honey dew seeds

This is the strangest post, but it has been on my mind so I guess I will write it down.  

 This summer was so great for our tote business!   But back up 6 months, when we bought the totes.  I started this business knowing I dont have time for it.    I'm already too busy with pictures and kids.  My days are packed. Im not willing to take more time from the kids. God knows all of this,  So I deciced the only thing I could do was to just pray for it.  

For a few months my logic seemed silly,, while 120 totes sat un touched in my garage.  But then an instagram inferencer posted about us, which gave us a great kick start!  The crazy thing is, when I was praying for an influencer to use us I had one in mind.  I had no idea if they were moving soon or not - but that is the exact family that ended up using our totes.  It was crazy that not only were my prayers answered,  but the details were even correct. 

After that we had a few small orders here and there, 35 totes for 2 weeks was a popular order, and eventually a family rented almost all of our totes for 3 months!!!!  It was a huge blessing. That one client alone basically paid them off for us!   

It was during this time, while the totes were out for the 3 months, I was out in the garden and thinking about the totes.  We had just scheduled a date to pick up the totes from the family's new house.  I got kind of sad, hoping with winter coming - that wouldn't be the end of our busy totes.  What if we had a busy summer because of the influencer, but we were not well known enough yet to self sustain.  Would we continue to be busy?  ???   

Thats when I took a honey dew into the house and cut it open in the kitchen.  I cut it into fours and scraped out the seeds.  Wow - there are a lot of seeds in this thing.  It was crazy to me that I planted one honey dew seed, which grew 4 or 5 honey dews.  Inside each honey dew was an average of 500 seeds. (I googled that).  Which can all be planted to grow 4 or 5 honey dews each - and each of those with 500 or so seeds inside of them.   And then the thought came to me....

 If you plant the seed, God will send you all the opportunities to grow as big as you want to.  We have a God of Blessings!  Of Abundance!!  Of opportunity!!!   If God designed the honey dew/seed production, then why can't I expect the same return on the financial seeds i plant?  I'm going to start believing it works this way, all I have to do is be willing to plant the seeds, and  God will do the rest!  

Call me crazy - but there you go.... another lesson from the garden!   And p.s. two new tote orders just this week!  Its working! 

Back yard Farm Pumpkins!

One last pic of most of the pumpkins before dividing them up.  I made the girls decide which ones to keep and which ones to sell.  They did pretty good - but I did haul a few more to the sale pile after they were not looking.    I was so tempted to keep them all!  They looked so cute on my steps!  But I had to remind myself how horrible it is getting rid of them in late November - when they are getting soft and yucky.   This thought alone helped me say no to my pumpkin hoarding tendencies.  :)

And while Devin was home on Sunday I had him drive his John Deere to the drive way and park it.  Then we covered it in pumpkins and put our Backyard Farm Pumpkins sign on it. :)  It looks SO cute!  This was the picture Sunday afternoon - but Ive added more pumpkins since then, and quite a few have sold.

  

We still had a few pumpkins in the garden so I went out yesterday afternoon and cut what I could find.  I cut all of them off of the chicken coop.  I got almost 30 off this one plant!  It was awesome.  Only one grew into the wire and I couldn't get it off.   But the rest were SO cute!  Indie and Willow helped me haul them out to the tractor. 

We've had a lot of the pumpkins sell already!  People just take what they want and venmo me, so I dont have to go out there or even be home.  Its great!   And to be completely honest.  I just feel a lot more like myself having pumpkins for sale in my front yard. There is something about pumpkin farming that just fits.   :)  Think I can talk Devin into setting up a corn maze, tractor rides and a petting farm in my back yard?  We could take this pumpkin patch to the next level!  :) 

Magic

 I just need to jot this down before I get too busy and forget.  Tonight we finished the 3rd land of stories book.  The first book was good - but the 2nd book captivated my kids, and the 3rd one kept Sailyr and Finley (and me!) completely hooked.  I read to them for about 30 minutes every night.  40 minutes if its too good and we cant stop reading.   And every night when I finally shut the book, both girls yell at me to keep reading and refuse to go to sleep unless I read one more page.  Even Devin in the other room hears their nightly demand when I shut the book.  Its funny and I love it!  Thats how reading should be.

But tonight we finished the 3rd book.  I was so curious about what was going to happen I almost read it without them while they were at school.  But I didn't, I held off.  We had 3 chapters left, so we went to bed early so we could finish it.  The end was a complete shocker and as I read the last few words Sailyr jumped out of her bed, and Finley sat straight up!  Both of them with wide eyes and both of them screaming "What?!? What?!?  What?!?  Mom!  How!?!?  NOOOOOO!!!  Wait - HOW???" They were looking at me, and to each other.  Giggling and completely in shock. 

