rowan and sawyer had their first, ever outside-the-home-without-mom-or-dad-hovering (well, sort of) learning experience last week in the form of a local Vacation Bible School program.

our church is too small and, well, let's just keep it at that...too small to have a VBS and the older two are finally old enough to attend, so i signed them up at the local church and i can't tell you how much they (and we!) enjoyed it.

i don't remember much about VBS, but i attended it as a student and a helper in my (Orthodox Presbyterian) church growing up. i feel as though i liked it because i couldn't wait for our boys to get involved in one. and i think VBS has changed quite a bit since i was a kid. the church used a VBS package curriculum that really (REALLY!) resonated with the kids. the church was packed with nearly 100 kids every day, and roughly 25-30 adult helpers. the church was barely bigger than our house, but it was doing big things for the families of our little town. i nearly choked up when i saw rowan and sawyer doing all the motions to all the songs the first few times i dropped them off. i think i was the only parent who didn't really drop off my kids: i walked them in and stayed for every opening, and got there early enough to attend the closing "ceremony" each day (like the geek that i am!). I couldn't wait for bible school. and the boys were giddy each morning as we drove the country road to the church. we have a cd of all the songs they sang throughout the week and it's playing nonstop in the house and in the car.

even though we plan to start homeschooling in the fall (with curriculum...a lot of homeschoolers say that they homeschool from the child's day of birth, so i feel the need to clarify), i love how much they loved this experience.  i loved how it changed their "God conversations" just slightly. the theme of the week was God's power, so they were all about how much power and strength God had. i have their daily papers hung up in the kitchen and i plan to go over their daily lessons from last week. am i a homeschooler or what??? :)

one thing i didn't groove on was how much i actually missed them! no doubt the first day was nice as adam and i had lots of quality time together, but by the second day we were both bored. next year, all three boys will attend. if adam ever decides he's not a baby. :)

a week ago, the boys and i met a friend and her kids for a hike in the woods. it was a lovely day and we were shaded by big trees so we weren't too hot. unfortunately, my left shin met a not-so-nice tree stump sticking up out of the ground and i got one nasty looking scratch. i was afraid to look at it for two days, but when i finally did, it looked yucky. and by that second day, my lower leg began to hurt. of course i was freaked out that i had a blood clot, or an infection, or my leg was going to fall off from gangrene. all from that nasty little tree stump.

so i made an appointment with a doctor and i was there this morning. of course, the leg pain subsided and the scratch looks much better, and the doctor said it was healing quite nicely and said i had no blood clots (ha!), but asked if my tetnus was up-to-date. i had no idea, but i so wanted to tell him that "yes! i just got a tetnus shot last week. thanks doc, i'll be on my way." but honestly i have no idea when my last tetnus was, and i'm a horrible liar.

so when the nurse returned with the shot, i took a big breath and let him have my arm for the shot. everyone knows that tetnus shots are fairly painful. but i never even felt it. whew. piece of cake!

but now? i can barely lift my left arm. so that's what they mean by tetnus shots aching and hurting and oh my lord can i take an advil for this?

i missed week one because i couldn't pull together a meal with strawberries and asparagus - the only two things in season right now! week two will be published at farm to philly. stay tuned for more delicious meal ideas!

so i did more searching and purchasing this week. i splurged and went with local meat sold at a local family farm. i'm also leaning on their strawberries this week as we'll probably be picking and freezing some from another local u-pick farm later in the week for our fall and winter months.

i'm turning this meal into a lunch as this is so up the boys' alley for lunchtime goodness.

here's a fun little project that rowan, sawyer, and i did over the past week. homemade (washable!) placemats!

i found this project idea in amanda soule's the creative family and it turned out to be ideal for rainy summer days (of which we've had plenty over the past few weeks, along with those few days in the 90s). we were goign to do it when ramona was visiting, but were having too much fun outside! instead we made one for her after she left and we'll send it to her.

our friends just bought a new house, so to help make it a home for their 1- and 2-year-old boys, we made them their own placemats for their kitchen table. the material is canvas and i just bought a cheap canvas drop cloth from lowes for $9. i'll probably get several placemats out of the amount of canvas the drop cloth provides. it's inexpensive (much more so than buying it by the yard at a fabric store) and i love the feel of the canvas for the finished placemat.

you need a sewing machine to finish, but if your kids like to color or paint, this is an ideal proejct. we used fabric markers, but you can use fabric or acrylic paint as well. i'll venture into that when i have the patience and energy for a big clean up! :)

happy birthday, little adam!

you are the first smith boy to have a second birthday and NOT have a younger brother in the house. your big brothers adore you, look after you, include you, and can't remember life in the house without you. even if sawyer wasn't so sure about you at first:

we've had several days in the 90s. i'm LOVING it.

the first really hot day was thursday, and i basked in the warmth. by the second day (friday), i finally let kenny put the air conditioning on (i think it was the kids yelling over the monitor when i put them down for bed on thursday saying, "mommy, i'm sweaty!" a thousand times that did it for me).

we broke out a new wading pool (a frog!), kenny bought a new slip and slide, and by last night, the slip and slide fed into the wading pool. it's rowan and sawyer's new favorite thing to do.

