Kids Birthday

KaeLynn and Daniel had their birthdays! We did our traditional blow up water slide in the backyard with their friends. KaeLynn turned 10 and Daniel turned 7. 

The rest of the summer...

The rest of the summer flew by! My sister Kea came to visit us the last month of summer and we had a lot of fun things to do. We swam a lot at my mom's pool, went to the beach and the springs. We even went to Weeki Wachi Springs! They have a mermaid show, and water slides! It was a lot of fun!

There was a summer reading program that my kids participated in, and Daniel won the drawing for one of the bags. He got A LOT of free books!

We also celebrated Cavan's 36th Birthday. His brother Casey got him an awesome mullet which Cavan loved.

We went to the Bass Pro shops for the kids to shoot some bow and arrows. We met up with our friends the Loughmillers and had a great time.

Cavan and I even had a few fun summer motorcycle rides. These are my favorite dates to go on!

For the first time we also took our family out for a canoe ride. It was so beautiful out! I love being out on the water so much! We even saw a couple of alligators.

 

So far this summer...

We got a pool! It is just big enough for all of us to get in and cool off, and that is all we need. It really is very peaceful out there sitting in the water and enjoying the sounds of the country. When the kids get bigger, we will probably get a bigger pool.

Linden is 15 months now. He is officially weaned off the bottle. I was worried I was never going to get him to take the sippy cup. He just wanted nothing to do with it for months. So I ended up just taking the bottle away. He had one day he was upset by it and didn't drink much. He now takes the sippy cup with no problems at all. He is also off formula and drinking cows milk. He stands up while holding onto furniture and will walk from one piece of furniture to the next holding on, but is not ready to let go. We practice everyday trying to get him to work his legs, but he would rather crawl. He loves to talk to people using his baby talk. He says a few words like, Hi, uh-oh, and mum. He knows how to say "all done" in sign language when he is finished eating at the high chair. He is starting to understand "more" a little bit. He is not ready to give up his morning nap yet. So he is still napping twice a day. On days we want to go to the springs or something he just misses his morning nap that day and we just deal with his grumpy mood. Linden is very much a momma's boy. Always when I come home from something and he sees me, he instantly starts crying and crawls to me. He doesn't stop crying until I pick him up. He even does this when he is totally happy before I came home. He loves KaeLynn and Daniel so much! He always wants to be in the same room as they are. 

Cavan and I have had some really nice motocycle rides so far this summer. My favorite is to drive to the beach! Of course we have gotten caught in a few rain storms, but that is summer weather in Florida

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4th of July we went to Lake Helen again for their parade in the morning. Went to my mom's for lunch, then to David's awesome 4th of July party! We have such a great view of the fireworks right on the lake. We love this tradition!

Family Farm

Our family farm is growing! We recently got our Tower Gardens. I am SO EXCITED about these! This is an aeroponic system, so there is no soil. So I don't have to pull weeds! Using this system also alows me to garden year round. So has the growing season ends here in Florida, I still get to have fresh produce! We also planted sweet potatoes that we had to protect from the ducks. I did't think about it, and one days we noticed that the leaves from the slips were all gone! Luckily they are growing back now that we put chicken wire around them.

The ducks are so big! They are almost 2 months old already. They are so funny to watch, and they are afraid of everything! We also decided to go ahead and get 4 chickens last night. This morning we got our first egg!We look forward to all the eggs we will get!

Summer has begun!

Our fist day of summer break, I was brave enough to go to the beach by myself with the three kidos. 

KaeLynn won a bike!

KaeLynn's school had a contest in their 3rd grade, that one boy and one girl that got the most "Reading Counts' points wins a bike. When I found out about this contest, I knew that this would be the perfect motivation for KaeLynn to get a new bike since she was just complaining to me that morning how much she needs a new one. She set her mind to it and she won. The Reading Counts program is when the kids read books that count for points. The harder the book, the more points it's worth. When she decided that she was going to be serious about doing this, there was another girl in her grade that was already 200 points ahead of her. But that did not discourage her. But it wasn't just about the bike. KaeLynn discovered a love for reading that we all didn't know she had. She read all the Percy Jackson series, and loves all the book that author Rick Riordan writes. She also discovered that she can accomplish what she sets her mind too! She ended up getting 660 points! I am so happy for her! Now that summer has begun, her and I are reading the Harry Potter series together.