Dominic turns 6!

My big guy turned 6 yesterday! We had a park playdate and cupcakes for his birthday. Then at home later he got to open presents. He got new shirts, a pillow pet and his skateboard and gear. So far he is a little afraid of falling, which is fine with me because he goes slowly. :)

Baby bump - 35 weeks.

Not the most glamorous picture in the world but here it is. 35 weeks preggo. Feeling pretty great. I spent over a month this summer with major back pain. I finally got a chiro to work it out for me. Anyway, we are all getting very excited for baby to make his/her arrival. We are also excited to see what we get girl or boy. :)

First dress I ever made.

I had some awesome corduroy fabric that I wanted to make something with, so I attempted a dress. Other than having a small problem with the pattern, it turned out pretty well. Its just a simple over the head dress. It fits her pretty well. I can see a few things that I would make differently next time. I am planning on making a matching one for me baby niece. I think it will be so cute to get the two girls in a picture together. The dress is a very bright navy blue with the green and white paisley which looks awesome on my brunette who has blue eyes.

Gioia turns 8!

My sweet girl turned 8 last month! She is getting so big. She is so smart and really fun to be around. She had a slumber party for her birthday. They had a great time.

120th Annual Jameson Picnic

This past weekend Aug.11-13th was the Jameson Picnic. It is our little hometown fair. Its been going on for 120 years and though it has gotten much smaller, it is still really fun. The weather was GREAT for once.


The kids were in the Talent show on Thursday night.
Gioia sang "When you say nothing at all" by Allison Krauss. She won 2nd place in the 7-12 age group. Dominic got up there last minute and sang one verse of "You are my Sunshine." He also got 2nd place. Of course there were only 2 kids in Dominics age group 0-6.

Then on Friday night Luca was in the baby show. He didn't win but thats ok. Zoey (my sisters baby) won the 0-6 month girls group. She is super adorable.

Saturday was a parade and kid games. Dominic got 1st place in the Watermelon eating contest. Gioia won the sack race. Luca won 2nd in pennies in the sand game. So they all won in some game. Dominic won a few more things that I am forgetting right now. I think he won a place in the sack race too.

Farm improvements.

We have been trying to finish up projects around the farm. One major project is extending our pole barn. We are planning to have room to store the cars and also our wood for winter. You can see in this picture that they have the sides up and one bay has the roof finished. M has to put the tin on the last two bays and then he wants to make rolling doors for the fronts.


We also have the chicken pen up. My brother and my husband got the poles in and fence up. We may later add a roof on it but we are seeing how it goes first.

Our neighbors came down and baled the hay in our first field. They got about 12 small round bales. We were just glad to have someone come and cut it for us.

Sling Chair

We have been in need of some more outdoor chairs. So when I found these plans:
http://ana-white.com/2011/06/wood-folding-sling-chair-deck-chair-or-beach-chair-adult-size
I knew I wanted to make these. I ordered the fabric and last weekend got the wood. It is pretty comfortable I must say. The kids love it. This is the adult size. They are already hounding me that I have to make 3 kid chairs. :) It still needs some work. I have to sand and stain it. Building it only took about 1 hour and sewing the fabric pieces about 30 minutes.


It is adjustable so you can recline to an almost flat position. It also folds up flat for storage. The fabric is woven through the slats with dowels (like a curtain) so you can take it off and throw it in the washer. Nice!

ZOO!

This week my big kids are at Zoo Camp. It is all week day camp at the KC Zoo. They have been having a blast. The teachers said Dominic did excellent. We made it there on time, I picked them up on time and we didn't forget lunchs or anything. Success!! One morning my sister and her baby met us there to see the Zoo. It was fun. Zoey stayed awake the whole time and might have even noticed some of the animals. She will be more into it next year. :)

Me, Zoey (niece) and Luca on the tram.


Mommy and Luca

Luca on the Carousel.

Retro Fabric diaper bag.

I found this link to make your own tote bag. It was a little different than bags I had made before but overall I really liked it. I made it in one evening. I totally love this mushroom fabric. I have had it for a while now and looking for a great project to use it on. So this will be my new diaper bag. The inside fabric is some espresso upholstery fabric I had left over from my headboard project for my bed. It is nice and thick and washable. I think it turned out great. Notice how all the fabric lines up and everything. YEAH! I love it when it works out the first time.


It has a brown courdory pocket on the outside of the front.


It has three pockets across on the inside.


http://sewprimkhris.blogspot.com/2010/04/tote-bag-tutorialfree-pdf-pattern.html

All around the Farm.

Here are some great flowers we planted this year. Mom! They don't look like thistles now! HA HA!


Our garden is getting off to a great start. You can see our chicken coop in the background. The wooden poles next to the coop will be a finished enclosed run for the chickens. Right now they are free ranging a bit but there are problems with that of course. So the enclosed run will be nice.

Dominic helped me pick some fresh strawberries out of our garden! They taste awesome.


We planted over 10 blueberry plants. DH dug out the grass, put pine logs around the area and cedar mulch to keep the weeds out. I think it looks good. On the left is the strawberry patch. I hope to double the strawberries by next year. I need to plant some more.


The last thing of the day. My hen laid this shell-less egg. Actually what happened is she didn't lay yesterday and today I went out to find she had laid two eggs, one regular and this shell-less one. See how my thumb pushes into the egg. It is like a rubbery egg. Weird!!!

Bubbles.

My mom came to visit a while back and she brought bubbles for the kids. Its a sure way to get them to use up some energy. For days we would blow bubbles and chase them around the yard. Oh its the simple pleasures in life that makes having kids so much fun.

