more catching up...

Ok, so where I have been raised, we have decorations every spring...what is a decoration you ask?  Well, most every church has it's own Sunday when it hosts decoration for families to come back and place flowers on the graves of their family members.  There is usually a special church service and then our families gather together and eat a meal together.  People I know that are not from the south have never heard of it, but I have known it my whole life.  The third Sunday in May, for my whole life, we have gathered together with my dad's extended family.  We always ate at my great-aunt's house or my mamaw and papaw Pruett's house, now we eat at mom and dad's house.  This year we went with mamaw and papaw Dixon to where my Hampton family relatives are buried.... Happy Home Church.  I have always thought that was such a sweet name for a little church in the edge of the woods -

Just a note - We always laughed because my papaw Pruett took family pictures at the cemetary... we have lots of pics of dad and his brothers and sister around our family tombstones !? lol  Well, now here I go... BUT, I want my kids to be able to see the names of their great-great-grandparents...


Mom, Lola Kate, and my Mamaw Dixon



Me, mom, mamaw, my aunts - Yvonne and Skeeter, and the kids



Papaw taught Jack to make a toothbrush from a sassafrass(?) tree

so sweet...

look mom, clean teeth!

lk, mamaw and papaw

The Dixon Family

My great-grandparents

Happy Home Church in the edge of the woods

Mamaw has always told me that granddaddy Hampton was the baby of nine kids.  When he was born they never gave him a name, just called him Baby.  When he got old enough to talk pretty well, he named himself Beed.


Jack talk - I got home the other day and both the kids were asleep.  I got LK out first and took her in a laid her down in her bed.  I went back to the car, got Jack and hauled him in.  He is four and big and heavy!  I kept thinking, "he is so big, I think I might could drop him". But, I made it and laid him down in his bed.  His eyes immediately popped open and he smiled and said, "Tricked you, I was awake, I just wanted you to carry me in."  Pinch. him. now.  love him

Vacation Bible School is in full swing right now - 102 Monday night and 100 last night.  They are learning about the Armor of God.  I laid down with Jack last night and asked him what his favorite thing was that day - "Learning about God, we learned about the belt of truth."  I think we are doing something right :)

We got a couple of inches of rain this weekend.  Ben is cutting wheat and we are planting beans.  I have some great pictures from memorial day, something to work on tonight.....

May Day and Gardening

Ok, so here is the post I started working on  last night -
"Shout out to uncle Ed for getting my computer fixed so I can finally get some work done! :)  (I use the word work very lightly) -

Here is some work we really have been doing today -
By the way - it is dry here, I mean really, really dry, like makes you want to cry dry, and hot, really, really hot - it is the 2nd of May and too hot!" 

.....Stopped here to get kids in bed, etc... with the intention of finishing this morning....

WELL, during the night I woke up to feed LK and what did I hear?  The pitter patter of rain drops on our roof - praise the Lord!  I mean, it has been great hay cutting/baling weather, but not so good hay, grass, corn, bean growing weather.  So, we are very thankful for the rain and now in the next few days we will be planting soybeans. 

Friday, we will fluff hay and side dress corn (I will try to get some pictures and a good explanation from Ben for a later post).

We did go to the library Tuesday and celebrated May Day (which Ben says has something to do with communist Russia, but I assured him we were merely celebrating spring - I hope). 

Let me just say that Jack is a LOT like me and Ben - he is pretty stand-offish and usually will not dance and act silly around other people.  So, I have to say I was pretty suprised when he colored and put together his May Day crown and said he would wear it.  The green GAP shirt was an Easter gift from my mom.  He says its his new favorite shirt because it's "kinda shiny and green".

We attempted a May pole, but I'm not sure we had the right directions.

We also planted some sunflower seeds and read a few books.  All in all a pretty good May Day.

***

Yesterday, for some reason, I decided to plant the rest of our garden even though it hasn't rained in a while.  Jack and I planted our corn last week, but I am not really excited about the stand we have right now, so we may go back and replant.

We have already been enjoying our asparagus - which Jack promises me is bamboo - if so, we have eaten some really good bamboo this year.


our asparagus - uh, bamboo?



