May, the first half and some birthdays

A typical scene on a quiet Sunday...lots of reading.

And cozy blankets if it is chilly.

Some construction started next door, so we could enjoy watching what was going on while working on our own projects.

Time to tackle a puzzle.

Jennifer wanted a mat for her room, just like Melanie has. So she's been working on it for a very long time. Sewing shut each piece of fleece into long tubes and turning them inside out--it certainly took persistence!

All the groceries get dumped into the foyer when I arrive home. Evelyn felt sorry for me and even brought them further, into the kitchen itself!

It is wonderful to get help for the more complicated parts of a project!

The garden is prepped and ready for some planting. The kids are helping tidy up the ice rink pieces. Time for a new season of activities!

The ride on mower sure look small when compared to the digger next door.

That driveway is going to be a lot of fun in the winter!

The final product, at last!!

It is ready for Jennifer's room. She now has a room on her own, so it's lovely to have some furnishings to go with it.

Daniel and Evelyn have a bunk. Enjoy the view of a very neat room. It took a lot of work to tidy up the bedrooms enough in order to move Evelyn over into Daniel's room.

To save space in the bedroom, the "doll corner" is now relocated to the playroom.

Jennifer is about half way done her paint by number. It is definitely a big project. Hopefully she can persist in this one too!

With school work wrapping up, we thought a bike road on a local trail would be a nice break. We brought walkie talkies and ribbons to tie on the trees.

The younger kids and I had to follow the ribbons to find Melanie and Matthew. It was a lot of fun. Even if they tied too many ribbons so we caught up to them! :p

And a snack in the woods is always great!

We played a good game of rocks and roots while we were at it. There was a big line of fallen trees so we could go for quite a stretch quite easily.

I got a new wall hanging for the living room. Can't have a poinsettia wreath hanging up all year!

Also on mother's day I got a free trailer which was on the neighbours property. We asked before it got tossed out during all the construction--yay! Matthew and Melanie got the deck off of the tractor in preparation for some fun.

Daniel measured the back of the trailer so that we could get a board cut the right size to close it off.

(Oh, and some basketball)

And we are in business! Moving around some small pine trees, hoping to beautify our place while using local (home grown) supplies.

Yup, it works quite well! Sure beats using a wheelbarrow!

The trailer make a great toy, too. Too bad the tractor doesn't go faster. ;)

Boys + Lego = hours of hapiness.

Boys + Lego = very messy floor. Always. (Sigh.)

Cereal boxes are very useful. When Mom lets you keep them. For some reason she doesn't appreciate her frugal children who all seem to have their own private stash of boxes (along with random toys inside them, like crayons or pieces of board games) in their rooms. One must now ask permission to keep a box. Having a project idea planned helps in getting "yes" as an answer. Jennifer decided to make some fairy wings for a costume.

Melanie keeps her project messes out of my sight. Since I rarely step in the sewing room, I don't often know how messy it can be there! Here is a quilt, almost completed. Made for the sole purpose of covering up an ugly section of her wall.

Biking weather! With all the room we have to go biking in, the kids all bike on the patio and circle around on the "upper patio" right in front of the back of the house.

And squabble about the ramps and get in each other's way.

We celebrated some birthdays. Dad got several homemade gifts. And purchased gifts. Half of his kids make money now and think that they have more time than money...or so it seems!

And Evelyn thought up and sewed on her own, a pillow for her Dad because he always seems to have a bit of a gap there on "his spot" on the couch. Well done!

And we ate lots of food. It'd been a long time since we did a fondue. So we all tried to be patient about taking turns. It was delicious. But it was hard to wait.

And we celebrated Nathan turning 16!!! Time to start driving!!! We were a bit unsure, with all the regulations and covid closures, if we could, but no worries, we were able to get his G1!

We hardly get to enjoy Nathan's company these days. His siblings had no problems making him gifts secretly, since he was away working a lot. Full time hours started up as soon as his school work wrapped up. Which he really enjoyed. Fresh air, great atmosphere and coworkers, work you enjoy doing, plus a steady income.

We are thankful to have had Nathan's company for 16 years. He's hard working and responsible, and most of the time, good fun. Hard to believe he is 16 already!