My Mema’s recipe

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Here is my favorite recipe of my Mema’s. One that brings back wonderful memories and I enjoy making with my girls.

Ready?

Ingredients: 

  • Graham Crackers
  • Frosting

Directions

  • Put frosting on graham crackers
  • Store in a Tupperware container (tupperware container required)

That’s it.

Family traditions don’t have to be fancy to create great memories. 

Which is good, because I am not good at fancy. 

Lowering the bar takes off the pressure of unrealistic expectations (I can’t work and cook elaborate meals and keep an immaculate home and finish the laundry and remember to grocery shop….and stay sane all at the same time) and allows me to just enjoy my family.

Just a friendly reminder to relax and enjoy those you love.

Thanks for reading friends.

Sunset

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While picking up the living room I saw an orange glow outside….afraid something was on fire I went out on the back porch to look. 

The sunset was absolutely magnificent, photos can’t compare. 

I took a moment to enjoy a wonderful peaceful moment to end the day.

Presently I heard little voices (that were supposed to be asleep) bleating for attention. And so I headed back inside to responsibility.

Thankful for reminders that I’m not in charge of everything.

Father’s day for farmers

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We won’t have a big celebration for Father’s Day. There isn’t time for that in a farmers schedule.

The girls have requested to help with a dinner they planned of salad, fried chicken, onion rings and fried pies. They will make Lynn a card, and I got him some new work pants. Beyond that, it will be business as usual.

But really it’s the simple thing that matter most…like tonight Lynn began to teach Caroline (who loves numbers) about how to calculate soybean population. (Here is the formula he was using https://www.agweb.com/mobile/article/calculate-soybean-populations-with-the-hula-hoop-method-naa-sonja-begemann )

We will spend time together after church doing chores.

And we will get to enjoy views. 

We will get to spend the day together and together is what we enjoy.

Happy Father’s day!

Late for Church

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The girls and I have been chasing rabbits out of our garden. (Maybe one of us is pretending to be Mr. McGregor…)

We are trying to leave for church now after changing our shoes on the back porch.

However….

Claire Grace has locked Caroline and I outside on the back porch (I left my car keys in the house) and we can hear Claire belly laughing at us from inside the house. 

I’m paying for my raising with that kid. 

Little stinker.

It’s a beautiful life.

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While Lynn has been farming like crazy, I’ve had a chance to spend extra time with the girls. 

They are infinitely easier for me to manage this year as compared to last. I loved the snuggly baby stage, but I think my overall personality is better suited for parenting kids rather than babies.

They are mischevious, stubborn and sweet. They tell jokes, and laugh at mine. We laugh out loud every day. Since I work outside the home I rarely want a break from being with them when I’m off. 

Being that they are three and five obviously there are a few behavioral things we are working on, and we have personality clashes but as a general rule parenting is fun. (It’s also hard and exhausting and messy…but the love and laughter outweigh the hard things)

I’m in a very thankful spot right now. (Which I’m sure will change and I’ll be a gripey mess in no time.)

Lynn even brought me my favorite takeout for dinner tonight – Mexican. 

It is not perfect, but it’s a beautiful life.

Kind-of Family picnic

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May was a whirlwind.

I worked quite a bit extra to get things wrapped up in the 4-H world for the end of the year.

Lynn has worked non-stop between rain showers and hasn’t let up the pace yet. He comes home exhausted, eats dinner, showers and collapses until it’s time to wake up and start again. I don’t know how he keeps going. Probably because he’s stubborn. 

They have finished planting corn, and working on planting soybeans and baling/hauling in hay. The girls and I thought Lynn would be especially late tonight, so we brought fast food to the field after I got off work. 

Naturally the girls were “starving to death”…and since waiting on a farmer is unpredictable we went ahead and ate before our french fries got cold. 

Claire has a bit of a fever and wanted to go straight home (I took the to the Dr to check her ears for infection….the verdict was a virus) but Caroline wanted to ride the tractor to the barn and come home with Lynn. 

When we got home, Claire quietly opened some Snow Cone syrup I bought and poured it in a cup like a drink and sipped the thick stuff like a drink…yuck. 

Caroline came home feeling grown-up and special and like a “real farmer”. Oh, to be 5years old. 

Garden time

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There is some saying about how the cobbler’s kids get their shoes last. I forget how it goes.

It’s similar with the farmers family getting their garden put in. Of course, I could man up and do it myself… Or not. Come-on. Be reasonable people.

It may seem odd, but we do not live on the actual farm. There is no particular reason for this other that this is where we moved when we first got married back in 2005. In our minds was going to be temporary. But, it’s a good sturdy house and we’ve done a lot of living in it. 

We have about an acre. About half of it is our house and yard. In the yard is our garden. The other half of it is a sweet corn patch.

Today Lynn finally had a chance to till up the ground. 

Soon the girls will be selling sweet corn from this patch of ground

We don’t start seeds like tomatoes and peppers early (one day I want to have a little greenhouse for that…but at this life stage I don’t have the time for it) so I went to the Co-op and got some plants. 

While we were at the store Claire climbed in the middle of a windchime display and made a awful racket. She thought it was hilarious that everyone looked at her. I was less amused. 

We also got onion sets, cantelope plants, cucumber plants, a couple types of squash plants and a half pound of bushbean seed. I also got some herbs. I’m sure we will plant some more things as we think of them. 

Lynn had tilled up the garden first, so we girls got started planting it while he worked up the sweet corn patch.

It was the first year since we’ve had kids that I was able to accomplish it without giving up. The girls were finally helpful. Nobody ate dirt. Nobody cried. It was fantastic.

Planting the onion sets.

Official hole digger

They also planted the beans in the squiggly and randomly placed rows I dug for them. Lynn is much better at garden neatness and order, but hey he IS a professional after all. I’m just an amateur. And I’m fine with that. Beans out of a squiggly row will taste just as good. 

I’m looking forward to some fresh garden veggies. 

Happy Monday friends. 

No kids at the grocery store

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I went to the store today withOUT the ratbabies. 

It was quiet. It was peaceful. I could read my grocery-list in its entirety and not have to peel a small person off a merchandising display.

It was lovely.

Except
Nobody told me ANY jokes.
Nobody fought over who got to hold my hand.

There was absolutely no one at the store that got so excited about anything (and everything) they literally jumped up and down and screamed with joy.

Nothing embarrassing (but funny) happened. At all.

No one danced by the frozen foods.

There were no fights over the shopping cart.

I got zero hugs, and zero kisses.

It was normal, and boring….and a little bit lonely.
Good golly …. I think I actually missed grocery shopping with my lovely children, and all of their talkative, distracting, messy glory. 

This doesn’t mean taking them to the store in the future won’t eat at what little sanity I have left. 

But part of me will sure be happy they are there. I’m certainly going to work on appreciating what I’ve got.

Have a great week friends.