Nature's Beauty

Between our garden and veggies and fruits from the store, I can't believe the gorgeous colors and how many great meals you can make. 

Vegetables from the store and from a friend who cleared out her fridge before going on vacation.  Her turtle has loved it, too.  :)

 

Veggies from our garden

 

So beautiful!

 

Another day's haul - we have seriously been blessed with a great harvest this year.

 

So out of those vegetables, we have made:

 

Salad (kale, romaine, cucumber, tomatoes, spinach)

 

Blueberry scones (blueberries, duh.)

 

More salad and eggplant parmesan (eggplant, kale, cucumbers, tomatoes, spinach, romaine)

 

Cherry scones

 

Veggie burgers (pluots, tomatoes, cucumbers)

 

Smoothies (cucumber, spinach, blueberries)

 

Zucchini Napoleons with homemade spaghetti sauce (zucchini, squash)

 

Egg tacos (zucchini, tomato, jalapeno)

 

Tomato and Cucumber salad

 

 

Spaghetti (zucchini, squash, tomatoes)

 

Fresh mozzarella and Tomato Paninis (zucchini, tomato)

And I have to brag that that's homemade bread, too!

 

The fruit has obviously been sides.  We have given away a lot of vegetables from our garden as well, and I'm going to learn to can this week, so that'll be awesome as well.  This is fun stuff!!

 

We LOVE having a garden, and are loving our vegetarian summer!

All About Charlie

Well, hello cute boy!

 Charlie LOVES giving hugs.  He goes completely gaga when Andrew or Emily hug him.  He adores them, so hugs from them are so awesome.

Here he is chasing the ducks, laughing and saying "Duck duck duck duck duck!"  Yes, our little guy has definitely become a talker.  He says yes, no, yeah, sure, here, He's right there, wee, swing, night-night, kitty, duck, drink, cheeseand all done."  I know there's more, but that's all I can think of right now.

Feeding the ducks

 He is such a great little singer.  He sings lots of different songs, and can even carry a tune.  You can tell what song he's singing with no problem. It is just so sweet.

 

 He was doing a wooden number puzzle and I swear he said, "6, 7, 8, 9."  Little smartie!!!

 

 Oh my gosh, he is just so stinking cute.  That's all.  He is just so stinking cute.

 

Somebody doesn't love getting his hair cut, hence the super short cut.  :)

 

Charlie is funny, sweet, and so active.  He climbs on everything, and is always running and chasing the other kids.  The other day, Andrew and I were laughing so hard because of how cute he was.  Andrew likes to race the other kids.  Charlie was saying, "Eee, eee, GO!" and then racing himself.  It was adorable.  He is constantly making us laugh and love him all the more.  Our little Charlie is a snuggly little sweetheart.  We love our baby, and can't believe how much he has grown.

All About Emily

 

During church the other day, Emily yells out, "Da-da-da-daaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!! I saved the whole world!  Super Emmie!

Emily had a stinky diaper the other diaper, and said to me with a very uncomfortable look on her face, "Mommy, I think I squeezed out an egg." 

 The cutest thing is when she refers to Andrew and Charlie as "the boys" or "my brothers" or "the brothers."  "Mommy, I asked my brothers.  Charlie wants a cracker."

 She gets everything backwards.  She tells me she got pants on her water, or table on her applesauce. She asks, "Mommy, can I hold you?" It's adorable.

She loves to sing a song from the show Super Why, but with some differences.  "I weally nuv to spell; S-P-P-P-P-L!"

 

 Her newest phrases are "I so disappointed!" or "I just cwying." - said when she doesn't get her way.

 

 Macaroni is called "pacaroni" and it tastes "num num nummy in my tum tum tummy."

 

She has insisted on wearing this tutu all this week, along with those shoes which are her dancing shoes.

 

She is such a funny little thing.  She is an overdramatic 3 year old for sure, but sweet as pie.  She loves her family and has the most infectious little laugh.  When I read her her favorite books, she looks at me with this look of sweet, complete adoration.  We love our little Emily so very much, and wouldn't change her one bit.

All About Andrew

The other day, we were cleaning up the living room and Andrew said, "Well, lookee here!  This room will be clean as a whistle in no time."

 

Andrew also has informed me that "we call teeth 'food crushers.'"  I wasn't aware.

 

 

He tried soda for the first time, and then after that asked for "spicy bubble drink" for awhile.