I tried to make them say their prayer and lay back down, to go to sleep.  Finley told me she will never be able to sleep - she is going to think about that book all night.  Then she wont be able to do anything at school tomorrow because she will be thinking about it all day tomorrow too. Sailyr demanded I go get the 4th book - we needed to start it tonight!  She had to at least read one chapter of the next book.  

I just sat there in the cute bunkbed room that we had just returned to after being so sucked into a book that we all three couldn't just go to sleep after such an adventure.  :)  I loved it so much!!!  The pleading for one more page every night.  And the intense ending to the book which left us all a little lost in our normal lives.  The look on their faces -a mix of surprise/shock/mad/happy/confused.  :)  I just sat and watched them both process the end of a really good book - and just giggled.  It was like magic. 

Devin thinks I am crazy for reading outloud to the girls every night.  He is probably right - it is a little crazy.  And I have no idea how I will ever keep it up and juggle both now that Indie is getting old enough to start reading with me, and one day Willow.  I'm sure eventually Sailyr and Finley will be too old to read too.  But its my very favorite part of my day.  I love that we end the day together, both girls tucked in bed, ready to listen to a story.   Tonight will be one of my favorite nights of being a mother.   We had childhood magic and storybook magic mixing together - and it was perfect!

I also just googled and learned these books are being made into movies!  I cant wait to tell the girls tomorrow!

Finley's 9th birthday party!

 

Sunday was Finley's birthday and she was excited!  She went to bed the night before super excited to wake up the next day..... and wake up the next day she did.  She was sleeping in my bed, because all the kids pile into my bed when Devin is hunting.  And I heard her stirring at 6:30 (p.s. I can barely drag her out of bed at 7:20 on school days).  I told her happy birthday and then told her to go in the living room and watch cartoons so she doesnt wake up her sisters - who were also sleeping in my bed.  

 

Devin got home around 8:30 that morning and she was finally able to rip into her gifts.  She loved opening her gifts.  It was the sweetest.  She smiled the whole time and was just thankful and happy.  Devin and I gave her a guitar which was opened a few weeks ago, as well as a couple books of blank paper for her painting.  And some really nice paint brushes. 

Grandmpa and Grandpa Englestead gave her a art desk that she can use on the couch or in bed, and a clip board, some fun markers and some paper.  Grandma Lois gave her an incubator, which she has been asking for for months.  She promptly ran over to Sandy's house to get some fertilized eggs and we now have Chicken eggs in the incubator. 

Devin always measures the kids on their birthdays.  Its the cutest tradition and the kids love it!  Seeing how tall they have grown over the year, and seeing how tall they are compared to their sisters at all their different ages.   He does a good job remembering to do it each birthday. 

We also had the girls primary program on Fin's birthday.  I dint take any pictures but the three girls did great!  And they were so cute up there.  They all said their parts perfectly and looked so cute.  Little Indie on the front row behind the microphone. She did so good and her cute little face was just darling staring out over the crowd.  I wanted to run up and kiss her.  Instead Devin and I sat in our chairs and giggled at how cute she is.  Sailyr looked so grown up.  This was her last primary program!!! CAN YOU EVEN???  Next year she is in young women's.  Which is both baffling to me, and also I think its time.  Going in a year earlier was an inspired decision.  Kids are so much more mature at 10 and 11 than they were when I was young.  And Fin did great!  Everyone knew it was her birthday so we got lots of treats from teachers and primary people after church. 

And the cake.  Oh my, the cake. 

So we found a cake online that didnt look too hard.... It was a simple cake with color dripping off of it.  This below was our inspiration.

Well, we must be out of practice because it just didn't go well.  Our cake was more rounded at the edges instead of squared.  And the sides were not super straight.   But we got it stacked and got the white fondant on it.   We melted white dripping chocolate and colored it blue, yellow and pink.  

I need to set the scene, 

All of us were in the kitchen working on it, except Willow who was already in bed.  It was around 8pm, and close to bed time.  The kitchen was a mess!  Cake and baking stuff everywhere.  Finley and Sai were working on a paint pallet made out of fondant to put on the top.  I had just dripped the pink off the edge (if you could call it an edge) off the side of the cake.  Right next to the blue and yellow.  

When I looked down at the cake and realized it was the saddest cake I had ever seen.  The drip was more of blob.  the colors were not as vibrant and sad.  It was looking more like a spin wheel that you see at a carnival, with different colors of triangles lined up in a circle.  

I suddenly went through about 5 different emotions in a matter of 10 seconds.  

Mad. 

Frustrated.

Annoyed.

Tired.

Sad - that I could'nt just have Missy make our cake.

Hopeful?  Should I be hopeful?

I should have taken a picture of it because we could have been on one of those "pintrest Fails" websites.

