Our Day

I am having so much fun doing school with Thea and Mareea.  Today we had art and made paper plate ducks and learned about shading and movement lines.  Thea was able to shade with her pencil and draw the movement lines and was so excited to look through the Ping book and find where the illustrator had used shading and movement lines.  She's so artsy and gets so very excited about crafts and painting.  Seeing as it was art day, I put out the easel and let them have access to painting.  I loved watching them!  Thea sits on her tall chair and paints and Mareea stands on her child's size chair to paint next to her.  After awhile, Thea went off to play legos with her brother and Mareea asked me to paint with her.  I put on Holy, Holy, Holy for us to paint to.  I'd have to say the sweetest part of my day was sitting next to that cute little redhead and listening to her singing along to our God and painting with me. 

I am hoping we can do a lot more painting now that I have gotten some no spill paint cups that allow me to easily get out paints and put them away. 

This evening when Daddy came home we drove over the bridge to the mainland to get some local produce.  Our first stop was an orchard where we picked about 20 lbs. of peaches and 40 lbs. of apples.  I plan on cutting and freezing a bunch of the peaches to use in smoothies and cobbler this winter.  With the apples I think we'll make applesauce and freeze it.  I'm just too afraid to can right now.  I'm hoping you can freeze applesauce??  I'm going to have to look that one up. 

After the orchard we went to the farmer's market.  I loved getting bell peppers, potatoes, onions, summer squash, zucchini and cucumbers that have not been sprayed for so little!!  We only paid $13 for two bags of produce! I placed a huge order with the farmer so that I can freeze veggies for us to have this winter.  I'm a little nervous about the amount of time it will take to preserve it all, but it will be worth it.  The children love the farmer's market.  Daddy the softie always buys them a cookie from one of the bakery stands and we play at the park afterwards.  It's about a 40 minute drive, but it's so worth it. 

I'm thinking about starting the boys on school next week.  I had planned to wait one more week, but they're so excited to start and I am, too!  I figure with moving it will be nice to have an extra week under our belts before we have to break for awhile. 

We are still loving the summer.  Our days consist of sitting out under the huge trees that shade our yard while the children ride bikes and climb trees.  Dan and I play badminton and we all take walks after dinner.  Inside the boys play legos and board games and the girls play dollhouse and paint.  It's been so laid back and relaxing.  What a perfect way to take a break.  I am so thankful we're here for the summer.  It's so much cooler here...in fact I think we're getting the first touch of fall right now!!  God has given us such a gift to allow us to be here during this season. 

I need to go to bed.  I'm so thankful for this day.