Mid-July, we took a much needed vacation to our Farm. Just us. No projects to come with us. Just lots of books, movies and the outdoors.

And a fair bit of nudity.

We made use of the little kiddie pool at the Farm and its two slides. There were slide competitions of every imaginable sort. It was a lovely place to stay cool on the crazy 100 degree days.

August faces off a competitor (probably Brooklyn) and prepares to make the biggest splash!

We didn't leave much room in the pool, did we? 

Wyeth hangs out with me as I pour myself some coffee.

August went crazy with the Lincoln Logs - building a pretty awesome house that made us all want to move there.

Despite the heat, we couldn't keep Wyeth indoors except for naps. He was a crazy outdoorsman! He ran around with all the push toys, riding toys, sat on the 4 wheeler when it was parked, played in the pool, chased bugs, probably ate some bugs, and miraculously managed not to get bitten or stung.

He ended up brown as a nut by the end of the week.

Don't tell me you can't vacuum out here. Just watch me!

Dorien braves the initial chill of the water as the pool fills up!

Dripping wet and having a ball!

Brooklyn was as content as Wyeth to play outside for hours. Mostly in the pool.  She and August can entertain themselves indefinitely. It's amazing.

My sweet girl loves my other sweet girl. 

During the hottest parts of the day, we'd force them inside to keep them from over-heating. It was insanely hot on some days. They were zapped from the sun, anyway, and a movie would just about put them all to sleep.

Hanging out with Dad before the nightly baths. 

Crazy nuggets.

Making progress through one of my library books!

Wyeth eats a snack while staring at the photo montage on the fridge.

Here's the upstairs room in the Farm. It has 3 sets of bunk beds, a twin bed, and 3 double beds. And lots of floor space for acrobatics. During nap times, it was an incredibly peaceful place to be. 

I love all the old signs my parents have used to decorate the room!

Kyle and Dorien have some special reading time.

Kyle and I were trying to keep up with our training schedule as best we could in the heat, and Brooklyn decided to write up a daily workout schedule for the kids. It started with push-ups. And everyone participated, even Wyeth. They also did lots of lunges and a variety of warm-up moves that August has learned from his tennis lessons. It was pretty hilarious. 

One evening, we drove to town for dinner and on the way back, noticed a rodeo setting up. It was about a mile from the Farm, and definitely something we've never seen before, so we pulled in and watched for a few hours. We all love horses, so the kids were really excited.

What we discovered was that rodeos start around 8:30pm and go until midnight. They start late and end late so the animals (and people) don't get over-heated. 

We claimed a spot on the bleachers! We were clearly "city folks" among a bunch of country folk. It was fun, though. I love country folk. There were horses everywhere, Wranglers and boots, spurs, cowboy hats, lots of thick Southern accents and it was kind of a new world for my kids to see.

The rodeo started with barrel racing, and there were some little-bitty kids out there! One little girl was accompanied by her Daddy on a much larger horse. 

After a few people had raced, they re-graded the corral, which meant that a big John Deere tractor came and drove strategic circles all around the dirt, smoothing it out. Let's just say that every time the tractor came out, Wyeth perked up! He would yell and clap and get so excited! He liked the horses, too, but not as much as the tractor. He called the horses, "dog-dogs!"

Here's his favorite part. It quickly became our LEAST favorite part as it seemed to take a good 10 minutes and happen at least every 10 minutes. No wonder rodeos go so late! The big dirt Zamboni has to do its thing repeatedly!

Gleaming with sweat, my boy and I soak up a sweet summer July evening at a rodeo in the country.

Not a bad way to pass an evening.

Kyle and Wyeth share a bowl of food. 

My three boys swinging together and just enjoying being brothers!

In typical Memorial Day tradition, we spent the past weekend at the Farm, although it was a smaller crowd than usual! Josh and Lauren just added their fourth child to their family (a girl, Hazel, born May 18th), so Lauren stayed home and settled in with her newborn. Chad and Melissa and their kids were getting over a stomach bug and decided not to risk spreading anything around. Mom, Dad, Jeremiah and Rachel trickled in on Sunday from a wedding. It was pretty quiet. 

There was no shortage of 4-wheel vehicles, both large and small, however, and at any given moment, the kids were begging a grown-up to give them a proper trail ride. Fortunately, Aunt Rachel was game for hauling the kids around...a lot. Thanks, Rache!

Josh is still dealing with incredible back pain with some ruptured disks, so we all helped with Sawyer, Gage and Ruby. 

Gage and Ruby, above, hung out by the campfire before the mosquitos drove us indoors.

Ruby and Wyeth. Ruby is 5 months older than Wyeth, and the two of them actually hung out together a little.  Wyeth, we discovered, loves ALL THINGS FARM. He was fearless and game for anything.

