Papa's Garden

I took some pictures of Gary's garden today. It is doing very well. The pea's are really loaded. He should be picking them in a couple weeks. Thankfully he picks, shells and puts them up. I cook and help eat them. I think that is fair. They really are good. Last year we didn't get too many as we had so much rain that it drown them. Hopefully this year we will get the full crop.

The corn is coming along, maybe a little slow, but it is coming.

This is his peanut crop. If these do well there will be lots of boiled peanuts. Yummy

Here is the first little watermelon. This is what I wait for every year. I love watermelons. These are the little sugar babies. The kind you can sit down and eat the whole thing. They are so good and so sweet. Gary works hard in the garden and keeps it growing good. It takes a lot of work and I don't really think it is worth it, but he loves it. I do enjoy the results, but to me it is way to much hard work. Glad he likes to do it though. We have lots of tomato plants too and they are doing good.

New Washer & Dryer

For the past several months my 20 year old washer and dryer has been getting ready to bite the dust. I knew it was just a matter of time. The dryer sounded like a rocket ship taking off. The washer was working (sorta) but about 2 weeks ago it flooded the laundry room. Not fun. So, we decided it was time to get new ones. I mean I do have better things to do than stand and watch the washer wash to be sure it isn't going to flood the house again. SO.... yesterday Lowe's delivered these. They were supposed to get here at 4:00 PM but didn't make it until 8:00 PM.
Tanek was here when they came and he was pretty excited about it. He liked watching the delivery man get our old ones on the big truck and the new ones off and in the house. He got out his little cell phone (his mom's old one) and called Sears. He said "Hi Sears, you can't come over here Lowe's is here right now". I am not sure why he felt the need to call Sears, but he did. He was also interested in knowing If...the new dryer would be quiet and he could hear the TV now.
Funny what little kids observe.

The washer has lots of buttons and it plays music when it goes on and off. Pretty cool. Everything is computerized and pretty much thinks for you. You just push the button you want.
It is a water saver and it is amazing how little water it does use.

The dryer is pretty much the same. Lots of buttons.

And the tub is BIG. I was able to do a bunch of clothes, towels, overalls in just 3 loads. Really made laundry a lot easier. I painted the laundry room and am still working on it as far as getting it all organized and will put some curtains up etc and make it a nice little room. Before it was used to store so much stuff I could hardly get in and out of it. But now it will function like a real

laundry room. Trying to make the job pleasant one.

Mr. Bun Bun

Look what Mr. Bun Bun is up to now. This morning I found him just sitting in an empty pot. There is no telling where he ends up. He gets in the back of one of Tanek's toys, he lounges on the step all sprawled out. He has just pretty much made the back porch his home and he seems quite happy there.

Especially at night you can see him running all over. He isn't afraid of the dogs and sometimes even chases Stanley.

He is getting pretty big and is so cute. He comes up to the sliding door as if to say "let me in". I hope THAT doesn't ever happen.

These are the shoes I wear when I work in the yard. For some reason they are very tasty to him and he is pretty much eating them up. I have had to put them up where he can't reach them. He is still using the litter box which I am thankful for. He loves carrots best and he also eats rabbit food. We are enjoying having him around.

Fun with Play-Doh!

Today Tanek and I played with play-doh. We had lots of different cutters and things to make different designs, and push the play-doh through to make curly worms. It was lots of fun.
There were scissors to cut it into many pieces, roll it out flat and cut all sorts of things.

Lots of worms

Lots of fun. We spent about an hour making all sorts of things. .

Sometimes it takes a lot of concentration

A perfect shape cut out. It was easy to make this into a learning time. Tanek cut the play-doh in many pieces of all sizes and shapes and then he lined them up and counted them. He had many different shapes to work with too.

Sunday Afternoon Swim!

Sunday afternoon Ricky and Stephanie brought Tanek over to swim. They are working with him to learn how to float on his back. He really doesn't like doing that much, but he is getting better at it. The object is for him to turn over on his back from swimming. This is what they are teaching him in his swimming lessons. As you can see he "can" do it, he just doesn't think he can.

Getting out of the pool.....

to jump in.

What he really likes is to be thrown in the air and let go to come down into the water

He wanted to go higher.....

and higher.....

and higher still.....

That is the most fun of all.

Tanek in School

Stephanie and I are homeschooling Tanek in preschool. He is learning well and there are some things he really likes to do better than others. Unfortunately, the things he "really" likes I don't. He loves Lego's, puzzles and stuff like that. I prefer things that are 1 piece. However, we are working well on some things. He is learning to write his letters good. He is very proud when he learns to write something new. We also have magnetic letters that he uses to spell with. He is learning the capitals of the states. He can show you where all of us were born and live on the map. He can find a lot of the capitals on the map too.

He did this "all by myself". One of his favorite sentences.

He got these magnetic gears and he loves them. These I even like. You put them all together and if you put them together right you can turn them all at one time. He said it reminds him of the insides of a clock. All turning round and round. I am not sure how he knows what the inside of a clock looks like.

You can make all sorts of designs with them.

He also likes to read and is doing very well at that. And he wants to know how to spell everything. Sometimes he ask how to spell whole sentences. And whatever signs he sees along the road he wants to know what they say. He says, "I am curious". That is putting it mildly. He ask at least a thousand questions everyday. But I know that is how he learns. Some days I prefer recess. But then I always did. :)

First Two in the Pool!

Today Tanek and his daddy went swimming in the pool for the first time. I had promised him he could go swimming today and I was SO happy that his daddy decided to take him. The water is getting warm (86 degrees) but I prefer it a little warmer. They had a good time and by the time they got out Tanek's lips were quivering from the cold.



He still loves to jump into the pool and will jump whether you are ready for him or not.

The big thing he needs work on is floating on his back. He is not real anxious to do this although he can. I guess that feeling of just laying back and not thinking you are going to sink makes him a little uncertain. He does well swimming, and they are teaching him (at swimming lessons) to turn over on his back and breathe and then swim again.

He was a little more confident with his daddy than he was with the swimming instructor. I think he is doing pretty good after just 2 lessons.

He does love to be on top of his daddy's shoulders.

He did very well jumping off the side of the pool and swimming to his daddy.

He loves the jumping off, over and over again.

And again!

I do look forward to the water getting a little warmer and it won't take much longer with as hot as it is now. I can see many hours of fun in the pool this summer.

First Day of Swimming lessons

Monday Tanek started swimming lessons with "Swim America" at UF. He loves the water and last year was beginning to start to swim. We really want him to learn to swim well since he has access to our pool everyday. It is something he will really enjoy. Right now he goes twice a week and they have one instructor for every two children which I think is good.
Right now they are working in the small warm up pools. He likes plain swimming, but rolling over on his back and floating is going to take some work. He doesn't like that feeling of not being in control.

2nd day of class is over. Tomorrow we will start swimming in our pool and he can practice what he is learning. He has 3 more weeks of this session and I am hoping he will progress enough that we can really perfect it over the summer. I am sure we will be spending a lot of time in the water this summer.

Below is a video I took the first day. You can see that he doesn't much care for the floating on his back. I am hoping to see a lot of improvement by the end of the next 3 weeks. He wants to be able to swim the length of the big Gator pool and there are a lot of kids that can do it. I am not sure how long it will take but it is a good goal to have. If he can learn to swim that far, he will be able to swim without worry. He actually did better on his back today, so at least that is improvement in just one day.