Raining Saturday Morning...

It's Raining...It's Pouring...Let's go outside and watch!!

We have been in a serious drought, ya'll!!  So, when I saw that cold front off in the distance I immediately grabbed my camera and a few of my kiddos and went out back.  I have such a sweet memory of my daddy and I up really early on a Saturday morning once.  We were out fishing and I witnessed for the first time the awesome experience of what it looks like, it feels like and smells like to see a cold front "come in".  We watched it literally come across the lake where we were fishing and bring the cool rain-crisp air with it.  The feeling of warm and humid transforming into cool and crisp with huge gusts of wind is such an awesome experience.  Anyway...I will never forget that Saturday morning and now whenever I can get outside to watch and feel a cold front come through, I do it! I was so glad that the kiddos got to experience it with me! Sho Sho even insisted on staying out and playing in the rain.  Since it has been SO LONG since we've seen any, I just had to let her.  For a few minutes, at least.  Then it was off to a warm bubbly bath.  Not a bad way to spend a Saturday morning.  

Rush Springs Watermelon Festival - 2012

We made our annual trip to Rush Springs, Oklahoma again on Saturday.  We have been going to the Watermelon Festival for several years now. We all love the trip.  The town of Rush Springs has a large older park where it hosts the festival.  They have carnival rides, crafts booths, food booths, and lots of people have garage sales in their front yards. Oh, and there are watermelons sitting in the back of pick-up trucks on every corner!! We have become such "watermelon snobs" that we usually won't even buy a watermelon at the local grocery store anymore - because these melons are SO GOOD!  My husband used to have a job that took him through this town at least once a week so for a while we could have a Rush Springs melon anytime we wanted.  Now, we have to wait 'til the second Saturday in August.  And, btw, the cantaloupes are the BEST too.  This year we were "meany" parents and didn't let the kids ride any rides.  They cost about $3 per person for one ride and we have Frontier City passes (and they have all the same rides).  They were okay with that. They mostly just wanted to eat watermelon and play on the park anyway :)

Here are some snapshots of our fun day....

Every year we take  picture of Madeline standing next to the prize watermelon.  This one weighed 214 pounds - we've NEVER seen one that big.  They keep a record and this one beat all the others by about 100 pounds!!  

Our First Day of School....

We started school this week!  I felt a little more prepared this year than I did last year.  At least I (kind've) knew what to expect.  I had an idea of how I wanted the day to go.  The kids were very excited to get started.  Honestly, I was too.  Seems like we've been running around all summer - at least now we would be staying home a lot more.  Easier on the pocketbook and our schedules.  Gas was getting really expensive driving all over town this summer :)  

Here is the dry erase board in our school room for our first day....

The night before school I made up some little gift bags for the kids.  The girls had shrinky dinks in them (remember those??). The got sparkly new crayons, scissors, yo-yo's and a little gift card I made them for a free ice cream cone after dinner :)  Philip got silly putty, little people super heroes and stickers.  

They were very excited to find their gift bags :)  

This is my crew this year!!  I have my third grader, my first grader, my pre-K and my preschooler.  It will definitely be an adventure figuring out how to best teach them as individuals and as a group :)  The baby currently has a very short attention span.  :)  

  

I wanted a fun crafty thing for the kids to do on the first day of school.  I told my husband that all through my college career we always knew that the first day of school was going to be easy - just looking through the syllabus.  So, I wanted our first day of school to be fun and easy going.  I found this simple recipe for homemade fingerpaints on Pinterest.  It was very easy and the paints turned out well.  The kids love picking their color and mixing them.  It took them a while to dry but the girls had a LOT of fun making them.  Violet was napping and Philip was playing with his "Joe's" in the kitchen with us :)

 The finger paints were a HUGE hit.  The kids loved them.  After they painted, I just threw them in the little pool in the back yard to get all the ooey gooey off.  I put the paints in the fridge - wonder what they will be like the next time we get them out?

My babies decorating their folders - they will each have one folder that I keep all of their work in when it is finished.  You know...one of those huge 3 inch folders.  Except for Philips.  I just went with the 1.5 inch folder for him :) 

At the end of our day and after we ate dinner we went to Braums for ice cream.  We started this tradition (getting ice cream on the first day of school) when Madeline was in Kindergarten.  The kids (and the Momma) really love this tradition ;)  

We are certainly looking forward to an adventure-filled school year!!  

The Dog Days of Summer...

We have certainly had another record breaking hot summer around here.  I've always heard the phrase, "The Dog Days of Summer" and wondered what exactly that meant...because I've always assumed it had something to do with the heat.  Well...with the help of google, I found out that they 

"are the hottest, most sultry days of summer. In the Northern Hemisphere, the dog days of summer are most commonly experienced in the months of July and August, which typically observe the warmest summer temperatures. In the Southern Hemisphere, they typically occur in January and February, in the midst of the austral summer. The name comes from the ancient belief that Sirius, also called the Dog Star, in close proximity to the sun was responsible for the hot weather."  (Thank you Wikipedia).

Anyway.  Yes, we are there.  In the "dog days."  The temperatures last week were some of the hottest ever recorded in our states history.  They tied the actual hottest recorded temp, which was previously set in Aug. 1936.  Yep.  During the DUST BOWL!  We've really used the weather lately to talk a lot about the history of the Dust Bowl. We've talked about the term "Okies" and where it comes from.  What caused the Dust Bowl.  What people did during it.  We even imagined what it must have been like to not have air conditioning when it was 112 degrees outside.  We just can't even grasp it.  

The girls were so interested that Madeline and I watched an old American Experience episode (thank you whomever pinned this on Pinterest) about the Dust Bowl.  We are also currently in the process of watching The Grapes of Wrath.  They are enjoying it.

Unfortunately, with these high temps, low humidity and the wind there have been wildfires all over the entire state.  Entire towns have had to be evacuated. Many homes have been lost and thousands of acres have been burned.  It is very sad. Our thoughts and prayers are with so many families right now.  

This is a current map of the drought conditions here. Not good news.  

We tied the second hottest temp but a few days after this was taken, we tied THE hottest temp.  

One of the several wildfires.  

Fortunately, we live just a few blocks from the volunteer fire dept - if there should be a fire near us.  

ALL of my potted flowers have died. :( 

Our new forsythia bushes have died too :(  Hoping they might come back next spring...will have to wait and see.  

We are SO ready for Fall.   You can't really go outside and do anything right now.  Too hot for the kids to play.  Thought I would update my blog to Fall so I could at least be reminded that it is not very far off....

Violet Ann Turns Two!!

Happy 2nd Birthday My Sweet Violet!!  

My baby girl turns two today!! She is getting so big and growing up so fast! It's hard to believe that she is already two years old.  I love her so much! She makes the perfect "baby" to our family....everyone loves her so much :)  We had a simple little ladybug party for her yesterday. Fortunately, ladybug decorations look a lot like Minnie Mouse -  because she loves Minnie Mouse.  Or as she pronounces it, "nee nee nooo"  You just have to hear her say it :)   Although, she does love Baby Bop (Bee Bee Bahhh) most.  Anyway...we had a fun sweet little party for her.  It was so fun to watch her figure out how to open her gifts.  And she looked so bewildered when everyone was singing so loudly at her during "Happy Birthday" :)  

She loved her cupcakes!! (I didn't have the time or strength or the inspiration to make her a cake or cupcakes - I just had the hardest time trying to think of a good ladybug themed cake??) Anyway...she didn't notice that they were pink and blue instead of red and white.   

Well, here are some pictures from her party....