Our Monkey is Growing Up

My, how time does fly.

Our baby is 5 years old now. Not much of a baby anymore.

He wanted a pink birthday cake just like his friend Adysen's. He got his way on that. He also wanted six candles. He didn't get his way on that.

Justin loves, loves Curious George.

So here he is in his new costume. You can see the monkey jacket on the floor next to him from Grandma Lucy & Grandpa Jay. He is pumped.

Here are his two new trucks. He has played with them all night & morning. Loading cows, pigs & horses ought to keep him occupied today.


And here is dad, who is just as excited (or maybe more), to get this truck opened and played with.

We are used to Mitch making the most of his birthday, but this year Justin may have given him a run for his money. He had a paper chain all month long waiting for his big day. He talked about it to anyone that would listen, include the lady at McDonald's. He debated about what he thought he was getting and gave some not so subtle hints of what he hoped to get. It was a lot of fun to see him get so excited.


He told me last night when I put him to bed that he just loved everything about being the birthday boy.

Good, that was just what we had hoped for.


Happy Birthday Judd!
You sure do keep us on our toes and a smile on our faces.

It's Here!

Autumn is here!!!

Just the best season ever.

The Time Flew By

Summer vacation has now come to an end.

The kids started school last week and Josie started VERY early morning seminary....5:30 am early!

The start of school is always bitter-sweet for me. I like them home with me, playing outside, swimming, etc. I also like getting back to a routine.

Here is our preschooler, elementary schooler, middle schooler & high schooler.

Some of the things that have happend this past month are: Josie got busy with high school stuff, Todd grew taller than me, Mitch went up to the next swimming level, and Layne started a new job.

Josie turned 14 on July 31st.

On August 19th Layne and I made it to year sixteen.

He's balding, I'm fat, & we still like eachother.

We have had an unusually cool summer with little humidity.
It has been WONDERFUL!
It sure has been good for all the crops around here. Including our garden.


It has been tomato season and when Josie asked me where a good place to make toast would be, I realized that I really had to get some canning done. The counter tops have been covered. So last week I got the salsa and tomatoes done (any more that come in are going to have to find a new home). This week I'll get the relish and an awesome sweet and sour sauce made. Oh, a new thing I came up with is what I call Hot Pepper Peach Jam. I added orange zest and hot pepper flakes to the peach jam. We've already found lots of yummy ways of using it. It goes wonderful with cheese (brie and cream cheese are my favorite), on meats, and even on steamed Chinese vegetables. It is alwasy fun to figure out something new and delicious.



Hope your summer was great!

Slightly Obsessed

For some reason I just can't stop thinking, learning, & looking at the old oak trees on

'the farm'.

(Keep your ideas coming for the naming of the land contest.

I've liked what you've come up with so far.)

So last night we had the tree's age estimated.

The big one that the boys were hugging in my last post is approximately

140

years old.

We also measured two others.

One was around

120 years

and the other

80 years old.

Isn't that amazing? Obviously we didn't check out all the trees, but these were the ones that we (or maybe it was just me) were curious about.

We learned that the 140 year old tree should produce around 2000 + acorns this year. We also learned that it could live till it is between 400 - 900 years old. Cool.

On a completely different subject

This is just proof that I wasn't kidding when I said
I DON'T MAKES PIES!
I had some left over pie dough so I thought I'd hurry and make Layne another pie.

Well, after about 10 minutes of wondering why the timer on the oven kept going off, I started to smell a burning pie crust.......

I think I have baking ADD. I just get sidetracked too easily.

Our Amazing Moments of July & a Contest

*This is my most amazing thing in July.*

As many of you know, I like to cook. What you may not know is that I don't love to bake.

And on the top of my list of things I don't feel like I do very well is

PIES.

Well, to my amazement, last night at the 24th of July picnic I won the

Pie Baking Contest!

It still makes me giggle because I DON'T MAKE PIES!

This is not the exact one, but it was a fresh peach pie. It was gone before I got the camera out. But, Layne did request another one today.

We've been letting the boys & Josie drive the truck around our "farm".

We have 16 acres of field so and we like to spend time over there, as we wait for our current house to sell. Know of anyone that wants to buy a great house?

Justin only runs the wheel, but he does good. Until he takes a sharp left. That's a little scary.

Mitch does a good job too. Petals and all.


Here is a pic of our place.
Home Sweet Home
someday.


The boys (including their dad) like to set up targets and practice their shooting on the 'farm' too.

Justin calls it the farm, but I've always wanted to name our house/place. So here is a great opportunity. Give me some awesome ideas and whoever wins gets a great prize from the great state of Ohio.

Some details to help your creativity:
We'll have cows,
a horse or two,

chickens,
gardens,
fruit trees,
alfalfa field,
Layne will for sure plant Quaking Aspens (his fav),
there are TONS of deer,
our last name is Coleman,
oak trees...

*Can't wait to see what you might come up with*


We have a few trees, mostly oak, along the fence line. This one amazes me. I love looking at it. It is huge. Layne's arms don't even make it 1/2 way around and that is about 6 feet of arm length. We need to remember to take our measuring tape out there next time and find out how big this tree is. Layne sees $$ signs or beautiful floors in our house. I say NO WAY. That thing is at least a hundred years old and still healthy. It stays put.



Several summers ago I was at my Aunt Grace's house. I fell in love with her row of Hollyhocks. I planned on getting some Hollyhocks growing at my house. Well, this is the last summer at this house (I hope) and I finally got the Hollyhocks planted.
They remind me of my Grandma Simmons. She always had some in her flowerbed and we'd play dolls with them. I love showing little girls how to make dolls out of hollyhocks.



And last, but not least, this is what Todd does when he's not busy.

Poor Mitch.

The Joys of June

June was fast & fun.

Todd's baseball team made it to the county championship game!

What a fun season this has been.

We ended up with 2nd place, but getting that far was 1/2 the fun.

It's all good.

Look who came home!

George is back. Judd LOVES George and got him for Christmas. They never left each others side for a whole week. By the time we got back home to Ohio (we spent Christmas in Idaho) George was missing. Our fear was that he dropped out of the van somewhere in Wyoming while we had a potty break.

We asked everyone in Idaho if he somehow got left at their houses. No one had seen him.

Then Carter (Bobbi's oldest) made Judd's day. He was at Grandma Lucy's and found George in the storage room at her house! After Justin found out that George was coming home he checked the mail every day till he got here.

Once again, George & Judd are together.

(Carter is our new Hero!!!)

Here is Judd eating breakfast this morning with his buddy George.

I always get a little sad when things in the garden get finished. The latest to leave has been the peas, lettuce, & spinach.

BUT

Just as I think I'm sad that they are gone, Layne brings in a bucket of new, yummy things. So I'm okay again. (And dinner was divine.)

I love this time of year when we get to eat the yummiest food from the garden.

JULY is Here

Todd had a great time at Scout camp last week. 5 merit badges earned! Yea!

Josie leaves next week for Girls Camp. As usual, she's pumped.

Mitch has Day camp the week after that.

I'm camped out and I'm not even going.