pink crickets

 This is our first garden tomato of the year.  It always amazes me how excellent they taste compared to store bought winter produce. hehe

 This is a painting gift I made for my step sister in law: Gumby. 

Pink.  This is a handpainted card for my friend.  Recently I found out that she has breast cancer.  As I painted this card, I cried.  My heart was sore with saddness.  I thought about how she is my age.  I thought about how her daughter is Isabelle's age.  I thought about my grandma (Helen) who died of breast cancer.  I thought of my dad who had throat cancer (and is a survivor!).  I also thought of many others whose lives have been touched, changed and swept away by Cancer.  As I created this card,  I felt very inspired and called to establish and work on a special project in these regards that I will reveal in due time. 

 Here is little Miss Olivia being boss of the siblings.  Noone else could use the pink Barbie computer except for her!  The end.

What is summer without a little baseball?  Some friends recently gathered for a very fun event.  Family fun at Little Cubs Field (a miniture cubs field that is built in our town and can be rented out for private parties).  Ben was in his glory...playing ball among all the other boys.  Hot dogs and peanuts and Cracker Jacks were to be had by all.  Isabelle chatted away with friends and I chased Olivia all about....and I even got to hit a few...and yes, I actually hit them!  (balls not children).

So here we are:  August.  This month we will celebrate some very special birthdays (Isabelle and Ben), go on a family vacation (lake house in Wisconsin) and start school among other things.  This month will fly by like the rest of the summer, I am sure of that.  I am thankful in the recent rains that our basement only got a little wet and we lost power/internet for a very short time.  I know that others suffered much worse.  Tonight, although the heat is high...I made chili.  Yes, I am crazy, I do believe..just really have had a taste for it lately.  Some Ben quotes of recent: " It sure is human (humid) outside." /  Do you think wrestlers squeeze them?  Squeeze what?  The peanuts to make peanutbutter?  Do you think they bring them to the wrestlers to squeeze cuz they are so strong? /  Do you think that I am too smart for Kindergarten (as we are working on his brainquest workbook for summer practice and I am telling him how awesome he is doing).  One must accept that plastic Spiderman Cups will not last forever.  I need to unbury my scrapbooking stuff.  I am inspired and longing to create some pages.  I feel we go through way too many papertowels.  I am trying these reusable papertowells to see how that goes.  The dog barks.  He barks often.   He unravels my brain cells.  Watching kids eat noodles of longitude is always uncomfortable...and of course I dread "the clean up".  I sadly think about my gray (or is it grey?) hairs that are sprouting about.  I wonder if aliens really do tend to have 3 eyes?  Do the cows really ever come home?  I think about how that term, til the cows come home....and I don't really get it.  Thank the Lord for air conditioning.  Buying and organizing school supplies is one of my favorite things.  Always has been, always will be.  I will even buy school supplies when there is no need.  I will just pull up a misc. list and pretend I need to complete it.  Sunburn itches.  Art is one of my all time favorite words.  Sometimes I wish it was quiet here. ..but then I realize that someday it will be , and really I have no choice but it to be non quiet.  Embrace it.  Boring bird selection lately.  Not to be negative.  Oh wait, I forgot, Isabelle did spy some giant birds in our trees a couple days ago.  They were:  Turkey Vultures.  We have been enjoying watching the bats flutter about outside each summer evening.  The watermelons have not been that impressive this season.  It's like hit or miss.  Everytime the icecream truck comes down our street, I say:  NO!  I know, I am not going to win the mom of the year award, but - oh well...I have my reasons.   Isabelle has been playing barbies like crazy this summer.  Ben plays with her too.  He asked me to help him get the pink sweater on his Ken doll the other day.  Noah loved that. hehe.  Ben wants boxing gloves for his birthday.  Isabelle wants earrings.  Ben keeps burping at the dinner table and I swear...he is ALL BOY in every single way.  It just comes natural...there really isnt anything else to explain...the jumping, the burping...the dirty....the climbing...the whole entire package...is just bound and determined to make it's way into the world.  BOY.  Oh, but this boy brings me so much joy.  I think about how lucky I am...to look into his big blue eyes and listen to his heart ramble on about monkeys and cowboys and his special blanket.  Then there are these amazing girls, who melt my heart.  I see me in them.  I don't see me in them.  Isabelle is so sensitive.  I wish I could protect her more from her feelings.  But, I know this is her and how she is meant to be in the world.  Sensitive and sweet.  I pray for protection around my children constantly.  I ask to be with them for as long as possible.  There are noodles all over my table and the children are outside doing flips and cartwheels in the front yard.  I hear the crickets and I remember what it feels like.  To play...in the grass...on a summer's eve.   To not know the hardships of the world....just to know what I feel and that it feels good to be alive....smelling the grass...catching fireflies as the sun disappears into the darkness.  Running breathless until I fell to the ground.  Laughing and loving all that was my existance.  Getting cleaned up...pajamas...soft warm bed in my parents home.  safe.  and loved.   Well Ben wants me to go watch his backflip.  Goodnight and Goodbye until we meet again.