Free Summer Fun!

Here at the Bovee house, we are heading into summer break. School is out for the summer!!! But with that always comes the children wanting to go do fun stuff. Well, we pinch our pennies where we can, so we love to find FREE or inexpensive fun things to do close to home. Money Saving Mom posted a great post on her blog here that covers some wonderful entertainment for the children this summer. Check it out. We love the reading programs that the book stores offer. We may try a few other things on her list as well. Oh, we have done the Kids Bowl Free thing too. Another great program for children, and this year they have it in Sturgis. Yay!!!

Let me know if you and your children do anything from the list, and let me know how you liked it. I would really like for some National Parks to be closer to us, but oh well. We've got other great things and parks nearby.

It's been a restful ending to another week so far. Looking forward to the sun shining tomorrow after a long day of rain and storms. Grow garden grow!

Benaiah is 1!!!!!

Yesterday was Benaiah's 1st birthday and boy did he have a good one! It looks like we are in for a messy summer with this little guy. He isn't afraid to go exploring off on his own, of course with the mama watching closely.

I was hanging laundry and turned around and he was crawling to the playhouse. Well, Jonathon was out that way, so I figured he was fine. Then I went out to the garden which is by the playhouse and we were working at building a little teepee structure that we planted morning glories at the bottom of to climb up in the middle of our wildflower patch. Well, we turned around and he made it to the garden. Right in the middle of it and looked like he was thoroughly enjoying himself. By then it was too late, so we just let him play.

I'm not sure that he was very pleased with being so messy though. Looks like our summer will be filled with lots of baths for Benaiah.

We got a surprise lunch guest who even brought lunch. Yummy! Too bad for Benaiah that he didn't get to enjoy any of it. The pizza and cookies were delicious! Benaiah had vegetables, turkey, and barley baby food. Poor guy! Ha!

After his morning of play, he was a tired little guy. He took a looooong nap which was just enough time to let me get more laundry done, sweep and mop, and even take a short nap.

Nap is over, time to get back at it. He loves pulling my towel down off the oven. He is pretty good about staying out of the cupboards and drawers after much training, but he still loves to pull off my towel. No big deal as long as the floor is freshly cleaned.

And then he realized that I wanted him to sit still so I could take a picture....or maybe he thought I wanted him to take the picture because he was on a quick path to get the camera, smiling the whole way.

After supper we headed back outside to work in the garden. He had a bath before lunch, so I really wasn't excited about letting him play in the dirt again. I told the girls they needed to pull him around in the wagon to keep him happy and out of the dirt. He loves riding!

"Hi, Mom!"

He officially has the wave down. It's quite cute too if you can't tell from the picture.

We were outside for such a long time that he got tired of the wagon, or rather the children got tired of pulling him and just left him sit. I entertained him nicely in the grass for a little bit with seed packets, but then his adventurous spirit kicked in again, and he was off. I watched him though so he wouldn't get into the dirt and would pull him back to the grass if he got over by the play house, but finally his speed crawling won out and he managed to get himself in the play house without me catching him first. Next thing we know, he is crawling ever so carefully back out again. It was quite cute.

We cleaned up all of our working messes, got the laundry in and closed up all the out buildings and headed in for showers all the way around. I think it was a good day for the little guy's birthday. Thankful for the sunshine that we could play outside most of the day and get so much accomplished. It looks pretty nice out there again today. One load of laundry to hang up and then we are off to do massages. The weeding will have to wait til tonight I guess. Ugh!

A Fun Day With My Children That Rarely Happens!

A Fun Day At The Park

The children and I took some time to have fun today. With it being windy and then later in the afternoon, rainy, it wasn't a good day to do work outside, so we headed to the park. Scidmore Park in Three Rivers, MI was very inviting, but a little poopy (literally). With lots of geese and ducks, you definitely have to watch your every step when visiting this park. We were hoping to enjoy the petting zoo that is there, but it wasn't open today. We could see quite a few of the animals from the paths, so we still got enough of an animal fill. We particularly enjoyed this mama duck and her babies.

I don't think she enjoyed us though.

We could see this little pot belly pig from the outside of the petting zoo. He came right over to see us. Alegra thought he had gentle looking eyes.

What do you think? I just don't see the gentleness here. :)

We got to see ponies and donkeys and......

funny shaved alpacas. This one though was quite hilarious with two bottom teeth that stuck out of its mouth about 2 inches. The children thought it was quite funny too. Can you tell?

And the pony did a little bottom itch for us too, which the children also thought was quite funny. Can you tell?

This park was nice but again with all the birds, it did make for a not very relaxing walk. The river was pretty and the bridges were fun for the children. And we did enjoy seeing gosslings and ducklings but with that came unhappy parents who wanted to attack. We watched our backs constantly.

