Seven Children!

It's hard to believe that all of these children could be in one family.....

Luke (10) - will be 11 in September, Austin (9) - will be 10 in June, AJ (9), just turned 9 in April, Victoria (7), Colin (he'll be 6 tomorrow), Carter 3 and Lily (21 months). Luke is 9 months older than Austin, and Austin is 9 months older than AJ.

We enjoyed having Colin & Carter Wellard over for a while this afternoon.

First Swim of the Summer - Summer is Here. It's Official!!

This picture is out of order, but I forgot to add it in order and it takes to long to fix it...

We've been having such hot, summery weather lately. We needed to pick up an old dresser from my parents' house and (coincidentally) they had just opened their pool for the season. So we "killed two birds with one stone" and let the kids swim while we were there getting the dresser. The adult were all too chicken to go in the cold water, but all the kids loved it. I didn't think Lily would want to go in, but she sure did. She did NOT want to get out. Jeff said that he felt that water and it actually wasn't too cold.

Here are a few cute pictures of Lily @ Oma & Opa's house.....

Lily LOVES water, but she wasn't too sure about it. I hadn't even put her in her bathing suit because I didn't think she'd want to go in if it was too cold, but I should have known better.

Tori loved pulling Lily in the little boat.

As did Luke (or Duckey, as Lily calls him)

Cutie Pie

Buddies - Austin & AJ

Whoo Hoo!

Cajun AJ'n

Love the way she's holding on.

The Duke
Dusty Dog relaxin'

AJ's turn!

The wren nest in my mom's fake plant on the porch!

Heart-to-heart with Opa.

Awww.......

Victoria Day 2010

I know that most of my friends reading this blog are Americans, so you might not know that today is a holiday in Canada. It is Victoria Day in honour of Queen Victoria, though our Victoria Faith says it's in honour of her! :-)

We had a most wonderful holiday, if I do say so myself. The weather was picture-perfect. Hot and sunny. I kept sending the kids outside to enjoy the beautiful weather. I know they think I'm terrible, but they did not play even 1 minute of wii today - it was just WAY TOO nice to sit inside (in my opinion). The older four kids (Luke, AJ, Victoria & Austin Feere) went to the park in the morning and Lily, Buckeye and I spent that time on the back porch. It was just so nice. Jeff worked hard all day painting the gable of our house to match the addition and it looks great. I'll have to take pictures (of course!)

Before lunch, all 5 kids and I worked together and got the garden planted. Well, actually, AJ, Victoria & I did most of the work, but we'll say that the other 3 helped, too! :-) It's in and I'm happy. We planted green beans, lettuce, tomatoes, red peppers, daisies & black eyed Susans. I'm afraid that even though Jeff took down the tree that was in the garden, that we're still not going to have enough sun to have a great garden. Oh, well. We will certainly try. (Again, I'll have to take pictures, but I'll wait until you can see something!)

Then for supper I cooked hot dogs and German sausage on the grill and we had potato salad and strawberries with them. Mmm-mmm! After we cleaned up from supper, all 7 of us walked to McDonald's for ice cream and then over to the park. Well, actually, Victoria & Lily rode in the wagon, but the rest of us walked. Then we came home, got baths & showers and the kids went to bed. What a great day off we enjoyed!

Here are a few pictures. The boys were here there and everywhere and I didn't get any shots of them. (Keep in mind that Jeff does NOT like to have his picture taken. He's such a good sport for me, though!)

Bath Time

Here are a couple of cute pictures of Lily after her bath on Saturday night.....

Gardening/Landscaping

Here are some pictures of our flower gardens & landscaping around our house. I don't know the names of everything, but I do know most of what I have planted! :-)

Here are my tomato & pepper plants waiting to be planted.

There is a story behind these plants.....Two Easters ago, my mom (as she does every year) bought our church an Easter lily for Easter Sunday. She told me to take it when it was done blooming and to plant it in my garden. Well, I brought it home from church and set it on the sidewalk, fully intending to plant it asap. Well, as things go, by the time I looked at it again it was dead...dead as a doornail. Well, I felt guilty and planted it anyway. At least I could tell my mom that I really did plant it. Well, would you believe it? A few months later I see two little green things popping through the dirt. The one lily turned into two and I had Easter lilies during the summer! This year, those two turned in to five and as you can see, I did plant this year's lilies right away! :-)

Jeff planted these in this neat planter on our garage for me.

Not sure what exactly these are. They look like irises or lilies of some sort. I just know that there are a LOT of them. I'm not sure I love the color of these, though. They almost look like they're dying the first day they bloomed because they have a brown tinge at the edge.

My hostas - they are hostas, right? :-)

Now I KNOW that this is a lilac. Another story....a dear lady in our church gave me a baby lilac two years ago. I was so excited and was thrilled to have it. Last summer, AJ was helping me to weed my gardens and he came over and said, "Mom, look at this HUGE weed!" :-( It was my lilac!!! :-( He just yanked it right out like a weed. I sadly replanted it with little hope that it would survive such horrible treatment! :-) So Mrs. Thompson gave me a couple more little lilacs this year. While I was watching Jeff dig the hole to plant them, I looked over to the side and there was that dear, old lilac doing just fine. Well, half doesn't have leaves, but what do you expect?? :-)

Have no idea what this is, but it's nice and green with pretty little purple flowers.

Here is Jeff's new Heron. He said that he's always wanted one. It looks so nice in our garden. He had to anchor it down in hopes that the neighbourhood thieves would be unsuccessful in stealing it!

I need to fill in here maybe with some annuals.

Our front door, obviously!

My lilies of the valley - they smell SO good.

My mom gave me this pretty flower for Mother's Day. I love these flowers so much.

Even Lily was getting in the gardening spirit.

Happy Girl! Luke, AJ, Victoria & Austin were all at my parents' house for the weekend, so Lily enjoyed following us around helping out with the gardening.

My brand new peony bush. I sure hope it doesn't die. I had a peony a few years back, but it died. I am thinking of getting some pansies for those little spots around the perimeter. Also thinking about what I might put in the center along with the peony....any suggestions very welcome.

A close up of my peony.

Our pretty shed with its freshly painted door and trim.

Some of the cherries on our cherry tree. I'm hoping that they'll be edible. Usually the worms get them, but Jeff sprayed the trees this year.

Lily was "helping" with some tree trimming.

I love this little well that I've had for almost 9 years. A man in the church where we went in Ohio made it for me for my birthday one year.