My fruit of the summer & Summer

Okay, this is totally irrelevant to anything and something most of you don't really care about but I'm telling it any way... after all this is my blog & I can write what I want to. I went to Gaffney last Saturday & purchased some white nectarines at one of those produce stands. They are SOOOOOO good!!!! Did I say they were good? There was probably 15 or so in the bag & I've ate them all but one... Corby said they were too mushy. Oh my goodness, the juiciness dripping off them... YUM-O. That is my favorite fruit this summer... nectarines. Last summer it was watermelon. I would eat a whole one... all by myself... not in one sitting, but in a rather short amount of time. I just love summer produce & all their yummy-ness. I would love to have a garden & grow all the stuff I love, but I don't have the money, patience or time for it. Maybe one day when I get old & don't have anything else to do, I'll grow a garden. By then my taste buds will probably be dead & I won't care what anything tastes like.

Okay, off that subject and on to another. Let me just say that I can't wait until school starts...10 days and counting. I guess the combination of heat and not being able to go outside, having a small house and boredom is getting to all of us. My boys are fighting constantly and they are so freakin loud... sorry I had to emphasize that word to stress what I really mean. I will miss sleeping in and the freedom to come & go without worrying about getting home for early bedtime, but I'm ready to get back into a routine. More so, I'm ready for my kids to have some time away from each other. They really need more than I do. Don't get me wrong, I love my children... A LOT... but some space is always good. In a way, I kind of wish we did the year round school thing. Then, instead of having 3 months off at one time and going to school for what seems like forever, there would be more shorter school times and frequent breaks, but not long enough for them to get bored. I will probably be blogging around January that I wish it was summer & my kids were home because they are tired of school & I'm tired of all the busyness. It's a never ending circle for me. I will be anxious to see how much I get done with only having Kensley at home. I'm going to have to buy some heavy duty velcro & attach it to my hip... that's where she wants to stay most of the time.

A Child of the Kingdom

We have great news... Chandler became a Christian about a month ago. He ran up to me in the van after church & said "mommy, mommy, I asked Jesus to come live in my heart!" He was so excited. (I must admit though, I was a little surprised. We've been talking about for about a year now, but he's never really seemed serious about it. I guess that was the Lord working on him & paving the way for it now.) We asked him how it happened & what he did and he told us he prayed in Sunday School. So, when we got home from church we talked to him more & Corby prayed with him to make sure he understood what he was doing. HOW EXCITING!!

Anyway, that happened the week before we went to the beach so we missed a Sunday while on vacation, so we talked to him Saturday night and explained what it meant to "walk the aisle"... as we Baptists call it...and that he would need to go up in church and tell the pastor. He was a little nervous about it, but very excited at the same time. He went up front this Sunday and Corby & I walked with him. The first thing he told the pastor was "I felt like I was going to puke walking up here!" The pastor laughed pretty good & joked back that he felt the same way sometimes when he gets up to preach. At the end of service when the pastor introduced Chandler to the congregation, he said, "well, he had a little Corby moment when he came up here and said he felt like he was going to puke"... of course everyone laughed.

Chandler is very excited to get "bab-i-tized" as he calls it... that's coming up Sunday night. I asked him tonight why he's so excited and he said "because I'm glad that Jesus is living in my heart". How filling to hear those words uttered from your child's mouth. To know that his life is given to Christ. Now, it's our job as parents to nurture & grow that new faith.

We melted....

...I'm tired of the heat. I don't mind summer temps in general, but when it's 100 degrees everyday for a week and you can't send the kids outside to release some energy, I'm a little peeved. Finding activities for kids to do in the house is hard. I must admit that this week, we've watched a lot of TV for lack of anything else to do or energy to do it. They've asked to go outside to play & I've had to say no several times... "no, it's too hot to play outside". I never thought that I Mom could say that, but we've had heat advisories most every afternoon and there is no shade in our backyard. Can we say "heat stroke!"

Kensley cut another tooth yesterday (you can barely see them in this picture). So we have a grand total of 2 teeth now. Hopefully she'll have a resting period before we start working on the top two. I remember those being really hard for the boys. She's crusin all over the house. I was in the bathroom yesterday and flipped my hair down for a few seconds to dry it and she was sitting in the hall. When I flipped it back up, she was gone... already in the living room. Considering how slow she crawls, that was pretty good movement in the time she got there.

I went shopping this morning at the outlet malls in Gaffney... (by the way, if you need kid clothes, you should visit there). They have some great back to school sales going on and even better sales on summer clearance. If only I had the money..... I could spend so much. I used to go in stores and just visit the boys section (for obvious reasons), but now I have to do double duty and I must say it's a little overwhelming. I get confused for who I need to buy for & what season, then I have to think about the sizes, then I think, "do I have that tucked away in some hand-me-downs"... etc, etc. I also find myself getting lost in the midst of all the cute girl clothes, buy something, come out & think "I didn't even look at the boys stuff". So then the next store I'll start to look at the boys stuff, see something in the girls section that catches my eye and head that way, then the same process happens again. They need stores for boys and separate stores for girls. That way, I can shop and not get distracted.

