these two

funny.

favorite playmates.

friends.

family.

And where was May?.... bonding with her new cousin!

below is a little video of Jaedyn talking & laughing @ Cam. please note, no one was harmed in the making of this film.(i can just see the "running with lollipop" email now haha) 

video by Mayden Speer.

her green thumb

Mayden has been tending to these pots all summer long. She received them at some point during the spring each embedded with a seed. May diligently watered them multiple times a day (over-watering? meh) for weeks and weeks. nothing. She kept going back to them and Cam kept reminding her that "nothing is growing in your plants". Well, yesterday she decided to take matters into her own hands and wanted to replant some seeds. I didn't have any flower seeds in the house at the time (only spinach) so she went to her Grandma Miller with pleading eyes and *surprise* got her way! No seeds, but transplants... even better - instant gratification!

May likes to get her hands dirty just like her Mano. Do we have a FFA on our hands?

or a future midwife? that would be my guess. May spent hours touching her Aunt Neeka's belly waiting for her new cousin to move around. Her persistence was rewarded a few times!

in the garden...

chickens roam

we watch as our pumpkin vines creep into our neighbors yard (sorry!)

I see lots of green tomatoes and trying to be patient!

almost tired of eating zucchini every other day

one of my favorite zucchini recipes! found it years ago as an advertisement for "I can't believe it's not butter" in a magazine.... I of course, use butter when making it :o)

#30 of 101- things you gotta do

#30 PYO (Pick Your Own)

While we've certanly picked our own fruits & veggies before we've never picked our own blueberries! Turns out that's weird because our immediate area is the #1 producer of blueberries in the whole state and our state ranks 4th in the country for blueberries. It's the sandy soil we have here that makes the growing prime! We went with our good friends & neighbors the Bryans. So we get there (the place we found was about 2 miles from our house) and the tractor driver is our other neighbor (the one with the goats) small world!

In the end team Speer picked 3.5lbs while team Bryan picked just over 5lbs. oh well! so far we've munched on a bunch and i've made one pie (French Glace Blueberry Pie) for my mom's 53rd 35th birthday! I plan to make another pie with a different recipe tomorrow with the rest of the blueberries. YUM!

pool progress

ladies & gentleman we have a full fledged swimmer in our midst! it's amazing how fast they are picking this stuff up and running swimming with it. just when I think they are at their limit for new skills learned they surprise me again! in fact today (the day after I took these videos) May can now jump off the diving board and swim all the way to the shallow end without any help. in a matter or weeks (maybe days) she has become a really strong swimmer. they are now spending most of their swimming time in the deep end (Cam in a tube or life jacket). Cam is the king of the underwater world. his favorite thing in the world is to be underwater. every night after hours and hours of swimming (sometimes nearly 6 or 7 hours) I have to drag him kicking and screaming out of the pool for bed. I'm not sure what we're going to do when we have to close the pool for the winter... maybe find an indoor pool membership.  

#1 of 101 - places you gotta see

So a few weeks ago we inherited this book and we've been so inspired by it. Then I found this next book and bought it. Our goal is to go through both books before Cam is 12. If we've already experienced something in the book we will re-do it in order for it to count. These books are so perfect for us and our homeschooling philosophy. With unschooling being a big part of our life it's important to turn off the TV and DO and trust that knowledge will come.

While we will not necessarily be going in order the first adventure we went on happened to be #1 in the book. So without further ado:

#1  A Lighthouse

the closest lighthouse to us is Barnegat Light on LBI. Chris and I climbed it when we stayed on LBI for our honeymoon but this was the first for the kids.

Both kids climbed up 217 steps to the top! Coming down Cam climbed down the first few flights and kept saying "I feel sick" I didn't need to spend the afternoon cleaning up vomit in a lighthouse so I carried him. It was much easier than it sounds. 

Once on top we enjoyed the view and breeze (whew it was hot!)

Once down we ate our packed lunch and walked around the grounds which are really nice. We went off the beaten path a little and got wet (like i said, it was hot!)

I contemplated using this experience as #16 - a swimming hole but I think we'll find a swimming hole on another day.

Being a good homeschooling Mama I picked up 5-6 Lighthouse books from the library a few days earlier. on our way home May (on her own) found the lighthouse we'd just visited!

(long) weekending

life is good

June garden

(yes I know it's July.... i'm a little late with this post)

we pulled out 3 zucchini and have many more coming!

one morning i went out to find one of my tomato plants looking like this. mostly leafless --look closely, do you see him? well, when i first saw him i freaked out... i've never seen (what i thought was a) caterpillar that size before!

 so this is a Tomato Hornworm. I'd never seen one before and never want to again. ick! nice to meet you now go away!

upon further inspection, turns out he was the smallest of a total of 3 i found on our plants. 

my idea was to feed them to the chickens but Cam took a liking to them so we compromised with throwing them in the compost pile. hope they don't make their way back to the tomato plants!