Monday, June 26, 2006

Always by Daddy's side

Gloria kept asking "what are you doing, Daddy." Daddy would say "downloading." I was wondering if Gloria was "downloading" something into her pants at this time. Below is Gloria kissing her Daddy because he said his head still hurt after bumping working on his truck earlier.

Since Daddy has only been around on the weekends lately (we are very thankful we have the weekends with him!) the kids like to stay close to Daddy whenever he's around, whatever he may be doing.

A Peachy Visit - Saturday morning

Gloria was not much into walking around the peach orchard, possibly because she didn't want to step on peaches. She also didn't want to let go of my face to pick peaches up on my shoulders. She was into eating one after we had them weighed. We picked 20 lbs of peaches. I'm freezing some, hopefully canning some, and eating some!
JB loved picking his own peaches. His Daddy supervised him wherever he picked so that JB did not pick unripe ones. The peaches were very tasty!
Daddy even let JB climb the ladder and pick!

Friday, June 23, 2006

Garden

Every day I enjoy going outside and checking out the garden. I pull weeds, direct the meandering cucumber vines up the trellis, look to see what new fruit or flowers there are, and pick any that are ripe. So far we have been inundated with radishes and salad greens. In the not-to-distant future we are going to be drowning in cucumbers and possibly tomatoes. I know there will be ripe tomoatos because there are many on the plants that are green, but I can't say that we will definitely be drowning in those like we will the cucumbers. I just picked a cucumber today that I had no idea was growing that big already. I was searching under the big leaves and found this monster:
All of the other ones growing are still about the length of a finger. I was resisting the idea of making pickles, but I think I will have to. I had Justin send me his favorite recipe for pickles. Max, JB, and Gloria love pickles, so I suppose it wouldn't be a bad idea.

Here is a full view of our garden. On the far right are the tomatoes, then the peppers, then the cucumbers. In the garden bed on the left, we have two different kinds of corn, carrots, radishes, salad greens, onions, more cucumber vines in the back, and sunflowers (tall and dwarf).

The corn stalks have several ears growing on them, but many stalks don't have anything. I think we planted them too close together, even though I did brutally thin them in May (just not enough).

Here is our first tall sunflower:

Does anyone know, is it normal to not have any peppers on my pepper plants at this point (not even any starting to grow yet) even though I planted them about two months ago? The leaves are looking healthy and they're growing big, they are just not showing any sign of fruit (or veggie).

Monday, June 19, 2006

Father's Day/ T's Birthday picture

This picture was taken this past Sunday by a clown at the "Altus Club" which is on base. They were serving a pretty good Father's Day brunch, so that is how we celebrated. The kids got humming bird balloons and Max got a doggy balloon. I was just happy to have our family together for the weekend. Max bought me a patio furniture set for my birthday, which I acquired about three weeks ago, if anyone is wondering. We got two square, tile top tables with eight stackable chairs. I'm very happy with them and we were able to use them while my family was visiting in the end of May/beginning of June (see pics below).

Trampoline

I have no idea how to spell trampoline, but I do know how to jump on a trampoline. Gloria had the most fun bouncing while I held her.

Super Slide

The kids and I went to visit Max in Altus, OK this past weekend. We had dinner at his instructor's house. His instructor has a daughter who had a mongo slide in the back yard. JB and their five-year-old daughter had a blast going around and around, up the back and down the slide.

This and a huge trampoline wore JB out completely. Gloria was too afraid to go down the slide, but she did go on the trampoline for a bit.

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

pool fun

Today was just a day to hang around the house and take it easy. The kids had fun in the pool for a long time and it is a beautiful day. Zephyr thought it was fun too...although we did end up with a lot of dog hair and grass clippings in the pool.

Bed bug (plus nightlight)

JB has been very interested in lightning bugs ever since they have started coming out in droves in the evenings. Max also catches them for JB whenever he's home from his training in Altus, OK. This particular night, we got home late from somewhere and JB spotted the lightning bugs on the way home through the neighborhood. I told him I would catch him one to take to bed. I put it in this bug "box" and gave it to him to look at it glowing in bed. Three minutes later this is how I found him in his bed. I thought it was a cute picture. JB is able to catch lightning bugs on his own now.

Gramma Lois and the Kids


JB with the lions again

When my Mom was here, about a week and a half ago, we went to the Wichita Zoo. JB posed nicely for this picture with the lions. The real lion was over in his area sleeping lazily right in front of the viewing window. These lions were a little less risky to sit on.

Gloria's Favorite Look

Gloria loves to take out any hairbands I put in her hair to make a cute little pony tail ("Gloria Loo-Hoo" is what we call her with one right on top of her head). After she takes out her cute little pony tail, she then looks like psycho baby.

This picture is from my Mom's visit in the beginning of this month. I'm a little behind on posting pictures.

Monday, June 12, 2006

Articulate Gloria

Last night it rained and rained and thundered, but thankfully neither of the kids awoke because of it. This morning it is stil rainy and there is an occasional thunder. I got Gloria up this morning and stood her on the changing table to get her dress on. There was a low thunder rumble and Gloria's gleeful face turned to a startled frown. She then very clearly said "thunder scares me, Mommy." Is that normal for a kid that's not even two yet? I was very surprised that she could tell me what she was feeling in a full sentence. She repeats everything everyone is saying these days, even sentences, but I didn't know she could make a full one expressing emotion on her own. Then she repeated me saying "Jesus is here" and "mommy is here." Her gleeful morning glory look came back onto her face.

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Cowtown

We were almost the only tourists at Cowtown in downtown Wichita on this day because it was a Tuesday after Memorial Day and Saturday and Sunday had been free days. The cowboy in this picture hooked up the horses for us and was later training a new horse to pull the buggy. Cowtown was a lot of fun and didn't feel like your typical museum. This was a living history museum and didn't have all of the "don't touch" signs all over the place. The saloon served drinks (and had AC), and it felt even more authentic when we were the only ones there besides the people that worked there and dressed and acted with the times. I thought the many herb gardens they had around were cool and the fact that about 90% of the buildings were moved from somewhere in Wichita or the surrounding area as historical buildings that were fixed up.

Family

These are just a couple of good pictures of family visiting in our home . Gloria is showing off her cute little dimple with her Gramma Lois.

Plane trip

Max was able to show Uncle Bill, Aunt Diane, and JB a KC-135 on the ground.
My Uncle Bill and Aunt Diane from Arizona came to visit over Memorial Day weekend. My Mom came at the same time as well and stayed for about 9 days. It was great having family over to our place here, being able to show them and share with them our relatively new home. We ate a lot of our meals outside.