 

Andrew informed me the other day that  "Heavenly Father lived in outer space when he was a little boy.  When Jesus was a little boy, he looked up at the twinkling stars and looked and looked and saw the moon.  We all see the moon, right?"  Then tonight when we were looking through some Science books, he said, "I know what marble is.  When you smash up rocks into lots and lots of pieces and it becomes marvelous.  Then you send it up to the moon and when it comes back, it has lots of lines on it."  You learn something new every day.  :)

This is such a creative kid.  Here are just a few of the pictures that he has drawn.  He draws probably 10-15 drawings a day at least.  They are so detailed and special.  I am so proud of our little artist.  And yes, on the stuffed animal picture, he is purchasing a roly poly stuffed animal.  Of course.

 

 He was eating a snack and his little hedgehog stuffed animal was on his lap.  He told me that his name was Hedgehoggie and said, "Mom, do you hear me and hedgehog munchin'?" 

 

Here he is reading a book to the turtle we are turtle sitting this week.  Pretty cute.

 

He is starting to read pretty well, and the other day I saw a schoolbook he was doing on his own where he wrote the words "awac" and "daon."  Awake and down.  He is SO STINKING SMART!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I've taught him stuff of course, but really he is just taking off so well on his own.  Any time I start doubting my abilities to homeschool him, I need to remember how well he is doing already. 

 

We are so stinking proud of our amazing little guy.  He is growing up so much, and so fast.  Oh, little Andrew.  We love you so!

 

Fun in the Sun

Welcome to Summer!

 

It isn't my favorite season, but we've had a pretty mild one so far, so the kids and I have been taking advantage of it.

 

For Independence Day, we went down to Salem and while there, saw the parade.  It was your typical small town parade, but since it included candy, the kids thought it was amazing.  I asked Andrew if he was having a good time, and he said, "Yeah, because this is AWESOME!"

 

Emmie also loved all the political bracelets, stickers, and necklaces.  :)

 

 We put the kids in their swimsuits the other day and turned on our sprinkler.  We got it a couple years ago in the gardening section for a couple dollars, and it works just as well as expensive ones.  Yippee!  The kids had a really good time.  Emily had trouble remembering the word "sprinklers" so called them "spwinkies" for awhile and then changed to "sprinkles."  I have to say, I didn't correct her because it was just adorable.

Clockwise from top left: Emily crying because her swimsuit got wet (she got over it eventually), Mike helping Charlie get used to the water, the kids finally all having fun in the water, and Andrew being Andrew.  :)

 

We had some crazy high winds and rain last night.  It hurt our garden, but hopefully nothing terrible.  It also broke some pretty big branches off the tree in the backyard.  We ended up playing with the branches for hours this morning.  The kids had an absolutely fantastic time.

Charlie did get stuck in the branches once or twice, but it was fun for everybody. :)

 

  Clockwise from top left: The branches, little cutie on a big branch, Emily and Night-Night, Charlie on a different branch, Andrew climbing, and all three on the same branch

 

I thought he looked so cute and little here.

 

Andrew started climbing around and said, "I'm climbing like a panda!"  He then decided to pretend to be a panda and eat 'bamboo.'  He later informed Mike that pandas like bamboo and yogurt.  You learn something new every day.  :)  He insisted on us calling him Panda and Emily went and collected sticks for him to eat.  Later he told me, "I pretended to be a panda, because that was so cute."  Agreed.

 

 We set up the sprinkler again while we were working in the garden.  The next thing we knew, the kids had abandoned the sprinkler because there was now a mud puddle.  And who wouldn't choose the mud puddle?  (Or pubbles, as Emily calls them.)  They had so much fun, and got SO messy.  It took a lot of work in the tub to get them squeaky clean again, but it was worth it to see them having so much fun.

 

 

I guess summer's not so bad after all.  :)

 

Garden

We love our garden, and it's starting to grow so well!

 

Jalapenos

 

Lots and lots of tomatoes!

 

Emily saying, "Hi, wittle 'omato!"

 

Romas

 

Our cute little "helpers"

 

Watermelons!!!!  I know we planted them, so I shouldn't be so shocked to see them in the garden, but I really was!  So exciting!  Especially since they are so stinking expensive.

 

And teeny tiny little watermelons?  Seriously adorable.

 

Our squash plant is really starting to bloom.

 

Anybody have any idea what this thing is?  It's growing in our garden, and we're letting it just to see what it is.

 

This is a hideous picture of my hand, but I wanted to show the size of the leaves on our zucchini.  It's insane.  I've never seen anything like that before.

 

Here it is!  Peppers, tomatoes, jalapenos, watermelon, cantaloupe, zucchini, yellow squash, eggplant, and lots and lots of grass.