He loved driving the little 4-wheelers, although I don't think he ever connected his pressing a pedal down with the movement of the vehicle...it seemed to him a happy accident if he moved.

He loved the dogs, the puddles, the grass, the balls, the wild outdoorness of it all. 

He was one filthy little blond baby by the end of each day. And he could not have been happier. 

There's something utterly beautiful about a fire in a field on a summer evening. 

Kyle and I were determined to stick as much as possible to our training schedule, so we headed out in the woods Sunday morning for a trail run. Singer joined us for the run, and we had a few 4-wheelers leading us around for part of the time.  We ended up running a little over 3 miles through the trails, and it was one of the most beautiful, relaxing runs I've ever had.

I'm training right now using heartrate zones, and I was supposed to run staying in Zone 1, which is basically a really really low heart-rate (between 120-128) and it is, for me right now, incredibly hard to run and stay in that Zone. I kept checking my Garmin and having to slow down further and further. I've never really run trails before, and I found the experience of running amid the trees and varying terrain, jumping fallen logs, skirting poison ivy very calming. I did have a Pandora station playing that matched the mood perfectly, and I felt like I could have run all day. There's one area of the trail that we call the Enchanted Forest (the picture above). The path is thick with pine needles, the trees tower above you and everything is hushed. You would not be surprised at all if a fairy (or Big Foot) appeared before you. It's my favorite place in the woods, and after listening to the constant noise generated by all the kids, the serenity it afforded was like a balm to my soul.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I'd been to our Farm and in my spare time, did a little sewing.

Using a pattern purchased from Blank Slate Patterns - the Beachy Boat Neck - I made some shirts for my kiddos.  For each of these shirts, I got the fabric from Girl Charlee, an online website that has fabulous knit choices.

The process begins with the above picture: fabric folded over and pattern pages pinned to the fabric.  With this type of pattern, I printed it myself from a pdf document and taped the pages together. It came with really good instructions, so this wasn't all that hard to do. 

And here is the finished product.

Proudly modeled by Brooklyn!

From the side...

And here was August's version of the Beachy Boatneck...

And a side shot.

And now I will take you step by step through my process, as it occurred, for making Dorien's shirt.

After pinning and cutting out the pattern pieces, I matched up the front and back pieces at the shoulder seams, wrong sides facing out and sewed along the shoulder pieces.

And here is the front and back facing pieces. Also matched up, right side to right side and sewn along the shoulder seams.

Then you pin the facing to the neckline, like so.

In this case, you turn the front and back right side facing up and then pin the facing (matching front up with front, etc) so it's laying right side down onto the right side of the front and back pieces. If it sounds confusing, it really wasn't.

Sew around the neckline.

Once your neckline has been sewn to the facing, you baste the side facing pieces to the arm pieces. This makes it easier to pin on your sleeves, so the facing isn't moving around while you're sewing.

Confession: I had never basted before. It was easier than I thought. Literally just a matter of hand-sewing some stitches down the side of the fabric to hold it in place. It will be pulled out later. 

So, here is the front and back with facing sewn on and the sleeves pinned in place. It really looks crazy.

And then carefully, I sewed the sleeve to the front and back pieces, making sure the facing piece was properly attached too.  The pattern instructions said it might be good to topstitch around the neckline, and they were right.  It definitely made it look cleaner and tighter.

Once the arms had been attached, the next step was literally to pin the sleeve seams and side seams together and sew it up! I used my serger for this part and it was a snap. 

As an FYI, my mom has a ginormous dining room table at the Farm and I took full advantage of this enormous table. I had my sewing machine set up side by side with my serger, and was able to use the other end for the pinning and "preparing" of the fabrics.

Sides all sewn up!

I'm still figuring out how to hem knits, so for the sake of simplicity, I literally just serged the bottom of the shirts. I am not able to set up a double needle on my sewing machine, and since I'm still figuring all this out, I just went with the low-tech approach. It looks fine on the shirt, since it's a slubby knit anyway. 

Last step: Put the shirt on the future wearer, measure the length of arm and hem and finish it up.

Since this shirt was for Dorien, I made the sleeves slightly shorter than Brooklyn's and August's. And I did hem the sleeves, using my regular sewing machine. 

Voila! 

Side shot. I love boatneck shirts and somehow, they seem even sweeter on little kids. 

Dorien's fabric is the softest knit and he looks so sweet in it!

I also got significantly faster with each shirt. I think Dorien's shirt (yes, it is also smaller) took me about an hour and a half to make. Brooklyn's shirt, being my first, probably took about 3-4 hours. 

Final products on my precious little children.

Another shot of my beloveds.

And after all that work, you definitely earn yourself a nap.