Summer Activities

A blog called The Long Thread shares a plethora of summer craft activities you can share with your children or yourself. I am drawn to blogs like this since I am now teaching preschool. Little Philip is a glutton for arts and crafts and anything involving books. Helen wants to tag right along, despite her tender age of 15 months. Thankfully, we are past the point of eating craft glue so she is able to join us with most projects.

Here are a few projects or activities we plan to do this summer, all gained from the above link but specifically linked in each project (former BSC Honor Council members, please note my effort to cite sources):

We seem to go through the store bought sidewalk chalk like toilet paper around here, so we will be making our own sidewalk chalk. I have an enormous four year old container of plaster of Paris I bought to make Little Philip's first feet impressions. However, the cute little tin I bought to put his cute little footprints in turned out to be too little since I gave birth to a son roughly the weight and size of a Thanksgiving turkey.
We will be making our own sidewalk chalk paint but will not be using Mommy's beloved silicone pastry brushes. Daddy has some perfectly good paint brushes in the garage that has seen their last latex painting days. Since we can't afford to fixed the horribly cracked concrete driveway, I'm devising a grand sidewalk chalk mural that will disguise the cracks for the little ones to complete one day.
Because Little Philip loves to read and has discovered the Dr. Suess section at our local library, we will be making oobleck. I have not read this book, nor do I know what this stuff is but it looks a like like Flubber and getting ooey-gooey is quite a treat for my little ones. On a rainy day (if there will ever be one!) we will be making kaleidoscopes:
And one more project. We will be making our own bubble mixture which basically consists of dish washing liquid, water and unflavored gelatin. For all my couponers, remember those $4 off any one Knox unflavored gelatin coupons that resulted in about a $2.50 overage to spend? I have about ten boxes of that stuff that have just been sitting waiting for a use like this.

And the good news? All of the above activities will cost us nothing since we have all the required materials or ingredients already on hand!

Happy Birthday, Aunt Lizzy!

We were able to celebrate Uncle Rob's birthday in person but Aunt Lizzy is way far away in New Orleans. So, Aunt Lizzy, here is our virtual birthday card to you! We love you!

Car Accident on Sunday, June 21st

Many friends and family members have heard bits and pieces about my car accident this past Sunday evening so after some prayer and thoughts, I'm posting the full story here. Sunday evening around 7:30 I headed to Publix for our weekly penny item(vanilla wafers this week) while Big Philip stayed home with the kids. I was stopped at the red light leaving our neighborhood, preparing to turn left onto a four lane highway towards Publix . When the light turned green, I proceeded to turn left. I was struck by someone running the red light. The impact took off most of the front end of our van but I was unscathed, not even a bruise or any soreness. I wish the story ended there but it does not.

In the next few seconds, the driver that hit me lost control of his SUV and struck a telephone pole. His girlfriend was also in the car and sustained multiple fractures but was conscious at the scene. Sadly, the driver, an eighteen year old male who just graduated from a prominent local high school this past May, died in transit to the hospital.

Big Philip has been out of town most of June working at MSU with their new student orientation. At the time of this accident, it just so happened that he was home for a few days in between his work obligations. Otherwise, the children would have been in the van with me, a thought that terrifies me.

Please pray for this young man's family who is grieving the loss of a son. An experience like this causes me to pray more fervently for God's wisdom in knowing His plan for me on this earth. It also makes me more thankful for the life I have been given. I share this experience in the hopes that you will feel the same way.

Clone Time

When Little Philip was eight months old I posted a picture of Big Philip at the same age. The resemblance was uncanny. What is even more amazing is that with each milestone, son continues to be an almost complete clone of Daddy at the same milestones. Here is Big Philip, pictured on the left, at the 1979 Moss Family Reunion in Perdido Key. In this picture, he is four and a half years old.
And here is a picture of Little Philip at this year's reunion, just one month shy of his fourth birthday.
Scary isn't it? You should see what Little Philip will look like at his senior prom. Get in line girls. He's gonna be a heart breaker!

Blackberry Season

It is so freakin' hot in Alabama right now which can only mean one thing. It is blackberry pickin' time. Sure, we could go to the store and buy fresh or frozen blackberries but what is the fun in that?

Today we went to the Valleydale Farmer's Market that meets each Saturday at our church, Faith PCA. Daddy helps out at the Boutwell Farm's meat booth (is anyone surprised?) but we have not been able to join him these last two Saturdays due to travel. Today we made it out there by 9:00 a.m. when the temperature was a cool 90 degrees already. We lasted about half and hour before heading up the hill to the church playground. Nothing cools a mother and two aunts off more than standing around watching an almost four year old play on a playground. Helen had just about had it so Aunt Ellen waited in the car with her while Aunt Lizzy, Mommy, and Philip played a bit. I could not resist taking a peek at the edge of the woods that borders the back of the church and sure enough, jackpot. We picked about four cups of blackberries and headed home to make some cobbler.

So we started with this. Sugar coated fresh blackberries.And ended up with this. A delicious fresh blackberry cobbler complete with blackberry syrup, proudly displayed by a just-up-from-my-nap-so-please-excuse-my-messy-hair Little Philip.
Diet? What diet. Sweet mama, this was good. The recipe is from my girl over at Pioneer Woman and can be found here. Now I'm off to scrub my entire body with soap to be sure I don't come down with a rabid case of poison ivy from all that pickin' today.

Back from the Beach And

We are back from the beach week in Perdido Key and it was a long and memorable week! Lots of cousin time and lots of pictures to download and sort. Sadly, at the close of the week my beloved grandfather, Papa Julian, passed away. He had recently been diagnosed with lung cancer and was awaiting the results of a PET scan to see if the cancer had spread. Before those results were even read, he passed away, but we later learned that the cancer had spread to his brain. It was a blessing for him to pass so quickly, without any pain, but we all miss him dearly. As with any good Southern funeral, our tears were mixed with hugs and laughter with loved ones all around, along with a delicious outdoor picnic following the funeral at Papa Julian and Memaw's house. The setting was Papa Julian's beautiful pecan orchard and he would have been very happy to know we all enjoyed being a family together reminiscing out him and all our wonderful memories.

I will download pictures soon but we hit the ground running after our return late Monday night. The cupboard is bare so I need to get our household back up and running before I spend some time updating our blog.

King (Make that Princess) Sized Bed

This week has been a doozy of a week at the Moss house. Mommy started work at Mountaintop Community Church preschool which means Little Philip and Helen also started a new school. Little Philip is elated to be back in a school setting and by all accounts, is doing very well so far. Can you guess how the next paragraph will begin?

Helen is not transitioning well, something we all expected. Unfortunately, tomorrow is our last day for the week before heading to the Moss family reunion at the beach next week. That means that when we return, we will begin the transition all over again. We are confident that she will get into a routine but for now, Miss Helen is none too pleased to be leaving Mommy, even if it is just ten feet across the hall from Mommy's classroom. Her teachers are sweet and can be and they are being very patient with her, considering all the other children in her classroom are wondering what the heck her problem is.

Big Philip also left for Starkville today, where he will find his temporary abode in an MSU residence hall while he and his fellow staff members welcome all the new MSU students through new student orientation sessions throughout the month of June. We will miss Daddy tremendously but look forward to a few days here and there where he might be able to head home for a break. And if he does come home for a break, he hopes he will not have to share his bed with his little girl anymore. As you can see, her first night after starting school was not a restful one. After trying to rock her back to sleep when she work up at 4:00 a.m., Daddy relented and brought her to bed with us, where she promptly turned perpendicular to our bodies and began kicking Daddy in the head.