Celebrations

 June brings birthdays to our family, but with our ever growing family we have had to start combining celebrations to keep us from running all the time to birthday parties. Jeff and Paul Allen and Gus were the birthday boys this week. We had a party yesterday for both. We are an imperfect group, BUT yesterday I just looked around and felt so very blessed.

I took pictures beforehand of food to send to the family while the grandsons were napping. Sort of to whet their appetite. :)

If you want non fruit eaters to eat fruit, you must cut it into bite sized pieces (no matter the fruit) and serve it in an easy to eat and pleasing to the eye manner. Lesson learned along my 62 years of life.

All of it was eaten. Apparently, Tucker ate all of the kiwi and I took a big bite out of the peaches. Can I just say how happy that it is peach season...well, technically I have not seen any southern peaches in the store yet, but these from California helped with my craving. They might be my favorite fruit. Hard to say...I do love all of these and a watermelon will never ever be turned down.

Oh and toothpicks to stab the fruit is very entertaining to grandsons. Tucker likes to have a "pick" for his. See, it is just the sweet things of life.

Then they got a picture of the salad with the homegrown cherry tomatoes from the downstairs deck.

I had to make a salad because the remainder of the meal was not so healthy, but oh so delicious.

Next, I made homemade chocolate syrup to go with homemade ice cream.

I used a different recipe for the chocolate syrup this year. Normally, I make one that is more of a hot fudge type and it is delicious, but I just wanted a more typical syrup like you buy in the store without high fructose corn syrup. I kind of blended a few recipes, but here is what I did.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups of milk

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 cup cocoa

a dash of salt

1 tsp vanilla

I put the first 4 ingredients in a saucepan and heat while stirring to it started to thicken. I removed from heat and added vanilla and then poured into my jars.

It was indeed a winner and easy peasy.

Then of course, I had to send the picture of Jeff and me making the ice cream..

We sat outside and relaxed while the ice cream maker did the work. Later Mama joined us who is better but still not up to full speed. 

Then we moved it to the garage to sit in the cold bucket and headed inside to cook fried fish and cheese grits. You can see why we had to have a fruit tray and salad.

It was all very tasty and we all enjoyed it very much. The ice cream was so good. It has been quite a while since we made any and it was very much enjoyed by us all.

Here is Palmer getting the last bits of his with Great Grandma's help.

He didn't want to leave any of it in the bowl. The kids all made it over during the frying of the fish and let me just tell you that nothing in the world makes a mama happier than to see her kiddos and their spouses and their children sitting out on the deck enjoying each other's company. You mamas know what I mean. It just sinks in deeply and it is a great blessing.

Speaking of decks before I move onto the rest of the party...Jeff had the seawall builders put in some stairs to the water since the seawall is much taller. I didn't really think they were needed, but let me just tell you that it may be the greatest thing ever!!!

They are amazing. I have already used them a lot. I put my paddle board in on Saturday and it was so much easier. Lindsay and Tyler came by and we all loved them. They step all the way down. I will have to use a wire brush on them and plan to make that part of my routine. The last day of the month I will scrub them off to keep what happened to the ladder from happening.

The bottom step of the ladder is covered in barnacles. I do think the ladder steps are a new material that should not get that bad. They have been tested by the seawall builder.  Anyway, I just love the new stairs. Again, Jeff is the winner for picking something I didn't think we needed. You may remember the upstairs deck table that I didn't think we needed that I am using daily.

This past week the weather has been quite nice and I have been outside a good bit, but this morning I went down to take the picture of the stairs for the blog and it is a little cloudy. Hank was on top of the dock roof. He is a cutie. 

Back to the party. I didn't have a cake to put a candle on so I went and got my old handled candle holder for Jeff and Paul Allen to blow out. This candle holder is from Germany and was bought when I was a baby so it is at least 60 years old. The kids remember it fondly because any time the electricity went out we used it. During hurricanes we used it to go around the house when they were little. Now, Jeff has us more flashlights that we could ever use, but we still like the candle. It has been in my sewing room so I guess Katie had never noticed it. She said it looked like it was from 1776.

My guys always act like they don't like my antics, but I am quite sure they would be disappointed it I didn't do all of it.

Memories made.

Here are more family pictures.

Last week strummed along with me wondering where it went, but all is good. I will share some stitching in my next post. I did order the other books in the series by Lynne Gentry and read Shoes to Fill this past week. I stick by my assessment of them being a cross between Karen Kingsbury and Jan Karon. They are wonderfully light for summer reading. Just what I need for now.

Some other notes...

Taylor (Lindsay's friend) update. She basically has two kinds of cancer in her at this point. They had done a biopsy last week when the MRI found another tumor. The bad scenario would have been if the breast cancer had metastasized. That would have bumped it up to stage 4. The tumor on the adrenals is a slow growing tumor non related to the breast cancer. It is still not good news, but she will have surgeries for both sooner than we thought. That is good news in my book. This has really as I said set Lindsay back and me too. Taylor is a precious young woman.

I am so grateful for this summer. My life is busy and full and hard at times. Having an aging parent who feels bad most of the time and yet is so photogenic that it is hard to see what I see daily is not going to get better. I hate seeing her age. It is just downright hard at times. Also, once you reach your 60's your energy just wanes plain and simple. My mind wants to do more than my physical body can do, so I am trying really hard to be a tortoise in the race of life. Slow and steady. This is a challenge for me at times, but one that I must work on. My summer list is long, but you know it will always be plenty to do if you have a home. I am trying really hard to just do a little along and relax.

