Kitten And Swimming

Did I ever tell you I love summer? We are thoroughly enjoying the pool, it is a great motivator! Yesterday the children and I weeded our incredibly weedy garden. After the rain we had the weeds began growing faster than the vegetable plants. There was much grumbling coming from the weed pullers until I told them we will go swimming when the job is finished and if anyone wishes they may stop pulling weeds but they won't be going swimming either. Thankfully we all were able to enjoy the water. Joseph has excema and the chlorine in the pool is very hard on his skin. We have tried all kinds of things to keep his excema from flaring up, steroid cream, natural products... and nothing worked. Someone told me to try coconut oil. I found it at our local grocery store and at $6.99 a jar it is much cheaper than somethings we have tried. Best of all, it works! Joseph will remind us if we forget to put it on before he goes to bed. Tristan got a bad sunburn while canoeing the other weekend. We put aloe vera gel on his sunburn and then rubbed in this coconut oil. The coconut oil kept the skin soft which helped alleviate the pain.

We had a busy family day on July 4. Dean finished the bathroom and I did house work and baking. We made mt pies, s'mores and singing apples over the fire for supper then watched Ephrata's fireworks. 

Tristan roasting apples over the fire. You roast them until the juice begins to squirt out and the apple is soft. Then peel it, roll in cinnamon sugar mixture and enjoy! They are a new favorite of ours. Taste almost like hot apple pie.

If you don't have chocolate bars for your s'mores, try peanut butter cups. It might be a good idea to have a cup of coffee to enjoy alongside these s'mores as they are really sweet.

One of our cats had a litter of kittens. Joseph is so perplexed as to where she got them. I tried to explain but I obviously wasn't doing a good job as he thought for a bit then said, "She must have grown them overnight." Our cat population is growing rapidly. We had one cat which was fine. The Tristan found a litter and tamed them. Three cats still wasn't to bad but then two more showed up and now we have yet another litter. I don't mind if they stay out at the shop and in the woods but when they get in my flower beds and sit on my porch and meow through the screen door, I get a little defensive. I can't complain though as the children spend hours holding them. Joseph put one in the pool. He couldn't understand why his cat wouldn't like swimming!