Heritage Days

Well, it's that time again!! Our village held their annual heritage days this past weekend and it was lots of fun....even if we did lose half our body weight in sweat. Here is the slideshow of the days spent at the horse rides, the petting zoo and the train rides!! We got to ride in the parade on the school float and the kids were allowed to throw treats, so they had a blast. We ended the weekend with a bang, literally, with a really great fireworks show!! I was quite impressed by what the little village did with the weekend. Hope you enjoy the slideshow!!

Beany Bounty

Well, the garden did get put in, and looked so lovely, really it did. I planted Kale, lots of different lettuces, broccoli, cabbage, corn, beans, and some other trial ideas. Everything was going fairly well....and then the nausea set in. Oh did it ever. Going outside and bending over to pick weeds was about the farthest thing from my mind for the last couple of months. Kelly has been a champ about weeding for me on and off when he has a spare moment. The rain has been amazing and we've only had to water sporadically. (Except when we first planted the seeds, then I watered twice a day for 2 weeks. Yeah, that was BEFORE I got sick.) Anywho, everything has grown amazingly well considering the terrible neglect they've all suffered! Here are a few pictures of the bountiful harvest.

So the corn got REALLY TALL! The corn in the fields is so deceiving! I never knew it was 6 feet tall!! These rows were actually planted a week apart to "stagger the harvest".

This one has three ears growing!

This is some "salad bowl" lettuce

And this is "Green Leaf" lettuce. We can all see the difference right??

This is our apricot tree in the far back of the yard, heavy laden with teeny apricots.

Unfortunately it is now our LONE apricot tree because the storm last week split the other one in half! I will have pictures up of all the damage the straight wind did here in our town sometime soon.

Lots of Yellow Lillies

These are the bush beans I planted. I only did two "squares" of them, which means a 1'x1' space. We have quite a harvest from only these 18 plants! I will definitely plant these again.

Kavan and I picked the first round of the beans just last night. He loves to help in the kitchen.

He washed them all up for me!
Here's Maddie holding the first beany bounty in a gallon ziploc. Can't you see how excited she is to get to eat those later?!

Well, that's it for this Splitty Yard update. I do hope that I am feeling better soon, because I would like to try a fall garden. A lot of people prefer it because of the more comfortable temps and the lower amount of weeds! Both sound good to me!

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Cassandra

P.S. Edited to add: I would be remiss not to mention that Kelly has been working super hard to get our huge pile of branches and such taken care of from the very back of the yard. He has reached his goal and the whole pile has been burned! Thanks for your help Tony! Kelly also took on the herculean task of mowing the entire yard with the push mower this weekend, since our rider has a broken part which is apparently difficult to find. Let's just have a moment of silence for the hours spent toiling behind that lovely push mower in the balmy sun all over 3/4 of an acre, shall we? Thanks, I think Kelly would appreciate it. We raise our tall, icy cold glasses of lemonade to you hon! LOVE YOU!!

Music and Mozzarella

Thursday we went to a great event at the Children's Museum of Lincoln called Music and Mozzarella. They offer live music and entertainment from 5-7 and then include some yummy pizza and breadsticks!! The music is free and the mozzarella is pretty cheap, so it was a great way to spend the evening with the kiddos. Since it's outside at the Children's Museum, we HAD to check out the inside as well! We went ahead and purchased a family pass for the year, which is a really great deal for a family our size! It will be paid for in only three visits, and the kids absolutely love it! Kavan has woken up everyday since with "We go to the museum today?" being the first thing coming from his mouth! Here are a few highlight photos of the day, we will hopefully be going again soon! (I was going to do another slide show, but a few family members are having a hard time getting them to load, so here they are all laid out for ya!)

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Cassandra

The Prairie Dog Tunnels

Peek!

Brody the dancer...Always performing!That's her motorcycle mamma face...her Grandpa Dave would be so proud :O)

Even away from home, Thomas the Train is his favorite thing!

Brody liked the little girl just as much as the trains... That's my boy!

This was a big hit with Maddie and Kavan, a space shuttle with working lights and sounds that had a launch sequence that they could activate as well. Pretty cool.

Cutest fireman ever!
We met up with lots of our friends for the music and mozzarella part of the evening. Yummy!
See, we took up the whole side of the lot! Utica was representin'!

Seriously Mom, do I have to wear this thing, it is SO embarrasing! Hard at play...
She painted her OWN face this time, and she did a great job! :O)

A Family Fourth

Well, we had a great day with friends and family on Friday the Fourth! (Wow, that's a lot of F's....) We had Kelly's parents and brothers and their families over to our home after we had done a tour of the goings on at Seward. The kids and Lisa and I took in the free movie for a large chunk of the time, which was great for us pregnant types! We like our air conditioning thank you very much! :O) The movie was great as well, it was the new Veggie Tales full length film, The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything. Meanwhile the other non-child members of our party checked out the cars and the food on the square. After the movie we took in some of the dancing at the bandshell and bought a few souvenirs for home.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we all hung out for the day having some great fellowship whilst watching our little ones play outside. Everyone headed home early in the evening since there were long drives awaiting them. Later that night Maddie, Kavan and I went over to a friend's house to watch fireworks with lots of our favorite people. It was a late night, and mommy was WAY TIRED, but it was a fun day and worth the long hours. Here are some fun photos from our day. Hope you had a grand Fourth and a Happy Independence Day!!

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Cassandra

New Blog Title

As many of you NOW know, we are excited to be expecting another addition to our family! So, we have changed the sub-title of the blog accordingly and have added a baby calendar to the sidebar so we can all keep track together. We'll keep you posted as things "develop". :O) In RELATED news, Tony and Lisa (Kelly's brother and sister-in-law) are also expecting!! So Paul and Sally (Kelly's parents) had quite the announcement given to them by Maddie and Alexandra this weekend! God is so good and we thank Him for showering our families with blessings. Here's to growing fat together Lisa!
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Cassandra

How to PROPERLY eat a Cupcake

Broderick thoroughly enjoyed celebrating Addison's Birthday last month. Thoroughly.
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Cassandra