How to have a good birthday:

Open presents. First thing in the morning of course!

Have a lot of dessert.

Throw a big birthday party and invite everyone you can think of.

Blow bubbles and do an obstacle course

Blow up lots of big balloons

These happy people came for a visit. I always love having my twin and her family over! I don’t love living far away from her, but the best part of living far away is the long visits.

Sunflowers are quite pretty for about two weeks. Before that, they’ve spent months just growing leaves and stems. A flower lasts about two weeks if you are lucky. Then they start doing this:

It isn’t pretty. But if a sunflower didn’t bend down and spend weeks looking strange, it wouldn’t produce seed. And if it didn’t produce seed, there wouldn’t be sunflowers next year.

One single seed produces hundreds of more sunflowers. But only if I allow it to stick around after it isn’t beautiful anymore and really get to work.

Sometimes I feel like this. I’m not spectacular, I’m not doing anything worth looking at. But if I don’t keep going and keep working, I won’t produce anything. If I keep going, I will have joy that keeps going with not just one short flower, but hundreds and hundreds of moment.

From a field trip with Curtis’s preschool

Well, soccer season is nearing its end. The smiling blonde kid in the front row liked soccer. But he needed a lot of encouragement and tended to be a little slow. Not bad for his first year.

I went on a walk early in the morning, just as the sun was rising. It’s always quite a beautiful time of day, but this particular morning was quite spectacular. The sky was pocketed with storm clouds. Not too many that they blocked out the sun, just enough for an occasional light rain and peak of sky. The sun played off of the clouds, creating vibrant colors and dramatic backgrounds. I wished I had my camera with me.

When I got home, I told Joe he should come outside because it was quite pretty. We looked towards the rising sun and enjoyed the view. I turned around to look westward as well and was overwhelmed to see a beautiful rainbow.

I ran and got my camera. I pulled my kids outside to see it. I texted a friend next door. It was the best rainbow I remember seeing. I stayed outside for the next half hour, unwilling to go on with my day.  It was too beautiful to miss.

What we’ve been up to lately:

• The boys like to build Minecraft maps out of blocks. They don’t actually like to play Minecraft. Just watch videos about Minecraft and then pretend that their blocks or legos is actually a Minecraft world.
• We still like to go Geocaching. We visited my Grandparents and found four caches. The kids like to do geocaching at home, which I would more call treasure hunts or a game of hot or cold.
• Plans to upgrade a fence have been put on hold. Our property is legally 82.5 feet across. It measures 88. We are getting a survey done later. It looks like some of the ancient garage is at least partially on our neighbor’s property. It’s a bit of a mess.
• The front door has gotten to the point that I have literally had to kick it open. A new one has been ordered, but of course, that means we have to live with the broken one for a few more weeks.