frog family fountain

This watering can fountain has been a fun addition to my garden this summer and watching and listening to it makes things seem a little bit cooler in our present drought. And I discovered a few weeks ago that I'm not the only one enjoying the cool splashing of the water. A frog family has apparently taken up housekeeping in the rocks. First I saw the baby frog and then later the mom (or is it the dad? I'm not checking, thank you very much!). During Cousin Camp the kids excitedly discovered a frog out in the yard and before I could do anything else Damien threw it over the fence into the neighbor's yard! I could only hope that he didn't cause an immediate single family household but for the tiny look I got at it I think it was small so it might have been a sibling. Anyway, I'm probably overdramatizing the whole thing but it's a fun little scenario to follow and I'm glad I can provide a cool, wet place for at least a miniscule portion of the frog population! It's my own little Frog Hawaii!

Baby frog!

Mom (or Dad)

Cousin Camp continues! (sort of)

My niece, Lily, (Bob's brother's daughter) is a pretty accomplished cook and seamstress......for an 11-year-old. I've been impressed with not only her ability, but her enthusiastic drive. So today I had the privilege of joining her in her cake decorating ambition. She's already baked and decorated quite a few cakes and cupcakes but had recently acquired some "official tools" and was eager to learn some harder techniques. So she asked if I would come and teach her. I'm certainly no expert but have decorated a few cakes over the years and I will welcome any excuse to spend time with one of my favorite relatives. Caryl Ann was out of town, Don was at work, and Mimi was doing some summer reading assignments so it was fun to just hang out with Lily, doing something we both enjoy. As you can see from this picture she was very prepared! She had decorating stuff on that cart that I didn't even know existed! She'd already baked the cakes and everything! Such organization! So we got to work! I wanted to take a picture of the finished product but my camera battery died once again. That seems to be the familiar refrain lately! Well, it was a chocolate cake with pink roses. You should probably be glad you can't see the picture! It would only have made you hungry!! Bon apetite Lily!!

My friend Jane and the lesson

Yesterday I met an old friend in the Target parking lot. Jane is an old district PTA buddy of mine so I don't see her very often at all anymore but when I do I'm always blessed. She's one of most kind and gentle people I know and she pretty much spreads joy. We were standing there chit-chatting and after a few minutes she acknowledged a young woman that was standing behind me, seemingly waiting to talk to us. When Jane acknowledged her she timidly walked toward us saying that she did indeed need our help. I won't go into the details and she didn't even share much. But after she told us of her troubles Jane immediately opened her purse and without question, gave her what I noticed was at least more than a $1 bill (I'm pretty sure it was a $20). And I guess the way she did it is what struck me. There was no guile, as I've read in the Bible, none at all. Just a sweet and giving spirit that wanted to help someone in need. I'm the one that has to second guess, to judge the one seeking help. Will she use the money for drugs or alcohol? Is there really even a baby? Am I being taken advantage of? I'm so glad that I got to see firsthand how Jesus would actually do it. My current favorite Bible verse is in the 3rd chapter of James and it tells what wisdom from heaven truly is. It's pure, peaceloving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial, and sincere. I've always known I need work in the considerate, mercy, and impartial areas and I'm so thankful that God is teaching me. And who would have thought it would be in the Target parking lot!

My boy is home today!

Yeah, I know he's all grown up but Bobby will always be my baby boy. And I'm definitely a proud mom!!

He's home this weekend from his tech school for Air National Guard service at Sheppard AFB in Wichital Falls and he's patiently counting the days till he can finish up there, move on to his home base in Tulsa for two months, and then finally get back to working on his professional pilot degree from Southeastern Oklahoma State University in Durant. From that time on for the next five years he'll serve one weekend a month and two weeks in the summer in Tulsa.

But for today he's home and we love having him here. I don't even mind doing his laundry....at least not much! Here's a few pictures of my sweet baby boy for your enjoyment!

