and be blessed!

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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