FRESH STRAWBERRIES and a HUGE CANTALOPE

I went out to the garden today and found a handful of strawberries. I was so excited because the snails or some other bugs didn't get them before we did. Our strawberry patch is growing beautifully thanks to Jim for using miracle grow on them. I just LOVE growing home grown fruits and veggie because everything tastes better than the store bought ones. YUM!

After finding the strawberries, I then began looking at the rest of the garden which seems to be finished growing except this green, round squash looking thing. We have watched this plant grow all summer and the leaves looked like a cantalope, but then it got so big I just thought it was some sort of winter squash. I picked it because it looked over ripe and thought I might just look at it to see what color of squash it might be. When I cut it open my nose told me it was a cantalope and my eyes couldn't believe how big it got. We brought it in, cut it up, and chilled it for a while then we set it on the dinner table and enjoyed it. It was so big I cut a bowl up for our neighbor to share. Okay, I can truely say miracle grow does it's job.

Survival of the first day of school

We all have survived our first day of school. Jim was a bit nervous for his master's classes. Meghan has been on cloud nine because she is finally with kids from middle school (or should I say 8th grade which has been her MOST FAVORITE GRADE). Paige is just in her element of being a social bug at Lied Middle School, and Madison is just a bit nervous about forgetting her new teacher's name on the first day of school. Parker woke up early and couldn't wait to get to school. "No first day of school tears for my mom, I am the 4th child and she is excited to send me to school", thought Parker . He wasn't all too excited to take pictures to document the memorible event. He did think I would stay outside the classroom door for two and half hours so he was a bit confused when he had to walk to the playground to be picked up.

MOM!! No more pictures. That is enough!! I want to go learn. On his second day of school he proved to his teacher that counting is easy. He had a TEST to see if he could count to 10 and he went up to 72 when the teacher stopped him for another student. He wanted to see how far he could count but he does have to leave room for improvement.

Madison and Parker were so eager to go to school. I wish there was a special bottle to capture all the excitement and release the excitment back on them in January when school is getting to be just school and just part of the daily routine. We shall see how long this excitement lasts. I survived all my classes as well last week. I started a week before everyone so I had a head start of everyone. I will finish before everyone too. Now that we all are back in school, we get to all have study time and quiet time. YEA!!!!! We shall see how long that lasts.