Here's Bobby and his girlfriend Jennifer at his basic training graduation in April


Just in case you can't figure it out, this is B flying. Kaylee took this pic from the backseat when he took Bob and her flying back in February, right after he took me up for my birthday. Good birthday!

This is some kind of motorcycle/bike thing Bobby bought at a garage sale because it was broken. He fixed it and now it sits in our garage!



This is how he spends a lot of his Sunday! That's my boy!



This one says it all!

Another Cousin Camp came and went!

Well, the house is quiet again and I'm trying to decide if that's a good thing. One thing I'm sure of is that I'll sleep well tonight. I wanted to share a few random pictures of our week together.

We were serenaded quite a bit from the piano. Here's Erin with her melody!
Amy and Erin learning about clean faces. And such precious clean faces too!

And sweet Lily after adding a little make-up. Surely she can't be old enough for that. Seems like just yesterday we were first blessed with her. By the way, my countertop isn't usually that messy! Really!!

Erin--the human sticker station. She was such a good sport to let the younger ones bombard her

I'm going to chase rabbits for a minute but why is it okay for boys to wear swimwear that covers their upper legs and we women think it's attractive to show our thighs and just about everything else? Just asking! Now back to Cousin Camp! Here's Damien being just adorable as usual!

Erin and Amy having a snack

Then Hannah and Lily decided to take a break

This was an assignment for the scavenger hunt. They had to take some pictures at one of those booths in the mall. We got to watch each shot outside as they posed. So funny!! Kaylee and I were laughing so hard! Great memories! This is Amy and Hannah. This picture of Hannah pretty much sums up her personality! She keeps us alert!

Sadie in the background and Damien up front having a water balloon fight at the water park

And they won!! Here's Sadie with her olympic medal

And proud Damien. Doesn't he look like a real olympian. Maybe he will be someday!

Amy, Erin, and Sadie

This probably turned out to be Damien's highlight when Bob tossed the baseball with him.

Cousin Camp Day 3

This is Erin! This is about day 3 in cousin camp! First of all, Aunt Jeanne woke most of us up around 8:00. We were allowed to watch TV before we ate breakfast. Which was a lot of really good pancakes! After breakfast, we had a little bit of free time to kind of clean up our room (Kaylee's old room) And get ready for the day. Then, we had bible study. We learned about the Gideon with the 300 isrealites. At 9:30, we went to the Keep Denton Beautiful or the KDB building to get our assignments. Here are a few pictures of us Keeping Denton Beautiful!

Right after we finished picking up trash, we went to a sno cone stand really close to Aunt Jeanne's house! Aunt Jeanne met the mayor of Denton without knowing it! He's the one that took the picture. It was awesome!

After we ate sno cones, we went back to Aunt Jeanne's house and got our swimsuits on and ate lunch. We ate speghetti! We stayed there for a few hours and then left for the Denton water park at 2:30. We stayed there, swimming in the indoor pool, sliding on water slides, and even played in the kiddie area and got SOAKING wet! We left the water park at about 8:00. When we got back to the house, we made homemade popcorn and ate a lot of it!

Now the cousins are going to share their favorites of cousin camp!

Sadie-Swimming and crafts. because it's fun

Lily- It's great to learn about God with your realitives. My favorite thing about Cousin Camp is

bible study because it's fun to learn about people in the Bible and what they do.

Hannah- My favorite part is going to the pool because it's fun.

Amy- It's a great camp. Doing the ministry project was my favorite part because it makes the world cleaner.

Damien- My favorite part of cousin camp was throwing the ball on the roof and catching it when it came down.

Erin- I think my favorite part would be the free time whenever all of us cousins go outside and swing or joggle or maybe build that funeral for that baby bird! It's just so much fun!

Day 2.....and counting!

Well, my blogging skills are lacking. I could not for the life of me figure out why the content of my days ran together but I'm going to write less tonight (yeah, right!!) and see if it helps.

