sunday rain

Usually during a heavy rain, I tuck the plants under the house, or bring them on the front porch, so that they aren't simply drenched in the pouring rain. Yesterday, however, I left them out in the rain. It has been so hot lately that the leaves in the plants have wilted and are thirsty looking by noon. I thought that they needed a good drink and the new rain gave them that. You can see them all perky after the rain. When I see them looking thirsty, I think of the primary song, "Give Said the Little Stream." In the 2nd verse, it says, "Give said the little rain, 'give o give, give o give. Give said the little rain, as it fell upon the flowers.' 'I'll raise their drooping heads again,' as it fell upon the flowers." Below are my yellow squashes and cucumbers all quenched and drooping heads raised: Here are two of my tomato plants. They are really growing tall! I have added the stakes in them to help hold them up.

Saturday morning, before we left for the birthday reunion, I went outside to water the plants. I seriously squealed when I saw this... our very first tomato!! I am so very proud that I had to post it. Isn't it beautiful?! ;)
After the rain last night, I went outside to check on the plants. Josh yelled, "Look there's a rainbow!" This picture was taken last night around 8:20 pm. The sky looks like it is 6 o'clock in the evening!

birthday reunion

Tomorrw is my Grandma's birthday. My family had a big birthday reunion for her yesterday afternoon to celebrate he special day. We had such a good time visiting with everyone in the family, that was able to come. Here is the birthday girl...

Just a random pic to show a few of the family members who were @ the birthday reunion party: Penny and her cousin Haley wanted to help MeeMaw blow out her candles.

My Aunt June wanted to get a family picture of each of the families for my Grandma. This was the best one of us. The sun was reflecting off of a white car and Penny wanted to get back inside to the party. Joshua enjoying his birthday cake!

family fun

Whenever we have a family event with more than a few little boys, which is every family event btw, this is how it usually ends up:

Penny just loves babies! She walked up to each of the baby cousins and gave them all hugs. She even tried to feed a few of them...we were scooping pretzels and goldfish outta 10 month old's mouths more than once. She was just trying to share. In the photo below, she is hugging her cousin Caleb. I think Caleb was glad to get air!
The fellas at the back table here were checking each other's cell phones out. They were showing off the diffrent features of each one.
This is my brother Doc and his family...
Mom and Dad...

ahhh...maylee

I have to say how much we just love Maylee. She came for a visit on Friday night. We love having Maylee over! Move closer Maylee!! Our children were just in love with her Friday night. We had to run a few errands and they were all fighting over who got to ride in Maywee's car. Penny included. They all wanted to hold her hand and ride in her buggy. see...move closer!

game quatre

Game four was rescheduled for 6pm, but the schedule that we got said that it was @ 7. We thought that we were 20 minutes early to the game when we arrived and when we pulled up to the field, we saw all the gold shirts, of team Cal, running around. We were instantly peeved and yet disappointed. Clyde hurried onto the field, taking his usual goalie position. We obviously didn't get alot of pictures this game. I am glad that another gal on the team thought it was @ 7pm too and I think that helped Clyde to not feel like as big of a boob. He felt like he had let the team down, which I kept telling him that it wasn't his fault, but he disagrees.

random stories

We had to take Penny in to the dr. to run some tests this week and here she is patiently awaiting her appointment. They were about 20 minutes late, so I did the best I could to keep her occupied. Her appointment lasted for 2 hours. She was ready to go when it was all over.
Yesterday was free movie day @ the theater. We went with a few friends from church. I wanted to grab a shot of all the kids and Jacob jumped in the way with his goofiness. We saw "The Water Horse" which was cute. It was worth the drive to the free movies to see.
take 2 with the crew:
Since Penny is turning 3, our county school system will be picking up with her speech therapy. I went this morning to the Preschool EC office and it is located in a mobile home, behind a local High School. This was surprising to me. This isn't the only EC Pre-K office in our county, but I was still surprised to see it in a trailer.

game trois

Team Cal unfortunately lost their third game. I thought that they all played really well.

saving the ball...
look @ my baby go!

thunderstorm

This evening it began to rain really hard. Josh was afraid that it was going to flood, it was raining so hard. This is the view from our front porch.
This is our our basil and the rain dripping from the gutters. I would really like to have a rain barrel to catch the rain.
I also moved the tomato plants along with the watermelon, rosemary, cucumbers, and the beginnings of my sweet green peppers outta the pouring rain. The poor tomato plant was puddled with water.
I moved the other tomatoes, cucumbers, yellow squash, and oregano outta the drenching rain as well. They were still outside, but under a part of the roof so that they weren't just drenched.

