Friday's Letters

I've been reading a feature called Friday's Letters by Ashley from Adventures of Newlyweds blog for a few months now and have decided to link up and do one for today! 

 

Dear Car, please make that same crazy noise that you make for me when Dave drives you today so he doesn't think I'm being overly paranoid. Dear Mulch, you are heavy and smelly but you certainly made our yard look neat and tidy! Dear Trees, please stop dropping, spreading and spraying your nasty pollen. I know you're just doing your natural thing but um I can't stop sneezing and my poor baby is all stuffed up. Dear one inch long ants, you are very creepy. Please go into my strategically placed ant traps and get a good amount of "stuff" on you and take it back to your creepy ant lair. Dear Ohio, winters are pretty rough but Spring, Summer and Fall are absolutely gorgeous here. Thank you for being so green, lush and beautiful!

7 Months Old!

Yesterday was Cameron's 7 month birthday! Of course we celebrated with a little mini cake that he actually picked out himself. I'm not kidding, he really did pick it. I held up three cakes- chocolate, vanilla and rainbow and he actually looked at each of them for a few seconds and then reached over and pounded the top of the rainbow cake! (He just knew it coordinated with his birthday hat.) Of course, he doesn't actually eat the cake- that's my job (It's rough I tell ya!). I gotta say that I really wanted the chocolate turtle cake but he picked the rainbow one so what could I do, it was his birthday after all. :)

Grandma was on hand for the momentous celebration!

Look at that face! That's a face that says- "Mom, this has got to stop!"

For the record... I took two bites of his cake and that was plenty! It was like eating a sugar cube. Can't imagine having a child eat the entire thing, they'd be swinging from the rafters!

Amish Country!

I've been so obsessed and busy with posting my May Photo A Day challenge pics that I almost forgot to post about my trip to Amish Country! It was sooooo much fun and we learned so, so much about the Amish people and their amazing way of life.

These pics are all courtesy of my friend Paige. I don't know what happened but I think I must have just been in such awe that I only took a few measly pics on my own camera! Paige took some really great ones though so all was not lost.

The info and facts are also from Paige. She's an amazing 5th grade teacher so she's filled with so much great info and she's really good at sharing it!

There are approximately 200, 000 Amish people living in the US today. The highest population of Amish are currently living in Homes County, Ohio but a close second is Pennsylvania followed by Indiana. As the land in Holmes County and surrounding areas is diminishing, the Amish have relocated to Colorado, and even Australia.

From the time they arrived in the US around the 1700's, all Amish families owned and operated a farm. Since religious persecution pushed them into rural areas in Europe, the Amish have always nurtured the land and are known to be excellent farmers.

Today only about 15-20% of Amish families consider farming their source of income. Farming has given way to other industries like construction, furniture building, crafts, etc...

 

The Amish only attend school through the 8th grade, while the Mennonites usually continue on to high school and sometimes college. Before 1950, most Amish children attended public school. In 1972, The US Supreme Court ruled that the Amish children could end their formal schooling at eighth grade. They don't feel that further education is necessary to live on the land and farm.

Giddy for our Amish buggy ride!

Mr. Kline! He's an Old Order Amish. He was very friendly and was as interested in us as we were in him. He asked us questions about Los Angeles and movie stars. (Funny huh?) Mr. Kline worked his family farm for 26 years before retiring and turning it over to his oldest son. He started giving buggy rides soon after retiring and loves meeting and talking to new people every day. After the buggy ride we stayed and talked to him for about 45 minutes. He answered all of our questions truthfully and even elaborated on a lot of the questions giving us a real peek into the lives of the Amish.

We LOVE Mr. Kline and often wonder what he is up to!

We left Amish Country around 6 pm, right when most of the Amish were getting off of work and headed home so we were stuck in a sort of Amish traffic jam. It was awesome!

A typical Amish home.

Love this photo! Even Amish girls like to coordinate with their husbands. Ha!

Children are not part of the church until they are about 20 or 21, until they decide IF and when they want to become part of the church and obey all of the rules. At this point they would be baptized. They feel that giving their children the right to choose their faith, strengthens their willingness to obey and live the lifestyle. During a time known as Rumspringa which means "Running around", kids aged 16-20, may choose to dabble with dating, modern clothes, buying a car, watching TV, dating, and even trying drugs. Typically about 85-90% of their youth join the church.

 Since they do not use electricity, the Amish create extensive drying lines that are set up on a pulley system and can be as long as 200 yards.

 This is an Amish cemetery which must be constructed on top of a hill. There is no grieving in the Amish faith and they believe that the cemetery should be plain with no flowers. They simply feel that this is the end of God's path for them so there is no sense to be sad

Love these signs! They dot the road as you enter Holmes County.

The long and winding road home. Beautiful!

A little fishy

We've got a natural on our hands people! My little Cameron is a swimmer. I know he's only 6 months old but he really seems to have taken to the water. He's the youngest one in his class (all the other kids are 1 or 2) yet he doesn't cry at all, even when he first gets into the cold pool water. Every week there's always one kid (or two or three) who cries through the whole class. I suppose you could argue that he's too little to know any better and the older kids know that they have a choice to be in the cold water or not but even so, I hope that since we're starting so early he won't cry even when he realizes there's a choice. Only time will tell.

Anyhoo... here are a few pics from class. Every week the bleachers are filled with moms, dads, grandmas and grandpas all taking pics, video, waving and cheering. It all makes for quite a chaotic class with the kids crying, family snapping away from the bleachers and parents trying to teach their little ones to blow bubbles or hold onto the wall. Lucky it's only 20 minutes long!

DIY Party Hat & Cameron's 6 Month Celebration

Cameron turned 6 months old on Monday (April 16). It really is like everyone always says- time just flies by and before you know it they are all grown up. The last 6 months has just flown by and it just keeps on going by faster and faster the older he gets. It's moving so quickly that I missed his 5 month celebration. He was 5 1/2 months before I realized that I missed it! (Since he was 3 months old I've "celebrated" by sticking candles (unlit ones) into a cupcake and taken a picture.)

6 months is a milestone so this month I stepped it up a bit. All ramping up of course for that very exciting first birthday! So this month I got him a frozen ice cream cupcake (YUMMY!), made a 6 month topper for it and a fun little birthday hat!

I got the idea for the hat from Painted Preppy and tweaked it to make it work for me. The tutorial on Painted Preppy says to print out the hat template but I couldn't find it or a link anywhere on the page so I Googled party hat templates and found Oh Happy Day which has a downloadable template. Of course when I tried to print it out our printer stopped working for some reason and after fidgeting with it for a few minutes I gave up and just drew a template myself, basing it on the general shape of the Oh Happy Day template. I needed a smaller hat anyway, one that would fit Cameron so it ended up working out well.

Boo Kitty is a total photo bomber! Especially when it comes to pictures of Cameron. 

(Someone's a little jealous!)

Since I don't have a stash of fabric ribbon I ended up using scrapbook paper for the fringe instead. I simply cut strips, folded them in half and then cut them into fringe. Instead of stapling the fringe I taped it to the edge of the hat. To make the fringe topper I just cut fringe into a longer/larger piece of paper, rolled it up, stuck it through the top hole and taped it to the inside. I didn't put a chin strap on the hat because I thought that it would irritate Cameron and cause him to swipe at it so I adhered it to his head with double sided tape. It worked well and wasn't so sticky that it pulled his hair when I pulled it off.

Happy 6 Month Birthday Cameron!