Crawling and the tale of the teeth

Well, my baby girl is mobile. She has actually been crawling all week, but getting better at it everyday. So many things about her remind me of Chandler & other things remind me of Carter. She crawls just like Chandler did. It's very amusing because the way she holds her legs she looks like she could stand up or just walk on her feet & hands. She cocks one leg up and pushes off while the other leg is tucked under her. She gets to where she wants and she's getting faster at it... I guess that's what counts.

She also cut a tooth on Sunday... finally. She working on another one too and she's been a bear for a couple days. She's wanted to nurse a lot more, but they come in little splurges. This morning, it was just me & her (the boys went to work with Daddy). I nursed her & tried to put myself back together & tuck the boob back into my bra. She wouldn't have it. She tugged & pulled my shirt until I let her nurse again. It was like 5 seconds. So I proceeded to put "it" up again. Not having it. We went through this cycle a couple times. I finally figured out she didn't want to nurse, she just wanted to see it... make sure it was visible at all times while on my lap. Even if I pulled my shirt down, she squealed & pulled it back up. She's a demanding little booger and I let her be that way. I have a feeling I'm setting myself up...hmmm.

Hot, hot, hot... give it all you got

NOT! That was a cheer I chanted in high school. I don't feel like giving nuttin! It's so hot, I'm hot inside. I can't believe this weather here (98, 99, 103... tomorrow supposed to be hotter). It is so hot that I think I could cook something on the pavement outside. I spent most of the day inside today and fortunately only had to get outside when I walked from my car to the house or where ever else I was going. However, I've been on a mission to clean out my van and that required going outside. You know how vehicles look after a long trip, so I wanted to vacuum out all the sand & clean all the straws, cups, sucker wrappers, long-lost french fries and all the other goodies hiding amidst the seats and floorboard. I waited until 10:30 pm because I thought it might be a little cooler. Not so much. I was wet & sweating like a dog by the time I was finished. I need to take a shower before bed. According to the weather, there is no relief in sight for the next few days. My poor husband. He's teaching golf all day and then in the evening too. I would be such a big baby and complaining the whole time if it were me. My dad works outside too... he works for the telephone company... and he told my Mom that you sweat really bad and you hope for the slightest breeze to come through because it feels good because you are so wet. Never thought of it that way. I'm just glad I'm not pregnant this summer. As bad as I complained about last summer, I would really be complaining now.

Beach pictures

Here's the link for the pictures from the beach. Click on Beach 2007

www.hanelinefamily.snapfish.com

Back from the beach

Well, we are home... none to our liking, because we all love the beach, but it's better after a day or two of getting back into the swing of things. Every year, we are always sad to leave the sand & sun and try to soak in as much as we can. We had a great week and got back late last night.

We went with some friends of ours (the Stamey's) and their 2 kids. We stayed at Windy Hill Beach in North Myrtle. The ride there was full of "are we there yet" and "how much longer" (mostly from Carter) but we survived & ran straight to the ocean once we pulled into our condo. I figured out what I needed to do to make the ride home a little smoother... I bought a new movie & some new look and find books to occupy their time. Anyway, the place we stayed in was great & perfect for all of us. It was right on the beach & easy access to the ocean & pool. Chandler loved the ocean and stayed in it most of the time. Carter was a little more interested in it this year. He actually got the raft & rode a few waves during the week. He was more interested in playing bocce, baseball, or any other game we took to play on the beach. Corby built 2 putting "greens" one day in the sand. They loved that. We shopped, ate, went to a water park, rode some rides and played in the pool. Kensley loved the beach. She probably digested at least a small bucket of sand over the course of the week. She loved to grab a handful of sand & squeeze it and then lick her hands. When the tide was out, we had some small little pools of water perfect for her. She loved to crawl around in them, splash & eat handfuls of wet sand & lick the salt water. Eeewwww! She didn't nap too well on the beach because she was so interested in everything else going on around her. But she had many naps on Daddy's shoulder walking down the beach. That was so cute! She was so good the whole week even though her schedule was way out of whack. I paid for it at night though... she was up a lot. This week I am devoting to getting her back into her routine. While we were there last week she started to crawl, she cut a tooth & she turned 10 months old....a lot for one week.

I'll upload all of my pictures from the beach & try to post that tomorrow night. Out of the 170 that I took, probably 100 of them are of Kensley... oh well, she's just too cute & it was her first beach trip.