July 4th Activities

We started sewing this lovely bunting with out friends from Atlanta.
Here are the steps we followed if you are interested in making one. It was very
basic if you have some sewing skills. I have always wanted to make one and now I plan
to do more for other festivals and seasons!








Here is the tutorial I used to sew these


Enjoy! Would love your comments and ideas for other colors or uses

Riding down a southern country road

We started biking each morning before the heat sets in.

Today, we went a new way to our local grocery. Amazingly,
we discovered an unpaved road. There are still some around
here.

So, here are the girls biking happily down a sandy, gravel street.

I love that we have many places that we can get to by bike. Though we
do have a busy street, Highway 17, we go the back roads or the bike trail.
We can get to 2 grocery stores, bank, my favorite coffee shop, several
restaurants, post office, the beach, a great consignment shop and the library!

A lovely beach town we live in. Wanna come visit? ;)

Spelling & Reading Review

We have started reading again after a few weeks "down time" and I am noticing the holes
and places that need a little work. Having twins does not mean they are in the same place!

I got them new books to read and we have started playing games while walking or riding our bikes. I say a word and they spell, or we work on vowel sounds and how they fit into the words.

Today, I decided to get them each a notebook for writing back and forth with me. They are both in very different places with reading and writing, so this will not hold one back or make the other feel "behind". For my beginner reader we just wrote sentence back and forth, I did not correct the spelling, but if there was a word I didn't understand, she had to fix it. For my upper level reader, I gave her 4 random words and asked her to write a "story" using those words. What fun she had and a very cute story ;)

I plan to do some of this as well as after lunch reading in our hammock, to keep things fresh, but in a very relaxed state this summer.

Summer Solstice

Summer sun, summer sun we watch as you set Sending your long arms of light to the west Summer sun, summer sun you shine so bright As you begin your return to the night
-from Circle Round

We began the day with a sunrise on the beach. It was so magical and we saw 2 loggerhead turtle nests!


When we came back home we baked sun cupcakes with a sprinkle of darkness (chocolate chips) I got a great idea from the Circle Round book. The girls made time capsules with items like a letter to themselves, the top 10 things they love, pictures etc. to be opened next summer solstice. They loved this! They spent all afternoon working on it and even decorated the shoe boxes with suns. We also planted sunflower seeds saved from our sunflowers from last year.

Our day ended with a bonfire using our winter solstice Christmas tree. We did the turning dance around the fire and let go of any things we wanted to release (for hubby and me).
Magical day.

Fathers Day

The girls spent hours designing and creating a wonderful beeswax
"dad" in a fishing boat. Modeling our latest fishing boat adventures,
they added every detail down to actual fishing line for the pole!

We prepared a nice breakfast for daddy followed by a relaxing day, a bike ride to his favorite coffee shop for frapps, then my mom and dad came over and I cooked dinner! We even had homemade peach cobbler from local peaches.. it was a wonderful to treat him like a king for the day! (but I am glad he is back to cooking today!)

Spring Celebrations

We had a wonderful 1st Day of Spring. The weather was wonderful and we were able to
enjoy the day. We started with a Spring Poem.

Last year we saved pepper seeds from our garden, so we planted them today in our eco-pots. Still a bit cold here, we can bring them in if the nights get below 40.


Then, we picked our young lettuce from the garden for a spring salad. The girls went searching throughout the yard for other 'edibles' they could add... dandelions, mint, herbs, and viola flowers were selected.
Lily even went a step further and made her own salad dressing from water and herbs!

Lovely Day :)

Planting the early garden

A few warm days and my hands are back into the earth tilling, weeding, digging and removing debris.


We had some winter veggies that didn't make it through our unseasonable cold winter. The broccoli made it and if we can keep the rabbits from munching the leaves, it should grow quickly.

New plants that went in include cabbage, lettuces, more broccoli, parsley. Seeds we sowed were snow peas, beets, spinach, swiss chard, and lettuces.

What fun to keep an eye on small shoots coming up just in time for spring!  more gardening coming soon...