Iced Coffee and Sibling Rilvalry

Iced coffee, maple syrup, real whole milk. This is how I spend my summer afternoons: writing, playing, cleaning, and creating. Taking care of farm chores, taking care of farm business, and making our way through the work.

Holly has informed me that chores go faster if we sing. So we sing.

Lily has informed me that such singing is painfully annoying, so of course Holly sings LOUDER.

Issac thinks the ensuing brawl is hilarious and he jumps onto the pile of fighting girls.

And rinse, repeat.

The other things we have found this summer:  Holly is suddenly into art. She has always hated it before, but now she sits at the dining room table every time the TV is on and draws, works clay, or builds with legos. She also does not see a problem with mixing medias. This morning she had modelling clay holding together magnets, legos, and plastic toys. It was so cool. Lily broke down though, mixing medias is "ruining everything". We had a good long talk about encouraging others, thinking outside the rules, and why she was feeling so threatened by Holly's rather sudden artistic creativity.

I get it. I really do. Lily has her identity wrapped up in being the artist and Holly is the dancer. What if Holly is good at art too? We'll be working though some of these feelings for a while I predict.

County fair is coming up. We will be working on finishing up Lily's project this week.

And that's about all for today!

Silly Kids

Hurry-Hurry

The day we had to walk about town, we walked by this house. Right off the square. I had never noticed it. Lily's thought on that? Of course we never notice it, we are usually in a hurry-hurry and in the truck, why would we look at the houses?

What else do we miss by being in a hurry-hurry?

What else indeed. Time to slow down, I think. We'll be walking more on purpose very soon. I am looking forward to it.

VBS Snapshots

Issac still won't participate in the workshops and crafts, but the social and music time he really gets into. He is such a ham too. Holly is fine tuning her own personal style and that is more and more evident this summer. Lily is in the throws of pre teen angst. That's ok, I'll love her through it. Though, hearing, "All you really care about is XYZ and not me!" about 100 times a day is wearing me thin.

I need to remember to accept help when it is offered. Too many times this week, I said no when I should have said yes. Saying yes would have built on relationships. Saying no left me stuck. This was on my mind this morning as I contemplated how I was going to deal with the kids disappointment that the truck was broken again and they would miss the last day of VBS after missing the first three days. It rained and operation distract the kids with a boat ride in princess costumes was thwarted. Just as I was moving to plan B, my phone made a noise. A FB message from a family at church offering to drive the kids there and back today.

Remember to say YES more when offered help. So I said yes.

And the day was saved. Girls were dressed, hair brushed, shoes on in 90 seconds. They had a great time today and I am filled with gratitude. I need to say yes more. It is outside my comfort zone. I'll work on that.