Five Minute Fridays: In Between

I am late writing for Friday's prompt since we were out of town, unplugged, enjoying a wonderful weekend of camping (pictures in a post soon).  I couldn't let this prompt pass me by though as it resonated with me.

Five Minute Fridays is hosted by Lisa-Jo Baker, encouraging bloggers to write on a prompt unedited for five minutes.  This weeks prompt is In Between.

GO

Sometimes I get stuck in the mud of in-between.  Thinking more of yesterday or tomorrow, almost missing today.

I daydream of holding the baby we are praying to adopt someday.  I remember the days when my son was a newborn as I sort through a box of baby clothes I'm putting into the nursery.  My little boy comes in wanting to know if we can read the next chapter (or two) from his favorite series.  I stop and read with my 4 year old, enjoying him snuggled up next to me.

I compose messages in my head to our unborn baby of the future, hoping to record this time of waiting.  I compose messages in my head (and sometimes my blog) to my son, hoping to record the wonderfulness of who he is now, his amazing imagination, the silly things he's said.  Yet more often I need to stop recording and go play in the fort, build with his legos, have the water fight and go out for ice cream.

Sometimes I hesitate making plans too far in the future because of the "what if" of a prayed for adoption placement.  Recently I wondered if I would regret signing up for a convention, paying in advance, if I'm not sure what October will look like?  My heart tells me to go.  So does my husband.  I click the submit button, praying. 

In our waiting, we can't stop living.  In this in-between, we still celebrate today. 

I don't know what tomorrow holds.  I can't change my yesterdays.  All I'm given is today, but if I'm not careful it can just slip through my fingers.

STOP

Our Camping Weekend

 

We spent this past weekend with a group of other families at a state park a few hours from our gravelly road.  It was our first time camping this season and we enjoyed ourselves. 

 

Of course there were s'mores to be eaten, walks on the trails, bike rides, a few educational programs put on by the park rangers, and lots of time for the kids to play together.  Even though this particular group only gets together once a year, the kids have so much fun!

 

Saturday we hiked to a small beach/sandbar along the river.  The kids had so much fun digging in the sand and playing.

I also enjoyed all the wildflowers we saw around the park.

We have a few more camping weekends planned.  It is just so nice to unplug and enjoy nature together, even if we do get a few bug bites and end up rained on :)

Clothesline Fort for Reading Outside

A few weeks ago, it was a beautiful day and we had no plans.  I wanted to spend time with my kiddo outside but wanted to do something besides the normal playset, sidewalk chalk and sandbox.  So we put together a clothesline fort and brought our books outside.

We just used 2 sheets and a blanket.  For whatever reason, we have a clothesline but no clothes pins.  So I improvised and brought our chip clips outside.  We put it together a few different ways before we found one that didn't blow away in the wind.

It was so much fun and the blue sheets made some great muted lighting for taking pics :)

Turtles, Sprinklers and Summer Fun

Sunday evening we found 3 turtles in the yard.  There was one excited boy!

 

Monday we enjoyed the sprinklers outside in the sunshine.  He had so much fun.  After he was done running through the sprinklers, he decided to use them to wash all his sand toys. 

Tball has started as well.  He considers it a great practice when he catches one ball :)  Love it!

Today "Cat in the Hat" visited Summer Reading at the Library.  We've had several fun trips to the park as well.  A family camping trip is right around the corner.  Summer is in full swing.

Fun Father's Day Cards

**To my son's Grandmas reading this -- please don't let Grandpas see this quite yet.  The cards are in the mail, but may be late :)

It was Wednesday and I had no idea what we should send to Grandpas for Father's Day.  We put these together pretty quickly and I think they turned out great!

One challenge I always have with making cards for Grandmas or Grandpas is that my son is blessed with so many "grands" who love him, so we need to make a bunch of cards and its easy for him to loose interest.  So I planned a few shortcuts so that we could make 5 cards a little more quickly.

First I had him write out the letters for "Grandpa" then I photo copied it and he glued onto each card.

