Meri Jane

 7 years old!

 She is definitely a "snacker" =)

 Loves dogs and animals

 Posing pretty

See the note under the 3rd picture above--this girl half the time thinks she is a dog/horse/elephant, etc...I think she was supposed to be a dog here --she loves to pose with her hand like a dog's paw ;-) 

Love this silly, funny, full of life and giggles girl....

Happy Birthday Meri!

Maxazilla

In the country, there are always a lot of opportunities to observe nature.  The other day we were in our garden and found this neat cocoon.  I should have taken a picture of it immediately but didn't.  It was a bright green with gold sparkles on around it.  In the next day or two it looked like this:

 Emerging

Poor Maxazilla--she had crumpled wings and as far as we know couldn't fly.  So the kids were pretty sad about that.  They kept her on a flower on our porch and fed her milkweed and tried to feed her sugar water.  Then the next day we left the house for a bit and came back and she wasn't there.  Maybe she flew off?  Well, that's what they like to think anyhow. 

It was neat to see this anyways.

It's that time of year again!

Meri, 6

 Emily, 9

 James, 3

Jacob, 10

All in all, they're mostly excited about starting school, and the first few days went good! 

Eat my Dust

One of Joe's tractor pulls from earlier this summer.  The kids ( & I) love watching him pull =)

Beach days

 ^^^^^^^We went to Coon Fork last week, awesome time as you can see =)

^^Went again this week with the cousins--awesome time again =) 

It's hard to believe summer's about over.  I guess it takes the reality of it almost being over for us to take advantage of the beach.  Well, that and this summer was a little cooler than normal.