Three children having a ball while one was just along for the ride and didn't really care where he was at.

After our walk we headed for the big playground that was quite fun for the children. It had lots of slides and little special things that were added fun.

The mini wide slide.

And some of the geese that I kept my eye on. At least at the playground we were close to a place we could climb up to get away from them.

We did have fun!

These were fun twisty toys. Not a typical swing.

And made for a fun picture.

Slides and hair gone wild.

And I even made Diella do some math. Way to go! You get an A+!

All smiles from us all!

Silly faces in the tube. I think they were really just getting away from the geese.

And I certaily can't end our day without saying that today is Jonathon and I's 13th wedding anniversary. He took me out to Applebees and rather than spending the crazy amount they charge for dessert, we went home and made our own amazing dessert that we all enjoyed. Chocolate Fudge Brownies with Peanut Butter Passion ice cream with two kinds of chocolate drizzled on top and don't forget the whipped cream. Delicious! Perfect ending to a near perfect day!

The Barnyard Bash

The children did lots of fun projects related to farms this year for their annual grandparents program. We put all of their hard work on the table for everybody to look through, including their native chicken masks.

When we could finally get the men inside from looking at Jonathon's new toy, we started our program. Alegra read a book in honor of Grandpa Murphy called The Milk Man.

Diella got to read this year and picked a book called I Love Animals. She did great and we are very pleased with her development in reading.

The children also memorized poems and songs. They each did one by themselves and then The Goat song, they all sang and played instruments.

Alegra loves riddles, so when she found a book with cow riddles at the library, she wanted to have that be part of the program. We went through ahead of time and picked some that we liked the best and she was able to stump the grandparents on some and not on some.

The children also made some homemade envelopes that they put flower seeds in that we had collected last year from our flowers and sealed them with stickers. And they did this with their aprons that Grandma Deborah sewed for them.

Josiah did his part by putting the stickers on.

We had a delicious meal of grilled hamburgers, cheesy potatoes, fruit salad, angeled eggs, and guacamole with chips. After the meal, the men cleaned up the kitchen while the grandmas and children played slap jack. What fun they had!

Here is Great Grandpa and Grandma Murphy with the children. Such sweet memories for the children to still have this generation for them to be around.

And Grandma Linda and Aunt Mandy with the children.

And Grandpa Daniel and Grandma Deborah.

And last but not least, our little family. We are so blessed! It is good for the children to say their poems and sing their songs for others. Some take a little prodding, but they all did it and did a great job!

Next year we may do something a little different, but will still carry on the tradition of having the grandparents come to have the children share their school year with. But the older they get, the more we can do. Next year, Josiah will be reading too. That just amazes me. And that ends our school year! Yay, schools out for summer!

A Mini Celebration for an accomplished lady

Naomi's Night

I was not in charge of this mini celebration but was glad to be able to help plan some of the event. We wanted to honor a sister who just became a nurse and it's her birthday, so what better reason to honor a good friend.

Rarely you get to see my face on here, but I thought you might like to see the blogger's face. Haha.

We waited for all the ladies to arrive and then waited for Naomi and Tina. I'm not so sure she was all that suprised. I think the surprise leaked. We met at Olive Garden and had a wonderful meal together.

All of us minus Ireena who tried to sneak out of the picture down in the lower left corner.

We all pitched in to buy her her very own stethoscope. What a blessing it turned out to be since she was needing her own. This is a picture of the card/banner that I made and on the white pieces is a picture of the stethoscope and on the other is the verse that we had engraved on it.

Great Job Naomi!

One of the ladies is so handy in sewing and made this great nurses cap that Naomi wore all night. She looks professional now!

Then we went to the river walk and took pictures. It didn't rain which we were glad for, but it was freezing. But we did have fun taking some pictures and have them for great memories.

It wouldn't have been complete without a rescue by Naomi to prove she really knows her stuff. This was a great idea and maybe we should have had more of these stages pics in mind, but this one turned out cute anyways.

All of us ladies minus the two photographing us. What a pretty place for pictures. Too bad is wasn't a little warmer...okay, a lot warmer.

We brought our umbrellas just in case and they made for some fun pictures. Great ladies enjoying each other....without children. Was lovely!

Trying to get us all posed and together, looking the right direction was a trick, especially with a few cameras that needed pictures on them. Oh, and one that was accidentally videoing. Ha!

And then we ended the evening by going back to one of the lady's house and while I worked on pampering Naomi's feet, the other ladies shared with her what was on their hearts concerning her attributes, her accomplishment, and what she means to us. It was complete with hoho, cream filled cupcakes and pina colladas (how is that spelled?).

We are all so blessed to have one another as sisters. The support, encouragement, and friendship we have is immeasurable.