Busy, busy

Wow, we've been so busy I've hardly posted lately! Then we were sick last week- yuck!

Let's see... we went to the Janzten beach carousel with some friends. It's beautiful and E had so much fun!

Our garden is producing massive amounts of tomatoes and cucumber. I love both of those, but there's only so many salads and sandwiches a person can eat!

We went to Powell's- the world's largest book store. I only got to browse the kid's section, since D's brother was visiting and I let them do their thing while I watched the kids. When my mom visits, I want to go back and check out the rest.

E found a book there called ALIVE and it's all about the body. I'm hoping I can find it for her at the library. She can't get enough of body books right now. We got a bunch at the library, but they aren't nearly as good as ALIVE. We've been talking about bone marrow, ventricles, cells, neurons, platelets, tibia, radius, ulna, skull, dentricles, carpels, intestines..... I explain some things in simpler language, but a lot of times she just wants me to read the books.

We've discovered some new favorite movies. E really likes Balto since it's about dogs (another current favorite thing), and we just discovered Harold and the Purple crayon. It's cute! She's also enjoying the Signing Time movies. They are sign language movies that show the signs for different themes. And I have the Wonder Pets song permanently imprinted on my brain- "It's Seweus!" lol

She got to see some new dogs too. I cleaned a house for a friend who has two dogs and E came with me. She's always pretending to be a dog complete with howling like a wolf. She calls all her food dogfood, and I'm just waiting for some stranger to think I'm a horrible mother when she asks for her "dogfood" in public. :)


This morning E discovered that one of her coloring books has letters in it that are the kind where the lines are broken up so kids can write over them to learn how to make them. She thought the was really cool and wrote E, H, I over and over. And she got to go swimming today at an apartment building managed by the same company that we work for. We've had an open offer to swim there all summer and D and E finally did it today. We'll have to take her back a few times again before it's too late.

L is cranky every morning until she gets a morning nap. I think she needs more sleep in the mornings, but gets woken up by a wet diaper and the rest of us moving around. Then she's too busy playing to go back to sleep, but too sleepy to really enjoy herself. Not sure how I'm going to help her with that.... for now I've just been nursing her a lot all morning long. Maybe I'll start wearing her more- she's happy if she's in the carrier and maybe she'll fall asleep that way. And she's climbing non-stop. On the chairs, the table, IN the kitchen drawers. Pulling stuff out of the drawers and turning off the tv. It's the age of perpetual redirecting... But she's SO CUTE and so much fun! She has two all purpose words "Ow" and "Ah Oh." She walks around all day "Ah oh! Ah oh!"

So, that's all I can think of that's happened in the last few weeks. I have some new projects in the works, but nothing I'm ready to share yet. Still, they have been taking up time. And I've been doing more meditating and mindfulness practices, which I'm going to do a different post about.

Summer Goodness

I went to the farmers' market yesterday and got a ton of veges. I posted on facebook that it cost under $20, but when I thought back, I think I actually spent less than $10! Spinach, squash, zucchini, lettuce, beans, onions. And apricots too.

We went berry picking today- raspberries, marionberries and a few blackberries. About 10 pounds for $15. They are so good, juicy, sweet, mmmmmm! I'm going to make a marionberry pie with some of them, but we will probably eat most of them raw.

Then I went to work in our garden co-op this evening, and came home with peas and beans.

Full, Fun day

Today was full, busy, fun, long, tiring, and filled with discovery. We went to Target and Walmart and bought new shoes for both girls. At Target I also found a wall map of Europe, a map of the US puzzle, and a poster of numbers for $1 each.




The maps were a neat find because of E's interest in flags. Seeing the flags is leading to her wanting to know where the countries are located. We have a globe, and we use mapquest, but the wall map and puzzle will be different ways for her to see them.

We also went to the garden today, and saw lots of BIG spiders, a butterfly, and a dragonfly. I haven't gotten a chance to take her to see any bug exhibits, but we've been finding lots of bugs everywhere we go.

When we came home, the girls played in the sprinklers.






And they drew with chalk.



Oh, and speaking of flags- I told my mom about E's interest in flags and she sent these:



The small ones are the American flag, and state flags for Maine (where E was born), California (where we lived for a while, and where grandma lives) and Oregon. Thank you mom!

Garden Co-op

This is the view from our garden. All of that property belongs to the family who donated the plot to be used for the garden co-op. Isn't it beautiful?! I want to own property like this someday.



E helped me water and pick peas.


This is the tomatoes, corn, beans, and lettuce. We also have peas, strawberries, potates, cabbage, watermellon, sunflowers, and some edible flowers. The harvest of peas and strawberries just started and they are so good!



E is eating peas with St. Francis.