The day started well with our time with God and we talked about heros and what that meant. It was interesting to hear their definitions of "hero" and who their ideas of a hero are.

So staying with that same train of thought, our first activity of the day was to visit a place where lots of heros are, the police station. This is the only picture I got because the "new" batteries I put into my camera turned out not to be charged either and did I think to take the extra pair??? Well, of course not. So here's the one picture of our time at the police dept. This is Officer Kizer, our tour guide. The whole thing was actually not that exciting till we got to see the insides of the the police car and got to hear first hand the siren. I've never seen a little boy fly out of a car so fast!! Poor Damien! He was a good sport about it though. We ran into the officer in charge of the bike patrol people and he actually gave all the kids a helmet (after Damien spouted off that he "didn't need a helmet"!!! )
After running home for more batteries we then made our way to the fire department where we were given a grand tour. Here's Sadie trying to drive the fire engine!!! Well, not really but you never know with Sadie!

After heading home to change into swim apparel we then made our way to the most important event of Cousin Camp, swimming, after stopping off at Pizza Hut to pick up lunch.

When we got home from the pool the kids sadly discovered a tiny baby bird on our patio that had apparently fallen out of the nest......... so they buried it...........yep, here's the proof!

On to happier times...........oh yeah, in case you hadn't already noticed, these shirts we're wearing are the ones we made yesterday. I was pretty relieved and actually pleased that they turned out so well. It was time for Fuddrucker's. Yum!!! Notice Damien still has on his fire hat...........I have laughed so hard at this kid during these last couple of days! Soooooo cute!

We sat at the Elvis table.

Aunt Foy lives pretty close to the mall area where we were so we decided to stop in and visit with her. She seemed to get a kick out of it and all the kids were so friendly and talkative! Such great kids you guys are raising!!!!

Now it was time for the annual scavenger hunt!! This time I decided to do it at the mall and I was glad. We had SOOOOO much fun. Here's a picture of one of the "assignments" they had to take part in. Notice Mimi is with us. She was able to join us today and will be a huge help for me tomorrow when we go to the water park.

I thought I'd show you a picture of the cousin dot store! Each child has a lanyard and when they do something nice for someone or obey well, etc.... I give them a cousin dot. Then each evening they get to go to the cousin dot store and spend their cousin dots. I collect this stuff all year long and they seem to really like it. I have also been known to take cousin dots away but thankfully that doesn't happen very often.

So that's it for the middle day. One more to go!!

Cousin Camp--Day 1

No broken bones this time!! Well, so far anyway. The first day of Cousin Camp is almost over and it's been a busy one. Everybody got here at about 10:00 and after going over a few rules of the house we hit the ground running. The first project was cooking. There were three groups of two and each group had an assignment. Amy and Damien created our snail sandwiches, Erin and Hannah turned out some cream cheese filled cucumber slices and toasty cheese hearts, and Lily and Sadie put together the VERY sweet M&M dessert. Here are some pics!

After lunch we tye-dyed our t-shirts and I forgot to take pictures!!! Well, let's just say that it was a little overwhelming getting started but once we got going it was really pretty easy. You'll see pictures of the final result tomorrow. Hope we don't blind you.

So then we had a little free time.

This was not on the schedule! Damien and Hannah created their own fun.

Then we crafted some more!

At 5:00 it was time for our traditional first day walk to Sonic. By this time Damien had gone to spend the night with Uncle Roger. He'll join us again in the morning.

Then it was time to eat and pose for the traditional picture with our waitress!

Oops, my camera battery just died so I guess I won't post any more pictures. When we got home from Sonic a friend of mine came and taught the older girls about cleansing their faces and how to apply modest make-up (don't worry Mom, we stressed that it was information for future use). While they did that the little girls got their finger and toenails painted. So we got all the girly-girl stuff out of the way while the lone boy, Damien, was out doing male bonding stuff with Uncle Rog. Now the best part of all.........bedtime! Ahhhhhhhhhh!