new big sister

Blaklee is a new Big Sister! Rochelle had her baby on Friday night. During the day, Blaklee helped me make this bunny to take to the hospital to give to her new baby sister. She helped choose the color of the bunny, the color of her eyes, and stood right beside me @ the sewing machine, nearly the whole time, whilst under construction. Blaklee was so proud of the bunny. On the drive to the hospital, she wanted to make sure that the bunny was safe and buckled her in.
Just minutes before we met the new baby!

jennifer's wedding

Today was Jennifer's wedding. It was also my nephew, Jackson's birthday party. Since the wedding and Jackson's house were relatively close, we asked my brother Doc if our boys could just stay a bit longer after the party, instead of going to the wedding with us. I think that the boys had a lot more fun with Uncle Doc and Aunt Tara then they would've had @ the wedding. They swam, had birthday cake, and played with cousins. Way more fun for the boys.

A bit earlier in the day, we didn't know if the wedding was a go. I got a frantic type phone call from Jennifer saying that they had to move their wedding. Apparently the location of the wedding, @ a B&B, fell rottenly through and so they had been frantically cleaning up their house and yard to have the wedding there instead. Once it was established that the wedding was still on, we drove back to the Emerald city for the wedding.



While we were waiting for the wedding to begin, Penny was signing up a storm. She would take my face in her hands, to get my attention, and sign whatever she saw... a ball, a bike, she heard birds etc. She kept signing horse and I looked around and didn't see a horse. She signed it over and over again. I asked her where she saw the horse and she pointed to this:

the bride's brother's dread locks.

outdoor reception

While the bride and groom were having their photos taken, we were having some fun under the tent. It was beginning to rain and since the photos were taking so long, we tried to keep 3 girls occupied and a bit distracted. The caterer had some beautiful fruit set out, as a prelude to the beef tips to come. Everything was really nice.

While we were waiting, Clyde and I were chatting, something caught Clyde's eye. He reaches over and grabs this caterpillar off of the back of my shirt. Gotta love outdoor weddings!

dinner with friends

Yesterday afternoon we had our friends, the Brown's, join us for dinner. This was the first time that they had seen our new brown house. It was so much fun catching up with our good friends. The Brown's brought a friend with them, and we had Blaklee for the day...that's right...10 children @ our table last night...10!! They were hungry too. There was nearly total silence for 15 minutes as they gobbled down their salads, pork chops, green beans, and potato salad.

game deux

Last night was team Cal's 2nd game. The game before us didn't have a ref show up on time, so that pushed our game back by 30 minutes. The teams were all good sports about the time delay. Team Cal used the time to warm up. This game we had a bunch of our children, to which Clyde said, that it looked like the game was a ward primary activity. (team cal is the yellow shirted team...)


Clyde loves soccer. He played in HS and then he coached @ his middle school this spring. I love that he understands the game and knows where to put his body. He said that he tells his body where to be, but his body is slow to respond. Clyde plays great.
Towards the end of the game, a player on our team touched the ball with her hands, so that gave the opposing team a chance for a penalty shot. Clyde saved the day on this one. He blocked this one beautifully. He not only saved this shot but a good 5 or 6 from the opposing team throughout the game. Team Cal won, something like 5-0. The opposing team was an all gal team and they played rough. Clyde was even punched by one as she charged the goal. Another one ran into him and she hit the ground. All the team Cal players played a great game.

team cal

A few members of our ward decided to get together & have an intramural soccer team through our local YMCA. Tuesday night was their first game. The team has only practiced once and then it was so stinking hot and muggy that day, they all about passed out. Since they hadn't really practiced I think that they all played very well. Some of the team members haven't played soccer in 10 years, so they all did very well. They unfortunately lost their first game, but to their defense, the other team didn't have 1 gal on their team. I think that if the other teams do not have gals on their team, then they should be forced to forfeit or have penalties against them...like a technical foul / yellow card or something.
Clyde started out the game as goalie...
When it was time for a sub, then he traded positions and played in the field. Here is he rockin corner kick...

I tried to get the majority of the team in the shot.