Summertime!

SUMMERTIME is in full swing! It has FLOWN by! It's been such a wonderful opportunity to enjoy the joys of the season! Making memories... some of the most precious memories of my childhood are from summertimes 25 years ago.

GOD blesses us in so many ways during the summer season! Today HE is sending much needed rain for our dry, thirsty gardens.

Spending time with friends and family always comes with summer activities ~ holidays, cookouts, etc. We still have cookouts at my grandparents house with my dad's side of the family, even though my grandparents have passed away. Sometimes, tradition is a wonderful thing! This past July 4th, we had fun doing old fashioned pictures..... :) What a crew! Yes, I am the hugely pregnant one on the end under the window!

New beginnings, fresh blooms, results of labor in the garden, skinned knees, lightening bugs, chiggers, trips to the pond, fresh vegetables and berries ~ these are the things that summer brings to mind for me.

Here is my littlest darling, fishing in the same pond that I fished in when I was little, the same one that my Dad fished in when he was young.... the same place my cousins and I would all pile on the back of the tractor and trailer and ride to, holding on for dear life and dodging briers all the way.

There is nothing more precious than MEMORIES. We are creating a bushel of them this wonderful and blessed summer!

Photo shoot with the girls :)

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Spring is here!

Finally! We are able to get outside and play! After such a long and cooped up winter, the kids are thrilled to be outside. We are working on our yard, purchasing a new wooden swingset for the kids, and building a new playground. It's the season for sandboxes, bubbles, sidewalk chalk, and slip and slides! It's been so much fun working on the yard with Darius. Dad even came up and helped with his tractor, smoothing out the side yard.

The cows have been put back out to pasture, which thrills Selah to no end. Here she is watching them come down the hill behind our house and yelling at them. Adah is convinced that all the "baby cows" are hers. Thanks, papaw. :)

The apple trees are blooming! We hope to do better this year than last with the apple and peach trees - they started off really good but something happened - bugs or something and all the fruit died. We'll see what happens this year!

I love the simple joys spring brings; making wishes on dandelions, everything turning from the boring grays and browns to a sweet smelling green, with pinks, purples, and yellows thrown in by God for some extra pops of color. :)

Bailey helping daddy with the tractor, moving dirt. That little guy can really drive! I'm so thankful for the things this spring has brought us. We've been so blessed. We found out a couple of days ago that we're having another boy! No names picked out yet.

Well, its off to more organizing, cleaning, and enjoying this wonderful season! Hope you all have a wonderful day!

On the move

Spring has sprung here at the Walker house! I am finally feeling better and getting more productive! I suppose I've been "nesting" all morning, I've had the urge to re-arrange and move stuff... (sorry, dear!) We are working on our flower gardens, we got some stone to build small retaining walls to replace the landscaping timbers. Bailey's playing Upward soccer and loving it! He's on a team with his little buddy and they are so cute! The girls just turned 2 and 4 and are wild as boars! :) They had a nice pink birthday party and were blessed to have wonderful friends to celebrate with. Today ends spring break for Roane county - the weather has been absolutely wonderful all week until today! Papaw and Bailey are out hunting for mushrooms at the moment - I hope we get enough to dehydrate some this year! Most of my seedlings I started indoors have died (my thumb is SOOO not green!) But I'll just start them again outdoors when the weather breaks. One week till we find out if our little peanut is a boy or girl.. then we can start really planning!! So things sure have been hoppin' here... hope all is well with all of you! :)

Simplicity?

Do the words "simplify" and "new baby" even BELONG in the same sentence? That was my goal for the year 2010 - to purge and simplify. Get rid of all the clutter that is daily bogging me down. I planned to have a bigger garden, can more, freeze more, learn more about baking bread, and hopefully cut down on our grocery bill even more this year. Well. I really should learn that all of this ridiculous planning is not necessarily going to guarantee results. It would be nice, though. :) The past two months I've been to sick to do anything but dream of what I would LIKE to be doing. Oh I have plenty more ideas now for my raised bed gardens, container gardens, landscaping, and organizing since I've had all this time to look at blogs, etc! :) Hopefully soon some of these symptoms will subside and I can get on with at least some of my plans for the year. Today is an absolutely gorgeous day - the temps are suppose to be near 50 and the sun is shining! Maybe we can get some of the yard cleaned up today... maybe. :)

Winter Break

We took a break from the cold (or tried to!) and took a trip to the Bahamas! :) We drove in two days from Newton to Orange City Florida with my parents. On the way down we got stuck in Statesville in a huge snowstorm. The next morning we got up to drive some more, and we didn't get out of the snow until we were in Georgia!! We got to Florida and they were under a freeze warning. At least the sun was out and it was absolutely beautiful. It was so nice to see green plants and flowers growing! We two nights and a day and a half in Delan with a wonderful lady named Katherine. We attended dad's pastor friends church and had a wonderful time. Monday we left for Jacksonville and boarded the Carnival Fascination. We had a room with a balcony! It was so cold we had to keep our jackets and sweaters on outside! We took a day to explore the boat and the kids were absolutely amazed. We went to Freeport, Half Moon Cay, and Nassau. We took a pirate and historical tour in Nassau with Bailey and he loved it! We had the best breakfasts, lunches and dinners! They had a 24 hour pizzeria and you could get ice cream 24 hrs a day as well. :) The waiters made friends with the kids, you could tell they were missing their own children back home, wherever that was for them. The ship was absolutely beautiful, and so was the Bahamas. That is one of the prettiest places in the world to me. It was a wonderful vacation with our family - one that we will never forget! :)

New Baby!

Ok, so it's official. We are expecting baby number 4 September 4th, 2010! Quite a surprise, but a good one none the less. There's going to be some major changes in this household this coming year - and not really the ones I had anticipated! :) I had sort of dubbed this year as the year I was going to "simplify". I had decided, this is it, I am going to purge like there's no tomorrow and get rid of all the clutter that messes with my life. You know, the stuff you push in a corner and say, "I'll deal with that later." Well, so far, I haven't got much done, been too tired and sick to accomplish much! I am still going to try my best to simplify as much as I can this year, if for nothing else, out of sheer need!! God does know what's best for us though - and I am excited to see what all our future has in store.

I'm sure you've noticed by now some changes to my blog, as in having to sign in to see it and such. If you are having any trouble viewing my posts or logging in, please let me know - of course if you ARE having trouble, you probably arent even seeing this post. I'm such a genius. LOL - hope everyone is staying warm on this frigid February day!