Our little garden...

This is our little garden we planted for this season. We received all the supplies (except the potting soil) for free from our extension office as part of their outreach to schools and homeschools (that's us!). We had several of the neighbor kids over to help haul bags of potting soil, fill the containers with it, and then plant their seeds. The kids all had such a fun time. It's barely been a couple weeks and we're already getting little sprouts coming up! We have dill, cucumbers, butterfly weed, lettuce, parsley, and a couple other things. It is very fun and kid-friendly, which is super important. In the past, we have always had a larger in-ground garden, but have been unable to do that here due to the rabbit problem we have. Last year, they ate my vegetables down to nothing-and they have mowed through most all of my flowers in the front. Nothing has stopped them from chomping their way through the neighborhood! Someday, I would love to have a garden to supply a large part of our vegetables, but it will not be at this house! For now, this is perfect for us and it is a lot of fun! I'll keep updating when things start growing!

My oldest three boys are also in the beginning of their seasonal lawn mowing business. They have already mowed 4 lawns in the neighborhood and love having that extra spending money. Michael just came on this year, so he is still in the training phase, but here he is mowing our neighbor's lawn-the mower looks huge next to him, but he did a great job!

Here's Matthew doing some edging. They actually do quite a nice job. Unfortunately, they have to do our lawn for free, which they don't like, but Dad lets them use his mower, so it seems like a fair trade!