Beginning of June, 2014

The kids and I finished school at the very end of May.  They were so excited. Katy didn't really do school last year but she wanted to be in the picture anyway :)

3rd grade, 1st grade and PreK next year!
Chase still had a few weeks of baseball this month and his team started doing really well and winning more games.  The first Sunday of June my wonderful parents came up and went to church with us in the morning and then we rushed home, ate lunch and rushed out to one of Chase's make up games.  It was a nice sunny day to be sitting outside and Chase did really well in the game.

Their team ended up winning the game and Chase was even presented with the game ball for being MVP of the game!  The game went long however and my parents had to leave before it was over, but it was so nice to have them there for a while and sit and chat :)  We took the kids out for ice cream afterwards.

Also at the beginning of June, the kids and I went to my Grandma Yoder's house to help her "spruce up" her flower beds. It was a lot of hot sweaty work but it went by faster with lots of hands to help and good company.

After we weeded everything we spread out the mulch that she had in her garage and then drove to dump the weeds and stop at a flower stand.  Went back to her house and planted some of the flowers and then went out to eat for lunch. After lunch we stopped at Lowes for more flowers and mulch before heading back.  It was a busy day!
The kids and I left pretty much right after we got back from Lowes, they had to try out the piano first though.

They really love their Great Grandma!

Also that week my friend Ronda and I met up at Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area.  We went in their wildlife museum first and the kids loved it in there.

View from the bird watching area:

The antler "sandbox"

Katy's face made me laugh here...

Ronda was very pregnant with her 4th baby and getting close to her due date and feeling ready to have the baby so we went on a little hike to try and "walk the baby out". (which, by the way, I think worked because she had him a day and a half later :P ) It was a lovely day for a walk though.

I love this picture of all the kids :)

We also had Peaches with us and played "find the bone" (aka, deer antler) with her for a while.  I think every kid got a chance to hide the antler for her, she loves that game!

My creative genius has been making all sorts of creations this summer and is very serious about her work :)

My veggie garden is doing fabulous and I'm so proud of it.  

Doesn't it look beautiful?!

I've been able to start harvesting some things as well!  We got our first few Kholrabi from it the other day and really like them roasted with olive oil, salt and pepper!

I also made chips out of the leaves and the kids really loved them, gobbled them all up!  I made some red beet eggs with some beets and onions from the garden the other day but to be honest I should have let both the beets and onions grow some more... so it will be a little while yet before I make more of them.  I got a seed packet of corn from the greenhouse the other day and planted that in the spaces that were left from my cold weather stuff and it has started popping up already! Joanna is very excited :)
We've been spending a lot of time at the library this month as well.  We're signed up for the summer reading program again and there have been a lot of fun activities there as well.  The kids thought they were pretty cool, getting their pictures on posters for the wall :)

They have maker Monday every Monday and we usually stop in to make a small craft.  The first one were little planes that they first colored and then glued together.

The next time they colored snap bracelets.

We also were there for lego night this month.

Joanna's cute little castle:

Katy finished early this time:

Chase decided he wanted to be done with the summer reading program and so read like mad for a few days to get it done. I'm so happy with how well he's doing reading!

I don't remember if I mentioned here about my butterfly bushes or not but they just were not doing well at all, I guess the winter was just too harsh for them.  I gave up waiting for them and decided to just yank them out and put native plants there instead.

Dead.

I found this awesome Native plant nursery and really could have spent all day there looking at their plants.  Black chokeberry (for the birds) on the left and spicebush (for the butterflies) on the right.

I also got some swamp milkweed while I was there, which is supposed to be less invasive as regular milkweed. Monarch butterflies have to have milkweed to lay their eggs on.

I don't remember what all we did for Father's day but the day before Ricky took Chase and Joanna to the WWII air show in Reading.  They had a really good time although Ricky didn't really take any pictures.  That Sunday evening we went over to his parents house to deliver his card and gift and then ended up staying for burgers and ice cream. His parents have some pretty awesome tree climbing trees in their backyard and we were trying to talk the kids into climbing them.  Ricky thought they needed to be shown how :P

We also decided to give Chase his birthday present early since we had been storing it in their garage and his birthday was only 5 days away.

He got a new bike!  It has gears and hand brakes and a kickstand.  He loves it.

I can't believe my little boy is 8!