Loving Life: Posting

Sweet 16 has come and gone, along with Father's Day and some days in between. I've been busy...that really doesn't do it justice. But there's no real word for being SO busy. On Sunday, the high counselman who spoke talked about addictions...which was timely because my friend called me a work-a-holic on Saturday, and I was wondering about that. Although, his list of addictions didn't contain work. I've wondered about it lately. There is so much to do in the "garden" during the summer, and then the kids are all home plus 3 more, and there's cleaning, laundry, swim team, water polo, baseball, football, taking kids to the library and museums, birthday parties, balancing the swimming pool chemicals, helping the boys mow the lawn at the baseball fields and at home, and renting out the guest house, getting boys ready for Scout Court of Honor Advancements plus forever much more. Luckily, I don't work, I'm just a stay at home mom (just in case you don't know me, that was sarcasm!).

I think Savanah had a great 16th birthday. On her birthday we celebrated all day long, and then her friends came on Saturday and celebrated. She opted for chicken fajitas for her party dinner, complete with mint chocolate chip ice cream cake (sound familiar, Jen?) and cookies and cream ice cream cake for dessert. We lit up tiki torches around the pool and set up a big screen for an out back movie. It was a lot of fun, even though the glow-in-the-dark pool balloons didn't work out as planned, nor did the glow-in-the-dark bubbles. I enjoyed celebrating Savanah, she is amazing!

Eli has been struggling with intense knee pain for a long time, now. I hope to take him to another dr. this afternoon and see if we can get some progress made on his recovery. I feel like it starts to get better with rest and stretching, and then he uses it for running and it's as bad as ever. UGH! Aren't we supposed to be super healthy at 14?? Gratefully, all my other children seem to be doing great right now (healthy, happy). I really have so much to be grateful for in my life!

I've now canned more than 30 quarts of home grown peaches!!! I finished up yesterday, and they looked so delicious, I opened up a jar from the second batch, and yummy!! I look forward to eating them all winter long...or until they are gone:)

All these are photos are of some of our harvests from our yard in the last two weeks, garlic, peppers (small red), grapes, peaches, apples, tomatoes, basil, cucumber, and zucchini. It's really a great blessing to be able to bring in 5 gallons of fruits and vegetables on any given morning. But like I said earlier, it's a lot of work, and balancing work and fun with rest...well, it's really hard for me, and humbling, because I can not do everything...you all knew that, but I didn't...I still may not...I'm working on it.