A Special Valentine

I wish I had a picture of the children holding this valentine when I walked into the room, but of course I wasn't expecting it. :-) The little notes on the back were so sweet - I can't help but feel very loved... :-)

Season of Fruit

We love watching our own pineapples growing... you can still see the flower under the pineapple on the right. These plants give some of the sweetest pineapples, we ever had.

Yes, we buy lots of grapefruit these days!

Grapefruit season is winding down, so we're trying to can enough jelly to last until next year. We have around 20 qt now, and have a few more batches to do before we call it quits.

Here's a glimpse of our fresh produce bins... In the forefront is custard apples, then traveling from the bottom: potatoes :-); more potatoes, ginger root, and pine kindling (for starting our charcoal fires); coconuts (we use them in rice&beans nearly every day); the top bin a fruit called sour sop. Sour sop makes good milk shakes and is NOT sour like its name would imply! :-)

My girlies...

Doesn't this picture just make you want to squish them in a big hug? :-)

"Let's pretend..."

"... we're going to market... m'ap vini, wi!"

"... We're Indians... how's my ti-pi?"

 "I'm world's cutest pig..." Oops, no pretending here... This is our little porker that keeps us entertained with his races through the garden.

Sewing team memories...

Lainer with Sophia... My children just loved playing with the babies.

Sewing headquarters. Setting up on the porch worked out great!

The ladies... From left to right: Hannah, Jean, Joyce, Ivy & Carol

Babysitting babies in the strollers was no chore at all! :-)

Joyce surprised the children with a puzzle of our family picture. It didn't take them long to figure out what the picture was! ;-)

The ladies brought food and decorations to make a very special evening for us. 

* Thanks to Jean and Hannah for sharing your pictures! :-)*

Rainbows again...

I can't help it... No matter how many rainbow pictures I post, I still have to post another. 

This rainbow was at sunset; I thought the rainbow looked so neat among the sunset colors...

Cure for boredom

Leave it up to my children - they'll always figure out something wild and woolly to try. =) I think it was Jonathan that came up with this idea of walking across the floor with his hands behind his feet. He was really good at it, too! 

Painting

Just a few pictures from when we painted the living room...

I love this picture of Rose =)

Decorating cookies

I am still going to post these pictures from a couple months ago even though I am embarrassed to post them now... 

It was so intriguing to watch how they decorated their cookies and the way they went about it. The different personalities really show up in a project like this. =)

A quiet moment...

Believe me, it feels like the moments are rare when I find them sitting quietly looking at books, but it is sweet when they do! :-)

One rainy day...

... the children enjoyed finger painting on the porch.

Can't you tell Rachel just loved getting her hands messy? :-)

Michael's masterpiece - a painting of a semi truck.