Jack found a ladybug, and yes that is a spit bubble, we're trying to break the habit...yuk

My plan was to only plant corn and tomatoes this year and then "share" mom and dad's garden.  Well, I caved.  We planted 8 rows of corn, 18 Roma tomato plantes, 8 Big Boy tomato plants, and 10 hills of squash (more tomatoes, cucumbers, and green beans to come).
A few things I have learned from people way more experienced  at gardening than me, so when I plant my tomatoes I do it just like my mamaw Dixon taught me.
First, we dig holes and fill them half full of Black Kow fertilizer (I know we have cows and FREE fertilizer, but that's what mamaw does, so don't judge).

Ok, then this is what I think is the secret, or maybe everyone knows, but it was news to me.  You take the plant, pinch off the lower leaves, or "suckers" as mamaw calls them, and plant.  She says to cover up about 2/3 of the stem, so...

Left plant sucker free, right plant pre-pinching

With that work done, we took a break for popsicles -

Showing off his working boy feet.



Jack said, "It's a beautiful day outside today.  Take a picture of the sky mom."



Then we went inside to check on princess feather, who did this the whole time we worked out in the garden -

 

Addition from Ben - "Did you tell them that is rained twice as much today than it did the whole month of April?  You didn't think of that did you, big'un?"  "Big'un" is what Jack used to call me.  We had to break that habit when he started calling other people the same thing - and there was a pretty embarassing moment at a family reunion - no more calling people "big'un". 

So it rained a lot...



We sat on the front porch and watched it rain



LK called her dad and talked a bit



I don't even begin to know what that scary face is about, probably a bad guys Star Wars face

Showing off his big boy summer hair cut

Jack talk -  Jack has really gotten into planets and space - thanks, I am sure, in no small part to his infatuation with Star Wars.   He and Ben have a National Geographic Universe book they look at a lot of nights.  In the car the other days we were talking about the planets and quizzing him to see how many he actually knew.  It went a little like this -
"Hey Jack, can you tell us the name of some of the planets?"
"Sure, Mars, it's red, and Saturn, it has a big ring around it, (he adds in a few more, Jupiter, Mercury) AND the planet Luke lives on, you know, Tatooine.  It has two suns".  Precious.  I can't wait for elementary school.

And I had to include these last two -

Happy May!!!

easter 2012

Ok, so I am pretty much two weeks (or more) behind about posting Easter pictures. These are mostly pictures from the house, dying eggs, and at mom and dad's barn hunting eggs with friends and family.
Dying eggs is a pretty big childhood memory for me. I always loved the preparation and time spent together, dressing up and going to mamaw and papaw's house to hunt eggs with all of my cousins. So here are some sweet pictures of my kids dying eggs...and yes we use coffee cups to dye our eggs in because that's what we did when I was a kid. I almost bought the little egg dying cups, but then thought no, the coffee cups have to stay. I distinctly remember my dad drinking a cup of blue egg dye instead of his coffee one year, precious!

These are the few pictures I have of the kids dressed up in their Easter outfits before the virus hit once we were at church (LOVELY)...

The last picture is of Jack with his wheat. He came home one day with a sock (yes, off his foot) full of wheat seed which he insisted on planting in this broken flowerpot. Of course we HAD to have a picture of him with his wheat on Easter morning.:) Sweet boy..
Jack talk -
Oh yeah, here is the conversation I heard Easter morning when Ben was dressing Jack - "Dad, boys don't wear white pants, pants aren't white they are blue or brown." " I know son." "Dad, I don't like this blue sweater." "It looks good Jack, you look nice." "But dad, the blue covers up my white shirt and I like my white shirt. Can I wear my white shirt over my blue sweater?" AHHH - like father, like son.

working boy

Ben finished turning out bulls with the momma cows last week. We are enjoying pretty wonderful weather lately and are really only feeding a few groups of cows now. Grass is green and there is a lot of it for mid-March. Bart is in high gear cleaning out litter from chicken houses and getting it spread on pastures and hayfields.
Believe it or not, as of yesterday we still did not have our yard repaired from the tornadoes on April 27, last year! We lost about 1,000 years worth of trees in one morning. So, today was the day to clean up stump holes, sow grass, and move part of an old fence. I had to post some pictures of my hardworking kids -

How about those winter tans?! We were dragging the newly tilled yard. Going VERY slowly with LK on board. The rest of the pictures are of Jack helping Ben pull up posts from an old fence (btw, he is 4!).
He stood at the fence and was yelling at the cows - "What are you doing Jack?"

"Trying to scare the cows." *YELL*
"O YEAH, that sounds scary, I think they are scared."
"No they are not, they're not shivering."
Well, I guess that's something we can work on. <