Then I cut out a tie shape out of cardboard and we traced it onto scrapbook paper.  He cut out all the ties himself.  The I wrote on each tie "I cut this tie just for you, the best my little hands could do".

On the back of each tie I hot glued a paper clip so they could be used as bookmark and be clipped onto the front of the card.  (I had cute curly ones but regular ones would work great too.)  I added my son's name and the year on the back.

On the inside of each card I simply wrote "Happy Father's Day" and my son wrote his name.

Simple and fun Father's Day cards on the gravelly road.  I hope grandpas like them!

Cabin Vacation 2013 Photo Overload

As I mentioned before, we spent a wonderful long weekend with family at a cabin.  While it wasn't always as warm as we would have like, we had a great time.  We spent time outside and played quite a few games indoors.  Kiddo enjoyed the playgrounds and sand fun.

Again this year we were able to enjoy a fun day on the nearby ATV trails.  Unlike last year though, we brought our son along. We had a great time!  If you look behind us in the picture on the left below, you can see the very long puddle/pond we'd just driven through.  My passenger stayed dry, but I was not so lucky.  The water was up to the bottom of our seats and I had to keep my foot on the pedal to keep it moving -- wet leg for me!  We also spotted a deer on the trail (bottom right) and a lot of beautiful scenery.

 We enjoyed another day on a boat, fishing and enjoying the sunshine.  My husband caught the first fish.  My dad caught the second, with our son's Toy Story fishing pole :) 

So many fun family memories!

A photo of my photographer

I'm still here...

I've been meaning to post, but instead we've been enjoying the sunshine (and even the rain) and recovering from a wonderful weekend at the cabin with family. Above is one of my favorite shots from the weekend. (There will be a post with lots of fun vacation pictures coming soon).  Of course there's plenty of laundry and yard work to catch up on now that we are home!

We are getting into the "swing" of our summer schedule, with t-ball and summer reading starting this week.  We are enjoying summer here on the gravelly road.

The beginning of another garden

I enjoyed posting about the garden last year so figured I'd better start this year.  At the very least it was a good motivator to weed, since I wanted to take pics for garden posts :)

For the most part, we have the garden planted.  It has been very wet and rainy here though, making me extra thankful for my new pink rain boots and a little worried we'll have sections of the garden wash out.

We do already have snap pea, pumpkin, onion, and bean plants making an appearance in the garden.  I transplanted the cucumber, zucchini, squash and sunflower seedlings I'd started indoors.  I also bought some pepper and tomato plants.  In addition, we've planted sweet corn, carrots, and watermelon.  For fun, I bought a climbing flower for near our garden gate.  I still need to plant my new herb garden (more on that in another post).

We also found out the birdhouse that is on our garden gate post has a resident.  I guess our garden looked like a nice place to live :)

My neighbor is quite concerned that our garden is not large enough, even though my husband expanded it this year.  So she's planted a hill of squash for us.  She also told me her husband planted too many rows of beans and expects me to "come pick as many as I need".  She's so great. 

Here's to another year of gardening at our home on the gravelly road!

Farmyard, Last Day and Zoo Fun

It was a busy week and this will be a long post...

Tuesday we went to a farmyard field trip with a group of other moms and kids -

Wednesday was my kiddo's last day of preschool for the year.  I snapped this pic of him holding this fall's first day of school picture.  I'm so glad he has another year of preschool... I'm not ready to start thinking about all day kindergarten.

On his last day, his class spent most of the morning at the park with games and a fun snack.  They had such a good time.  Our family celebrated his last day with ice cream.  Then another evening during the week the preschool had an open house and playtime for the kids which included horse rides.

 

Friday we spent a wonderful day at the zoo with my parents, sister and brother-in-law.  The weather was beautiful (a bit windy but I'm not complaining) and the forecasted rain held off until we were eating supper at the restaurant, so we didn't get wet.  With the extra adults around, I had the chance to play with my camera so took a lot of pictures.  Here's some favorites...