Well that is about it for this week. Starting out a little slow on this Monday, but had a great weekend so that is ok.

Three cheers for summer,

Sandy

 

My Summer Has Begun

I left off last post with a restful Memorial Day weekend. I decided to take a few more days to let myself truly relax before I jumped into that list of summer things to get done around the house. I let the chores go around here other than the major rooms and just let myself not jump up to do the next thing. 

Cross Stitching

I started my June ornament in Auburn the last of May, so I have it done already. July's probably won't be spit out that soon. June's selection is another from The Magic of Christmas book. It has a vintage feel to it. I think for July I am going to do a Prairie School Santa, and then I am going to dig around in my patterns for some youthful ones for the next couple of months. 

In other stitching news, I will share the sunflower pillow next time. I just don't have it all stuffed and trimmed yet, but it is so cute. I am about to start on the "my town" stitch. It will be a long term project since I am kind of designing as I go. I did order a Country Cottage Needleworks store that was taller to kind of guide my first building in the town. It is a 2 story building and I felt I needed a guide. I have my palm tree patterns all picked out, so hopefully late June I will get the first stitch in it. 

I did chase a rabbit trail with stitching. A new flosstube account popped up on my YouTube feed. I really like the ladies, so I watched along of one of theirs and went back and caught up with the beginnings of their older ones so that I would know them better.  They are called Curious Crafters, 2 sisters from California. I then followed their Instagram account and that is where the rabbit trail path began. 

Here is the post that made my go ...Gotta have.

I mean how adorable is this whale. I immediately ordered the pattern along with a seahorse like it and the exact linen and trim. It is all DMC colors. I have started the whale while I wait for my order of the store to start my town stitch. I typically write things down I like and ponder and the notion goes away, but this one was screaming at me and I knew it was a Sandy kind of pattern.

For months, I had planned to take The Shepherd's Song sampler to Auburn, but at the last minute I changed my mind. It stayed here....

I decided to make a little collage on the wall in the bedroom. The other 2 were already in the bedroom, so I just rearranged some things.

I think they all go quite well together and they make me very happy.

Outdoor Time

I have loved the late May and early June weather. It is still so pleasant in the mornings here. I have enjoyed my quiet time on the deck in the mornings. There is still a little odds and ends being done on the seawall and dock, so the day isn't all that quiet, but I think they are done as of today. Than the dirt.

Gus and I have kept up with our walks. He is a great reminder to get up and get outside.

I made it to the beach on the cloudiest day. Even cloudy days are good at the beach. I just walked. I will go back this week to sit a spell. 

In family updates, 

Lindsay brought the kids by after work on Friday because Grandma hadn't seen them in a while. I had gone to get Mama and bring her to my house because her house is sort of out of the way and would make it a little difficult for Lindsay. Mother fell down from hugging Tucker. We don't exactly know what happened but Lindsay and I looked up and Mother was laying on the driveway with Tucker sort of underneath her. He saved a broken hip I am sure. She scraped the top layer of skin off of the forearm so I knew that would need professional bandaging, but she also bumped her head and had to have that glued. Lots of blood and an ER visit Friday evening. We would have been out of there pretty quick for an ER visit, but her blood pressure was read as they were about to dismiss her. 227/102, so yes, we were there for  the rest of the evening. We pulled in the driveway at 10:40. Mom's blood pressure will spike like that when she is nervous or upset, but we have found BP meds will cause the opposite. A dip which can be just as dangerous. I think every single test in the book has been run over the last 10 years about it and I never really get a diagnosis. I have found I usually can talk to her and calm her and it will go down. 

Anywho, lesson was learned that Mama will now be greeted by all grandkids in a sitting position. They are not allowed to hug her if she is not sitting. Tucker will hold her to that. Mother will not follow those rules, but he will so that should be good. We got lucky in that she didn't have a broken hip.

Lindsay and our family are still so upset about her dear friend and her breast cancer. They will stay in Huntsville for now and return to the jobs they were giving up to move. It is all a bit much to understand, but I know God has them in His Hands.

Miles is crawling. Katie should have lots of fun this summer keeping up with him. He may even be walking by the time school starts for me to have him. 

Here he is at Auburn. Paul Allen and Katie went up this past weekend. He is wearing his Daddy's first Auburn shirt. It has now made the rounds through the other boys as well.

Here are Tucker and Palmer Sunday morning early. Palmer with a snotty nose is still cute as he can be. Palmer and Daddy weren't feeling well so they had to stay home from church, but Tucker didn't want to miss because we were having snocones at church.

The one thing I did do last week was cook supper all week. I won't get any points in home economics for color, but I made some tasty meals last week.

We are enjoying the time on the deck as long as we can.  You will find Gus with me all the time.

That was about it for my week. Even with the Friday night excitement, it was a quiet week and one I needed to handle such things as Friday evening. I will leave you with pretty pink roses on the bottom deck.

Oh and I did read a good book. No picture because I have already passed it to Lindsay, but it was good. The name is Walking Shoes by Lynne Gentry. My description of it is somewhere between Karen Kingsbury and Jan Karon. For Kingsbury it contains a faith based storyline with a wee bit of drama, but for Karon it contains a small town (Mt. Hope) with the eccentric characters in the town. Good clean faith based book. A good summer read. I plan to order the others in the series. 

It is my favorite time of the year, so I am going to hopefully soak up as much fun out of it as possible.

Sandy