our garden is popping up all over the place. all the beans popped, so far we have an 85% percent corn sproutings, and the other plants haven't burned up in all the heat. when the plants get a little bigger, i'll get a pictrure posted. now it just looks like black mounds and hay (similar to last year's garden, minus the chickens and the groundhog troubles, plus a big fence that kenny and my brothers put up last week).

and today, kenny purchased this book. are we crazy yet? :)

i've been making chocolate chip cookies forEVER, but have just recently come across the best recipe i've ever used. and yes, it's even better than that tollhouse recipe. i've made it several times in the past few weeks: for friends who just had a baby, for friends who just moved, for my family visiting last week, and now today because it rained and we needed something to shake off the crabby-cranks that rainy days like to bring with them.

so i'm sharing my new favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe ever. the best part about this recipe is that you don't have to remember to set out sticks of butter on the counter to soften a few hours before you start since you use melted butter, not softened butter.


CrispyChewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

this recipe is very easy to double, and i often do. because semi-sweets come in 12 oz bags and who wants to save or waste a half bag of chocolate chips because i don't know about you, but those things do not have a long shelf life once opened in our house. if you know what i mean.

1 stick butter, melted
1 egg
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
6 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 and lightly grease cookie sheet.
Beat melted butter and egg, add sugars and mix well. Stir in vanilla, soda, and salt. Mix with flour and chips.
Place 1" balls of dough at least 2" apart on greased cookies sheets. Bake 10 min (or 14 or 13...depending on the mood of your oven). Cool cookies on cookie sheet before removing them to cooling rack.

yesterday afternoon, as i was beginning our dinner prep (usually around 3:45....i know that sounds early to some of you, but i tend to take just over an hour to make most of our dinners, and we eat between 5:00 and 5:30. otherwise i have three crabby boys to contend with as well as make dinner...so i choose early dinners with happier kids underfoot), rowan walks into the kitchen holding my ring holder that was just moments before securely sitting on the back part of my dresser. this ring holder was holding a ring i wear on my right hand, and my wedding set and engagement ring (as i was gardening earlier and i don't garden with my rings on), however one of my wedding bands was missing.

kenny and i wear antique rings as we're partial to the antique style. so we wear white gold, turn-of-the-century rings. my wedding set didn't come with my engagement ring, it went with another ring altogether, but we chose it because it also matched my ring. the engagement ring is worn between the wedding bands. and one of them slipped off when rowan decided to play with my ring holder as a "treasure."

first of all, how do you think you would have reacted to this? admittedly, i was angry. i made rowan retrace his steps, i made him sit on his bed while i retraced his steps, i told him never (EVER!) to touch the things on my dresser (this is a rule in our house and he knows it) and the ring didn't turn up. after about a half hour of searching, he knew it was serious. so then we had the conversation: about how this ring was very important and symbolic to me, but he and his brothers are more precious to me than anything, even this ring, and i forgave him since he apologized a few times while we searched for the ring. all was good again (to him), but my heart was sick at the thought of my wedding band had gone missing.

several hours later, after getting adam out of the bath and getting his pajamas on, i noticed he was holding something in his hands. i'm sure you know what it was: i looked at my left ring finger to see my engagment ring and the other half of my wedding ring, so he was definitely holding the missing part.

we heaved a BIG OLD sigh of relief, with much rejoicing, especially between rowan and i. probably because forgiveness (and in his case) forgetting had already happened.

so what's my lesson here?
a/ forgive your child for their mistakes and you'll get your way (you'll get the ring back)?
b/ huff and puff angrily for a while to get your kids to apologize?
c/ don't EVER take your wedding bands off, even when gardening/cooking with raw meat/bread/dough, etc?
d/ get those three rings sodered together?

anyone care to add any more?

adam walking the balance see-saw thing in the obstacle course kenny made the kids. we couldn't keep him off!


uncle andrew (my younger brother) and his daughter ramona, and sawyer:


uncle dan (my youngest brother) and sawyer:


sawyer, ramona, and adam in one of the many forts they built (with aunt laura's help!):


grammy and grampy, the morning they left:


me, planting jalepenos and pimentos plants with sawyer:


grampy holding astrid:

we are very possessive of our sunny days here in western pennsylvania. we squeeze in as much outside time as we possibly can, until that last bit of daylight slips under the horizon. and it's been sunny for 8 or 9 days straight!

we were also having too much fun with two of my brothers and their families AND my grandparents in town (we missed you GR guys!). so i collapsed into bed each night and my laptop was unopened all week long. we were far too busy, cooking, birdwatching, tree identifying, tree planting, vegetable garden planting, tractor riding, fort building, bike riding, eating, museum going, icecream eating, hockey watching, beer drinking, more eating, wading pool swimming (the littles, not the adults), plant buying, pie baking, more hockey watching, more bird watching, obstacle course building (kenny) and running (the littles), treasure hunting (the littles), cookie-baking, more eating and we found time to sleep in between.

pictures to follow. some day. i'm still recuperating!

kenny got in a fight with a honeybee yesterday. here he is with his eye open:

 

i think the honeybee won.