Sleepy readers

Ask the boys if they like to read and they'll tell you, "No!" But it's not true. 

And once in a while, they read long enough it puts them to sleep....just like their mother.

Out & About

A couple of days ago, the boys and I took off on our bikes to explore a near-by abandoned farm. Levi had never been there, but Noah and I had explored it one other time. 

 We biked about a half mile and then started to walk toward the farm. We soon found out that path we were planning to take was too overgrown,

 so we went back to our bikes and found a new route!

 Along the way we found some sweet, cold refreshment at this old pump.

 We finally made it to the farm, and it was just as interesting and sad as the last time. The house had fallen in on itself, but the barn and other out buildings are still standing.

 It's eerie to look in on someone else's life. On one hand it felt like we were intruding on a family's life and on-the-other-hand it felt like we were interfering with the homes that small animals have made in the old buildings. We walked carefully, not taking anything or harming anything - trying not to leave any mark of our being there.

 I think all three of us felt like we might get caught at any moment - getting in trouble for being someplace we weren't invited to.

 It's like the people that lived there simply left. The house has furniture, pots and pans, the garage has jars of small parts, old grease cans all indicating what once was life at this farm.

 Noah's good attitude changed as we were ready to leave the farm. He complained about our little adventure being "boring" which felt irritating to me. He stormed off ahead of us for the journey back home.

 Levi and I walked together, he got mad at me for trying to take a picture of him. Thankfully, Levi's legs lasted for nearly the entire 1/2 mile walk back to the road where we'd left our bikes.

 In all, the boys biked more than a mile and walked more than a mile. We explored something that feels like a hidden gem and got to enjoy a beautiful spring day - can't ask for much more than that!

House Progress

It was a busy week at our new house! Early in the week Kenton and Zach started framing our porch roof,

 then our shingles showed up,

 and the plumbers brought in boxes of plumber-stuff,

 and the HVAC guys brought in more boxes of metal-vent-stuff,

 and THEN!!! Kroft Lumber brought our windows!!!

 One day we got a porch roof, the next they started putting in the windows...it's starting to look like a legit house!

 And, the boys have a tub/shower in the bathroom. They are pretty excited to be able to take baths again. We only shower in our current house, but they miss being able to play in a bathtub.

 On a bike ride this afternoon I snapped some photos of the house from a distance. Now that it has nearly all the windows in it's easier to get a feel for how the house will really look.

 We ordered our exterior doors this week...

 and we got a driveway. Like our official, for real driveway! Ben and I spent a long time out there the other night deciding just where the rock should go and how we wanted it to look and function. The next day John Unruh came out and graded it just so, Ben hauled in some rock, John spread it out and boom, a driveway! And we have garage doors - I could barely remember what they were going to look like. I'm glad I still like what we picked out months ago!

Friday at noon, the boys and I headed to town to check out books at the library and grab some groceries. Funny thing about going to town at noon means you end up eating lunch there! We decided it would be a 1st day of summer celebration. We went to Keith's to grab lunch and ran into Kenton and Zach, our electrician, the plumber and the guy making our cabinets! I got lunch, groceries, found out the electrician will be at the house next week and that I need to make a few choices yet on my kitchen cabinets. :-)

Last Day of School

These two goofballs are out of school for the summer!

Nearly every school day started with breakfast with their grandparents. First day of school:

Last day of school: 

The school year always flies by, and when it comes to a screeching halt in May I'm always stunned at how much the boys have grown, how much they've changed, and how much they've learned!

First day of school:  

 Last day of school: 

Their brains are sponges and their personalities are blooming - there are blessings and curses mixed into both of those. We love them and every week day I think parenting might just be the hardest job in the world.  

 Here we come summer - let the good times roll.

Youth Track Meet

Saturday morning we took the boys to a Youth Track Meet in Hesston. We didn't know what we were getting ourselves into and as you can see...it was a bit overwhelming to all of us at first.

 Eventually, it was time for Levi's first event: standing long jump.

 While many kids had coaches or parents giving lots of advice, we simply let Levi jump.

 He carefully watched the other kids and then when it was his turn he walked up to the line and jumped!

 Next up, both boys participated in the softball throw. They each walked up to the line and threw the ball so fast I barely got a photo snapped! Noah placed 3rd in his age group.

 There were so many kids in each event...thankfully a bunch of our friends were there too and the boys had some buddies to wait around with.

 Just like any track meet, there was lots of waiting in between events. Did I mention we had to wait around? I wasn't in the mood to wait around out in the hot sun...it was hot, and windy and...I'll stop complaining.

 Levi's turn for the 50 meter dash!

 He placed 6th in his age group!

 Noah waited through many heats of the 100 meter dash for his turn. He was in the last heat so it was just him and two other runners.

 Noah also raced in the 200 meter dash.

They were both happy to have placed in at least one event and reported that the track meet was only fun when they were actually doing an event. Otherwise, they thought it was boring...surprise, surprise. As always, it was fascinating to watch the boys - to see how they handled themselves in this new environment, around lots of strangers, doing new things. Ben and I were proud of them! They tried hard and had fun, and that's all we'd asked of them.

Friday Morning

It's been an extremely dry and windy spring in Kansas. But this morning it was cool and calm outside. Ben took advantage and burned a bunch of small piles of brush I'd raked up weeks ago. 

 It was a beautiful morning! I stood by the fires to keep warm and soak up the sunshine. :-)

 That dry weather I mentioned? Yep, not good for the wheat.

 It's supposed to be thick, tall and lush at this point - ideally receiving an inch of rain every week. Ha! An inch of rain....that hasn't happened, and those days of 100 degree heat we had this past week didn't help. We'll see what happens between now and harvest...but it looks like a very lackluster harvest is ahead of us.

 Oh Harold. Always ready for an adventure...rarely do we actually meet your expectations.

This was our last Friday before the boys are out of school for the summer. We won't have such a quiet Friday morning to ourselves for the next three months. I write that with equal amounts of joy and sorrow.

And the Garden Grows

The 2014 gardening season is well underway at our place. We decided to scale back this year, just gardening in our main garden area and sticking to only the veggies we eat the most. 

 That means I didn't plant any pumpkins, cantaloupe, watermelon, zucchini or squash. The pumpkins, cantaloupe and watermelon all need lots of space to spread out. But they also need to be surrounded by chicken wire to protect them from the ladies.  Going to all that trouble for this final year of gardening in this space just didn't seem worth it. Plus, I usually spend a lot of time hunting down squash bugs in the pumpkins and with the house well underway we decided that spending lots of time in the garden might not work out very well this year.

 We planted lots of potatoes and onions (although only about half of the onions actually came up!). I also planted some lettuce and spinach. The lettuce was ready to cut this week, but the super-hot temps (100 degrees in May? Give me a break!) turned it bitter. I cut it all off tonight and hope that the temps in the coming week will bring a second growth that we can actually enjoy.

 The beans have sprouted, so have the cucumbers and we're waiting on the okra to appear.

 Ben made me some fantastic (and sturdy!) tomato cages out of cattle panels.

The plants are off to a decent start - now if we'd just get some rain I could stop watering the garden!