She is looking so grown-up. I can’t believe she will be 5 in four days!

We have been “rowing”* Jenny’s surprise summer for the past 2 weeks. As go-along books** to this book, we have been studying climate, seasons, waves, tides, oceans and caves. I wanted to have a hands-on lesson to what we have been studying so I decided to take the kids to the beach. My dad was a trooper and decided to come with me to help AND my sister’s sister-in-law, Jordan, was in Destin for a few days. It was so fun catching up with her and hanging out with her kiddos. I was so thankful that Jordan brought a nice camera and she was kind enough to send me some pictures from the morning. The kids ended up learning about rip currents and how the weather affects the waves; the flag was yellow but the rip current was very strong and the waves became more rough as we were there. My kids had no fear of the ocean so I took them out individually to where I was standing hip-deep. I had a difficult time standing still as I was getting knocked over by the waves. This lesson helped them have a deeper respect for the power of the ocean. All 3 kids LOVED the water and splashing around. We ended up only staying about an hour (I was exhausted just from trying to keep each child within sight and above water) but made some great memories. I hope to visit the beach more this year during off-season than in years past.  Enjoy the pictures!

I attended a continuing education course in Panama City this morning. I had to leave town at 5:30am to arrive on time so I left a quiet, dark house (after nursing MJ of course!). So the kids had a fun day with Adam today. I came home around 3pm to excited kids with adorable photos to prove their fun-filled day.

Enjoy the pictures!

This one captures each of their personalities so well!

Well, it was a long few weeks around our house during the month of July. A few days after we returned from our travels, G started showing chickenpox spots. He was such a trooper and other than a few restless nights, he didn’t really complain about itching or anything. I was hoping MJ would get them as well so we could go ahead and be done with chickenpox (K had a mild case as an infant so I assumed she wouldn’t get them). And man did she get the chickenpox! I have never seen a case as bad as hers and they didn’t show up until 2 weeks after G’s began.

One night, I woke up and K wasn’t in her bed. This is where we found her. So sweet!

I bought Adam the book, The Homeschooling Father and he is almost finished reading it. He has been helping in the evening working on school with the kids, which right now is a lot of play with a little lesson. I love watching them!

I took advantage of Adam taking pictures of Ashli Grace and I asked Adam to take pictures of our kids as well. K will be 5 in a few weeks, G is 2 1/2 and MJ will be 1 in a month. Enjoy the pics!

Here are some photos from our kids and Ashli Grace. They love her so much and it is sweet to watch them interact with her (MJ will love her one day. Right now, she is annoyed when I hold another baby).

The girls

We had a really hard time getting G to smile. He was so serious!

K is always looking at her and whispering or cooing to Ashli Grace. Precious!

We are so happy to welcome our newest niece Ashli Grace  into the world! She was born early in the morning on August 15th with a head full of black hair! She weighed 7lbs, 8oz and she was 19 inches long. She is an easy going baby and she is beautiful!! My sister Debbie is doing great recovering and she is in love with little Ashli Grace. Adam did a photo shoot last week but I will also post some pictures of when she was first born. Enjoy!!

The kids and I did quite a bit of traveling in  July. We went to Atlanta July 16th to watch the airing of my Uncle’s documentary at the Jimmy Carter Center. I traveled with my parents; my mom rode with me and my dad drove a separate car. It was such an honor to be there and see what an impact the documentary is having across the nation. There was a panel discussion afterwards and Jimmy Carter was on the panel. You should really check it out: Search for Identity. This is my uncle, Charlie Tuggle.

On the way to Altanta, we stayed the night at my sister’s house in Hamilton, GA (near Callaway Gardens). We walked down to the creek with the kids. We picked up niece (13) in Hamilton and she drove with me the rest of the trip to Atlanta. We were able to stay with dear friends in north Atlanta and we also visited with my sisters, one who lives in Atlanta and the other two came for the documentary viewing.  My sister, Laura, lives near the Gwinnett Braves stadium so we took the older 2 kids to a game. It was so fun explaining the game to them! The weather was beautiful (a bit rainy) and there were fireworks after the game. On the way home, my nephew (15) rode with me as my helper. It was a great trip.

Explaining baseball to K

Explaining baseball to G

Playing at the creek

A week after returning from Atlanta, we got back in the car (crazy right?) and drove 9 hours to my Dad’s hometown of Ft. Meade FL for a family reunion.  Adam wasn’t able to get time off work so my cousin Derek, who lives in Pensacola, agreed to drive down with me as my helper (my parents were in a separate car and they were a HUGE help as well). If anyone has ever been around K and G and knows how many questions they ask in a 30-minute time frame can understand what a big sacrifice it was for Derek to agree to help. The kids love him and we had a great time. He and my mom took shifts as my passenger-helpers and they were AMAZING!! I am so thankful for 3 good travelers! It is such a blessing that they know how to entertain themselves and they are content reading or playing games! I was so thankful we were able to stay at my Aunt and Uncle’s house and our family from NC was staying there as well! We made a lot of memories but I am so glad to be home with Adam and back in a routine!!

MJright after my Aunt pierced her ears!

Pool fun with the cousins

Amelia is 6 weeks younger than MJ. It was so fun watching them together!

Everyone that came from my immediate family

My 2 cousins and all of our kids- 5 kids under 4 and Bethany has a little boy on the way!

My dad and his brothers and sister (we were celebrating her husband’s 80th birthday)

Buckwheat pancakes are a favorite in our house. We use a recipe from a blog I follow, Simply Recipes and it makes the most delicious buckwheat pancakes. I make them 100% buckwheat and I make buttermilk by adding vinegar to our raw milk and letting it sit on the counter for about 10 minutes. They have so much flavor, they are fluffy and everyone in our house loves them.

Our squash plants have slowed down quite a bit but we are still harvesting a squash a day. So how do you convince your family to eat squash AGAIN when we have been eating it every day for several months? You chop it up and add it to scrambled eggs of course! It was a big hit last night for dinner. We had scrambled eggs with squash, homemade yogurt with strawberry jam and sliced cucumbers. Yum!

We had a productive weekend in the kitchen. We are harvesting tomatoes faster than we can eat them so  Adam decided to can tomato sauce this weekend. We didn’t have a very big harvest of beans and my favorite vegetable are zipper peas. We called them “Florida peas” at my grandmother’s house and the smell of these peas on the stove bring back so many fond memories for me. We haven’t attempted to grow them yet so fortunately a girl I work with was selling big hampers full of my favorite peas! I picked them up Friday and I intended to begin shelling sometime Saturday however, I had to work in the morning and my sister’s baby shower was in the afternoon. Well, to my surprise, I arrived home after my busy day and my wonderful husband had shelled almost all of them! I am so excited that we will these peas through winter!! And he was able to can 4 jars of tomato sauce and that barely put a dent in our tomatoes. Enjoy the pictures!

See the beautiful bag of peas?

We have been grilling a lot this summer. Our house was built in the early 40’s and it is not insulated well. Needless to say, the house warms up quick in the summer, no matter what temperature the thermostat says. Adam made a backyard burger, literally because all the meat came from the backyard. We used our KitchenAid meat grinder attachment and ground rabbit and pork together to make a delicious burger! We grilled squash and potatoes from the garden. We also had sliced cucumber and tomato from our garden and we had a side of zipper peas from a local farm. Everyone cleaned their plate, even MJ!

BTW, K took a few of the pictures 🙂

Ginger-peach kombucha

Another one of K’s pictures

MJ is enjoying crawling, clapping, saying “uh-oh,” waving (she turns her hand toward herself, super cute), pulling up and playing with her brother and sister.

Enjoy the pictures!