In the good old summertime

Summer seems to be flying by.  Our garden is suddenly full of produce that needs to be taken care of.  Woot.  And girls that need to play.  The littlest daredevil figured out how to climb the slide, promptly fell off, and has a nice bruised cheek that is only now starting to fade.  So much for one year pictures. 

We have a rodent problem.  So far this year we've caught three voles in the garden.  The potatoes were still getting eaten so we decided to cut our losses and dig them early.  We ended up getting some decent sized potatoes and we have more in the potato fridge than last year.  Bob was making a pile and mentioned getting a bucket to put them in.  Helpful little Emmy ran off, "I will get a bucket!!"  We needed slightly bigger buckets.  :)

Sorting the chewed potatoes from the good potatoes.

Helping dig.

 This was the morning that the across the road neighbors got a new roof.  They pulled up chairs to watch.  And tried to shout things to them across the road all afternoon.  *sigh*  I'm not sure how they're related to me.

Cecily was pretty sure we were going to get a new roof the next day, even though U. Dennis had a really long waiting list and we hadn't heard for sure when they could get to us.  Well, guess who was so excited to wake up to "workermans" on the roof.  (Guess who was not so excited to wake up to pounding and thumping? Me.)

 It was so hot.  The heat index was over 100 and we had three guys on our roof- but it didn't seem to bother them.  They worked all day long in long sleeves, took very few short breaks, and didn't leave until the light was gone that night.  I was impressed, I for sure don't ever work that hard, definitely not in the heat.  We were only outside briefly because we are wimps.  They were speaking Spanish and my poor sheltered children were so confused.  "Are they talking Japanese?  Will they have to fly home to go to bed?"  I have failed.  Haha.  The guy driving the dump trailer gave Cecily a bike... with a bent front wheel, but she doesn't care.  It doesn't have training wheels so she thinks it's great.
Watching the shingles get delivered.

 We went to the kids swim time at the pool one morning and had the place to ourselves.  There was an aerobics class in the big pool and Cecily was "mermaid dancing" to their music.  Rather hilarious.  In the afternoon Cecily went to the eye doctor for her pre-kindergarten checkup.  I think she has my eyes... she doesn't need glasses yet, but she probably will.  Poor girl.
Friday and Saturday I was super productive!  I cleaned the house while the girls were at Emily's.  Cadence fell asleep on the way home so while she was napping I weeded the garden and picked beans. The big girls went to play next door at Miss Crystal's while I was in the garden so I didn't have to referee.  Then in the evening I mowed when Bob got home. I stayed up waaay too late finishing my latest sewing project and it was totally worth it.
Saturday I trimmed the boxwoods while Bob and the girls pulled onions because some of them were starting to rot; I'm hoping they didn't have some disease. The big girls helped me peel them and then I chopped them up in my food processor and filled 21 pint bags for the freezer.    Woot!  The whole house smelled and I had to wear my lab goggles to not cry, but hey, chopped onion for soup this winter!
The girls got dropped off at Bob's parents' and I cleaned up and got dessert ready for potluck.  I wore the shirt I finished the night before. (And a skirt I made a while ago. Huh.  I didn't plan that.) Please excuse the cheesy grin and bad selfie.  I was just so excited about that scalloped neckline.  It took me three tries to get it right- hence the 1 am finish time. I love my serger and jersey knit!  Anyway.  Potluck was a good time as always.

After two busy productive days and a Sunday in church, I was pretty worn out but off we went to the annual Koch water fight.   Dennis and Michelene rented this mammoth water slide.  That little purple blur in the foreground is Emmy running away because she didn't want to go anywhere near the slide.  She stuck to the kiddie pools.

Little squishy had just woken up from her nap, but never seemed to perk up.  She also was very warm.... poor baby had a fever and just wanted to sit in my lap, so that's what I did all evening.

 Cecily spent the night going up and down the slide.  She loved it.

And then we came home and crashed.  Well sort of.  I was up a few times with the sick one, but it didn't last much more than 24 hours and she's back to her usual busy, ornery self.
The girls like to help snip beans.  So I let them.  Even though we waste a lot of good bean in the "fetzes" pile.

I finished two rainbow-ish quilts for two rainbow babies.  There's a really quick method to sew jelly-roll strips together and it ended up the perfect size for two little quilts.  Hooray for baby gifts and using up scraps and sewing in the nice cool basement!

 Oh, this picture makes me weary.  Our washing machine didn't have its own drain, it drained into this ancient utility sink and something was clogged.  So I came downstairs to find this.  Ugh.  The coat hanger snake trick didn't work after I had bailed out all the water so we called Tim.

I the meantime I still had laundry and diapers to wash so we went on an adventure to the laundromat.  They were fascinated.

Clearly, I don't get them out of the house enough.  "Look!  Cadence's diapers are going around like a carnival!!"

"Look at them go around, Mom!"  Then they pushed Cadence around and talked to the kind gentleman who just wanted to read his paper while his load dried...

 Tim and U. Howard came today and reworked the laundry/sink plumbing.  Now the washer gets an actual standpipe and its own p-trap!

 And the sink drain now has a proper p-trap (I hate the 60's- especially the plumbing)! And the most beautiful thing of all, a cleanout!  Isn't modern plumbing the most gloriously wonderful thing???  

I'm also very glad we're related to them because within 5 minutes of their arrival the girls had shared our upcoming vacation plans and we left the house to run errands....
It's so hot.  We went outside after supper hoping it had cooled down a bit.  Nope.  Still 93 and humid.  We picked some zucchini and came right back inside.
Blessings.