It was bedtime.  The kitchen was a mess.  It was a school night.  And our cake was a joke.

But for some reason instead of expressing all those emotions I just listed - I just started laughing.  Like hysterically laughing.   Laughing so hard I couldn't see or breath.  The kids stopped what they were doing all all just looked over at me, confused. 

All I could say between my crazy laughs was, "Sailyr  - this.... is .... the ...  ugliest... cake .... Ive ever seen!!!!

And then I just started laughing again.  Like - a crazy "mom's lost her mind" laugh. 

The kids ran to my side, confused at this turn of events.  Because they had no idea our cake was ugly.   But eventually they were all laughing at me laughing.  

"Sai, what are we going to do?"   We decided to blend it.  We got a large frosting smoother and just blended all the color to make it look more like tie dye.  And it some what worked.  Here is what I put in the fridge about 30 later.....

 

 

The next day we added the paint pallet that the girls made  :)  In the end it was fine - especially since it was for a bunch of 9 year olds.  they could'nt tell a difference.    But I'm pretty sure last night was one of those nights my kids are going to talk about when they are 80 years old and I'm dead and gone.  How their mother laughed like a lunatic at their ugly cake in the middle of flower all over the kitchen and food coloring staining the countertops.   :)   Oh my.  I still dont know where that laughing came from - I guess because it was Finley's birthday I didn't feel like I could get upset.  So my frustration turned to humor. .... or something like that.

 

 

 

Finley's cute friends.  Emery, Daphne, Madelyn, Reese, Eden, - and Bentley came later.

They are the cutest girls.  I'm so thankful for them.  They painted wooden owls.  Obviously it was a painting theme.  

 

 

We also made caramel apples, and the kids rolled them in candy after the caramel.  It was fun! 

 

Its been a fun past few days.  Great kids! Great Friends!  Not so great cake - but at least my kids will have a funny story to tell their grand kids one day.  :)

1st pumpkin patch

What does the day after a bonfine night with friends look like?

It looks like this......  

Kids nap/cant get off the couch and we watch hocus pocus. :)

 

But we were not lazy for too long,  Saturday evening we met our friends, the lashers at the pumpkin patch.  Our daddy was hunting and their daddy had to work, so it worked out perfectly.

Willow was so funny.  She sat by me while the kids went down the slides.  She had a sucker and was just happy as could be.  Sarah is only a few months younger than Willow but both of them kept trying to pick the other one up!  It was so funny, Willow would try to hold Sarah when she was crying, and Sarah would try to hold Willow.  Little mama babies.  :)  Sarah cant even walk yet, she is still crawling and she would still try to hold Willow.  

The kids went down the slides about 25 times.  They took Willow down it a few times and Willow loved it!

 

Let the Pumpkin Patching begin!

Bonfire

 

Tonight was bonfire night!  

Oh goodness - the flash backs of last years bon fire will forever be burned into my memory.  I was on a mission to find Sailyr a few friends.  She had one best friend who was a year older than her in school.  So during the summer she was fine, because they played all the time.  But once school started she was a little bit lost.  In my mind I thought - lets invite all the girls, plus some boys, in her class over and maybe that will help spark some friendships.   Thats basically what we did.  I think there were 28 of them?   And we invited about 8 of Finley's friends.  And with all the kids running around our back yard it lured in all the kids in our neighborhood.  It was a mad house.  I walked through our back yard at one point and there were just kids running everywhere.  It was like recess time at the elementary school, except for in my own back yard. 

Maybe it worked, or maybe my prayers were answered - because a year latter and Sailyr has the cutest friend group.  So this time I only had to invite over 4-5 of her friends instead of 30.  Watching them all our hanging around the fire made me so happy.  I still remember the feeling of moving her 8 years ago and literally not knowing a single soul.  So to see our home filled with so many sweet, good friends just makes me so thankful. 

Indie had the twins over and Fin had madelyn over as well tonight.  They all just played and played and played.  It was so fun!

I'm so thankful for our people here in Rigby.

Riding lessons

Fin had riding lessons on Wednesday.  Indie went with me which is always an adventure.  She likes to tease all the other horses.  Feeding them tiny blades of grass - and making them basically beg her for food. 

Fin is quite the little rider.  I sat in the car the past few lessons because it was so hot out.  But this week wasn't too bad.  So I sat out and watched her.  I wish I would have got a better picture of her (Indie stole my phone) but she holds her hands perfectly and has perfect posture as she trots her horse around.  Its the cutest!

This week Indie got to ride for the last 5 minutes.  She loved it!  The horse named Brownie is so sweet and gentle.  She held the reins and everything - and he just patiently tried to follow her lead.  Although I think he was wondering if anyone was even riding him cause she is so light.  She was excited.