Garden Bouquet

No words today, just a pretty bouquet of zinnias, dahlias, and lavender from the garden to start the week...

Beautiful Burp Cloths

Before Noah was born, one of Curtis' coworkers (a recent Dad himself) gave us a package of Gerber cloth diapers. Since we were cloth diapering and had plenty of real cloth diapers, I remember thinking that we probably wouldn't use them, despite his coworker's reassurance and advice to keep some in every room. Well, as it turns out, Noah was a huge spitter-upper, and even with those dozen burp cloths and the several dozen more that we went out and purchased ourselves, I still had to do laundry every day to keep them in stock for his copious, round-the-clock spit-ups. So, in preparation for this next baby, I am sewing up some pretty burps cloths to make catching those messes at least a little more pleasant. And if, by some miracle, this one does not spit-up, all babies eventually drool, so this baby will have nice soft drool cloths.

We will not be finding out if this baby is a girl or boy until Birth Day, so I tried to find some gender neutral flannel. What I ended up with was boyish colors in girlish designs. These heavy duty burp cloths are nice soft flannel on one side and the standard cloth diaper on the other side for super-duper absorption. The extra thickness combined with a beginner sewer caused a few problems for the sewing machine. A quick call to my Mom helped solve the problem. Her high school Home Ec teacher would be very proud of her for remembering how to solve my bobbin tension problems some 54 years after taking her class. Notice however, that there are only five finished cloths pictured, and burp cloths of course come in packs of six. One was unfortunately sacrificed after multiple seam rippings during the bobbin tension incident caused too much fraying.

While this project turned out pretty well, and I may eventually make some more, I am hoping beyond hope that I will not have much use for them until the drooling starts.
-Jen

Summer's Bounty

I appologize for being such a lazy blogger lately. I am going to claim as my excuse the fact that I have been using my usual blogging time during Noah's afternoon nap to nap myself as well. And I am going to blaim that on the fatigue caused by growing a new baby. So now, as I come out of the first trimester (15 weeks to be exact), maybe I will be napping a little less and writing more. Though, I have become really fond of those afternoon naps, so no promises.
Another upside of passing into the second trimester is that my appetite is returning just in time to enjoy the vegetables that we are harvesting from our own backyard. Right now we are drowning in green beans, carrots, and cucumbers, and the tomatoes started ripening last week.

I have been having fun searching out and trying new recipes to use up all those veggies. Some winners have been Eggplant and Zucchini Casserole and Sauteed Swiss Chard with Parmesan Cheese. Here are the makings of tonight's dinner, Beef and Vegetable Stew and Cucumber Salad (forgot to add the cucumbers in the picture).

Noah accompanies me to the garden and has learned to respectfully watch the bees that love our borage. He has been enjoying alpine strawberries straight from the garden, and stands by not-so-patiently signing "more please, more please" as I search for a small handful of ripe berries every other day or so. I have to keep checking on him when my back it turned, as he has been known to pluck some green ones and eat those too.

We hope everyone is enjoying their summer! It is hard to believe how fast it went!

Be back soon (hopefully),

Jen

Father-Son Time

It's quite an awesome feeling to be a Dad these days. It's like the older Noah gets, the time we spend together is that much more special. Every other weekend, Noah and I get a chance to hang out with each other while Mom is away at work. Today, we visited my work as it was hosting a company picnic. When we got there, there were a number of fun activities such as face painting, hat/mask decorating, inflatable slides, etc. We headed directly towards the petting zoo that was setup. There, we saw a baby calf, some ducks, a lhama, a pig, a couple bunnies, a donkey or two, some goats, a draft horse, a miniature horse, and some sheep.

Noah enjoyed watching the other people as they pet the animals, rather than pet the animals himself. I think he turns on the charm when he's around the ladies.

I really enjoy spending my time with him. Lately, he's been feeling a little under the weather. Last night, he was so tired and feeling so miserable that he feel asleep on my chest; similar to what he did when he was an infant. It's an amazing feeling that I have difficulty describing--knowing that he feels safe and cozy while sleeping on me. We spent the rest of the afternoon taking it easy, enjoying the cool fall-like weather on a rather overcast summer day.

I truly feel blessed to be his father. I wouldn't trade it for the world.

-Curtis

Trip to the Beach

We took advantage of a beautiful summer day by taking Noah on his first visit to our small hometown beach (it is actually more like a large pond). We parked ourselves under a giant willow tree and Noah and Dad got busy building a sand castle.

At first, Noah was not too sure about the sand or the water and clung to us with a little death grip. After a few trips down to the water to refill his water bucket, he discovered that it wasn't all that bad, and the water was actually quite warm.

We had a little picnic and then headed home, where we all took a nice nap. While I would not say that Noah now loves the sand and water (he tried to leave several times, telling us "Bye!" and heading for the gate), it was a nice introduction. I am sure he will soon be begging us to stay longer.

-Jen

Gotta Scoot

Noah has been playing with the cart that Grandpa made him quite a bit lately. He likes to stroll his dolls around the living room and down the foyer's hallway. When that gets old, he'll climb onto the cart, sit down, clench onto the sides with both hands, and then call for me to drive him -as if it were a car. We then race back and forth from the kitchen to the bedroom at incredible speeds. Only at the end, when we slow down, does Noah yell 'buh bye!'. Once that started to get old, Noah thought to himself, "Now, what else could I use this cart for?"

Then, clever Noah came up with interesting idea, "What if I were to turn this cart around and go the opposite direction?" He started using the cart as a scooter! We quickly grabbed the video camera to capture his first attempts.

We can't wait to see what his little imagination will come up with next!

-Curtis

Everything Grows!

We returned from a week-long family vacation in the north woods filled with water activities, yummy food, and relaxation to find lots of growth in our garden. It is amazing what some warm weather, lots of rain, and a week away will do!




There were a few weeds too, of course, but nothing that 10 minutes of pulling couldn't handle. Actually, I found that they are much easier to pull when they are a bit bigger. We have been enjoying lots of lettuce, and I tried my first recipe with swiss chard: a beef stew with mushrooms, carrots, and swiss chard, served over quinoa from The Whole Life Nutrition Cookbook. Now I need to figure out what to do with our bush of Italian Parsley.

I was suprised to see a few blossoms on the alpine strawberries that I started from seed. Of the three varieties I started, this one (called Fresca) seems to be the most hardy and is the only variety with blossoms so far. Now we just have to keep an eye out for berries and either fight off the birds or build a cage for over the strawberry bed.

Some of the herbs were getting a little out of control, so I cut some to dry. The line in our hallway where we hang holiday cards is out of a job recently, so I turned it into an herb drying line instead.

While I can recognize the herbs in their natural form, I thought it may become difficult as they dry and shrivel up, so I made some pretty little labels with a leftover piece of a watercolor painting I did last year.

Now I just need to find some cute little spice jars. Maybe we will do a little thrifting/antiquing this weekend?

-Jen