1st communion

My sweet girl Gioia took her 1st Communion at Mass this weekend. My mom and my dad and stepmom all got to be there for it. It was pretty great. She looked so beautiful.

Gardening!

So far this year I can report that our gardening is going better than last year. To this point I have planted:
Radishes
Lettuce
Kale
Spinach
Broccoli
Cabbage
Green Beans
Sweet Potatoes
Bell Peppers
Tomatoes
Carrots

DH also bought and planted 10 more Blueberry bushes and 5 more Raspberry plants. 6 apples trees, 2 pear trees, 2 peach trees and 2 plum trees.

The radishes are doing great we have picked 3 small batches so far.

Busch Gardens - Tampa

So the last leg of our trip was to go up to Tampa and stay for 3 days. While there we visited Busch Gardens twice. It was AMAZING! I totally recommend it for small kids. Their kids area was Sesame Street theme, which was perfect for my kids. We saw "the real" Big Bird, Grover and Zoey. They kids had there pictures taken with them. They were SOO excited. I have to admit I was pretty excited they had Big Bird there. He is one of my favorites. My big kids could ride two of the adult water rides which I rode with them. All the kids could ride the rides in the kid section, they required an adult with Luca sometimes.

We watched a couple shows. One was with animals who could do all these tricks. It was made to look like the animals and humans were together on a deserted island and working together. Then we saw a Pirates 4D show. The back of the seats sprayed water and air at us and the movie itself was 3D.

They also have spray park for the kids and you can bring in bathing suits and towels.

Finally, a huge section is a Zoo. They have a train that runs through the whole park. It also goes through the African animal habitat. Here is a cool interactive map of the park so you can see what it looks like: http://buschgardens.com/Bgt/Explore/ParkMap.aspx


All kids with Big Bird.


Grover and Zoey monster with the big kids.


Luca at Spray Park inside Busch Gardens.

More vacation pictures - Fort Myers

So we flew into Fort Myers and stayed for 3 days. The first day we visited Sanibel. The second day we drove down to Naples area and took a boat tour. We saw Manatee, many kinds of birds and a Dolphin. It was pretty cool. I think the kids favorite part was helping drive the boat. Luca didn't make it through the whole ride. He fell asleep the last 1/2 hour or so.


The third day we went to Fort Myers beach. It was super fun. We went back on our last day as well.

Sanibel Island

Our first full day in Florida we went across to Sanibel Island. It is beautiful, clean and very unique. We took our lunch and stayed all day. We went to the beach and then ate our lunch. After that we went and rented a double 4 seat bike. It fit all 5 of us, since 3 are kids. Massimo pedaled us all around the island and we stopped and got the most amazing ice cream. We had flavors like Blueberry Buttercream Cookie and Carmel Marscapone Pistachio.

Luca preferred to play in the sand. He was a little intimidated by the waves, even though they were pretty small and mild.



Gioia found a hole someone else had started in the sand and really went to work making it bigger.

Florida Vacation

This week we took a family vacation to Florida. It was awesome and amazing. The weather was upper 80's all week, no rain and just perfect. I am going to post about it in a couple different posts so it doesn't get too picture heavy. The kids did great on the airplane and really enjoyed it. It was Luca's first plane ride. We flew into Fort Myers and stayed for a few days then went to Tampa for a few days.



Here is the view from our hotel in Fort Myers. There is a great little restaurant in the mall area next to our hotel. It is called Gator Bites and they have Alligator on the menu. We went there and ate. It was really good. The waiter said he had never seen kids willingly eat Alligator like that (and like it so well). I thought that was weird and funny. My kids thought it was cool to try Alligator.



Looking out the hotel the other way is a Nature Preserve. You couldn't go on the land but it looks cool.

Spring, for real this time, right??

I should have awesome pictures to post but I don't. So here is just a list of all the fun things we did this weekend!

1: The boys and I went to my moms for the weekend.
2: We watched the musical Oklahoma! and it was great!
3: Luca got to stay with his Great Grandma and had a blast.
4: The boys got to play in the hay, see cows and spend time on Papaw and Grandma's farm.
5: My hubby bought 4 apples trees and 2 plum trees AND GOT THEM PLANTED!! WOO HOO!!
6: He also bought 10 blueberry bushes and 3 raspberries. He got most of them planted.
7: I planted cabbage, broccoli and flowers.
8: Hubby got the whole garden tilled.
9: Hubby got the whole yard mowed (2 acres).
10: We watched Tangled, the new Disney movie about Rapunzel.

All in all it was a super great weekend. I will try to post some pictures soon.

Spring is here!

Why is it that 45 degrees in the spring feels so much nicer than 45 in the winter? One of lifes mysteries I guess. I am sure it is because of more sun, less wind and all that.

I am starting to feel much better with the pregnancy. I got a little baby bump already. Heck, its number 4 the tummy just plops right out there after you pee on the stick. HA HA!! I am going to get my hair done this weekend and I guess I will be going back to my normal brown hair. I figure dyeing it once back to normal is better for baby than dyeing it every 2 months to keep it red.

We killed our meat chickens last weekend. We only ended up with 3 of them. 2 met there end with the dog and 2 got sick and died. We still have some more Roosters babies growing out in the coop. They were question marks (hen or rooster?) when we got them. I sure hope one at least is a girl I think 1 is for sure a boy at this phase. All roosters will be dinner.

Not much else to report. I started the garden. Put in Radish and Kale so far. I want to get some lettuce in but it says it might snow this weekend? PLEASE NO! So I will wait a bit longer.