Kaelynn turns 12

Kaelynn turned 12! Wow I can’t believe it! For her birthday she got to ride a horse! She has been asking to go horse back riding, and a family from church let her ride one of their horses. They were teaching her the basics of how to ride too. She really loved it! She is adjusting to middle school very well. I think she really loves band. She has taken very well playing the trumpet. She is so helpful with her younger brothers. She also definitely has a sassy side and is turning into a teenage 😀 We love our kaelynn and enjoy all the spunk she brings into our lives. 

 

Daniel Turns 8

For Daniel’s birthday he wanted to take his friends to the arcade. Arcades are open, you just have to wear a mask. He got lots of lego’s for his birthday and  thoroughly enjoyed putting together all his sets.

Daniel is doing so well in school. He really loves to read. We are also noticing that math comes easily to him. His favorite things to do are play with his friends. He is always asking me to set up play dates. He loves when the family does activities together too. He loves LEGO’s and playing Minecraft. He is also loves having a dog. Oakley loves Daniel too. Oakley has kind of  turned into Daniel’s dog. Except when it comes to night time snuggles. Then Oakley prefers to snuggle on the couch with Cavan or me until Oakley goes to bed with Daniel. 

 

School Starting

School started!! We are (meaning me) are so happy school opened back up! Yes the kids have to wear masks and follow CDC guidelines staying 6 feet apart and wearing masks at all times unless eating, but it’s open!!! Virtual school is not for us. They can’t use PE equipment, they sit apart from each other at lunch, have to sanitize everything, but at least they can go back to school. At first we thought within a couple of weeks they would shut down school but so far so good. If anyone does test positive for Covid-19 then anyone that has direct contact with them gets sent home from school and is supposed to be quarantined for 2 weeks before they can go back. The first couple days were really rough for the kids adjusting to all the new rules. It was especially rough for the Kaelynn learning her bus route and around a new school. Kaelynn is in Middle School now! She is doing very well. She is taking band and learning to play the trumpet. She really loves it. She is also taking agriculture and getting to work with animals. FFA will be our next big adventure. Daniel’s teacher from last year moved up so he gets to have her again for 3rd grade. He is so happy because he loves her so much! He has really taken off with reading too. The school is still doing the Reading Counts program where they earn points from certain books they read and he really wants to win this year.  

                                          

End of summer

To finish off the summer my sister Kea visited us. We kept it low key since COVID -19 is still a big scare. But we did take a nice boat ride from Deleon Springs State Park and went to the beach a lot! 

 

Little baby Jax also turned 1 and didn’t want anything to do with his cake! 
 

More summer

I need to blog about the rest of our summer! I made my first attempt canning peaches on my own. I’ve done it before with Cavan’s mom and sisters, but never on my own. It was a lot of work! Cavan even helped me after working 12 hours and stepped right in to help me finish up. I wish it turned out great, but the jars weren’t sealed all the way and the peaches went bad. Very disappointing! 

Cavan and I went canoeing with our friends. It started out really hot, but then turned out really nice. Anytime we can be by the water is a good time for me!

Cavan turned 38! On his birthday we went out on a date  at the beach. After dinner we went for a night walk on the beach and saw the slingshot was operating. So Gary and Cavan went for a ride. What a thrill it was to watch them shoot to in the sky and to hear the funny noises that came out of Gary!!!

  

  

We found a new beach to go to more north of us. It was a nice change and even got to see horses!

 

We processed our first meat chickens!

We raised our own meat birds for the first time and processed the ourselves. Our good friend David helped teach us. The kids were a little curious but didn't stick around. We killed 16 chickens and filled our freezer. 

Jaxon loves Oakley and Oakley is so good with him. He takes all sorts of abuse from the baby, but he just lays there.