July Update.

Ugh...still super busy these days. Pair that with a strong aversion to cameras (for whatever reason), and you get a pretty scarce amount of photos for the month of July...well, compared to normal. :)

One glorious thing about July....FIGS!!! For the first year we had NO idea what the heck these things were on our tree in the backyard until we decided to try to eat one. DELICOUS! Yes, their appearance is slightly disturbing, but they are so so good. So I was prepared for them this year. Picked a couple of huge bowl fulls the first few days and it was so hot and I was feeling so crappy that I gave up and missed the rest of the 2 weeks that they were producing. Oh well, at least we got a good taste of 'em this year.

While I'm busy making fig smoothies, jelly, etc....Russ decides that we need a gigantic chocolate cake. Granted it was my fault as I mentioned in passing the night before that chocolate cake sounded good. Doh. Alas, it was. Every.Last.Bite.

Sam...oh, Sam. This kid is...trying. With Brooklyn, all you had to do was look at her wrong and she'd burst into tears when she did something naughty. Sam is...different. Oftentimes, punishment is just downright hilarious to him. So we tend to jump to different types from timeouts in his room, in my lap, and now we've moved to nose in the corner. The first few times it just made me giggle as I recall having to put my own nose in a corner when I was a kid. I got over that quickly though, as he thought because I was laughing, it was funny that he was in time out. BAH. So he figured out fairly quickly that it wasn't funny. Well, one day I told him to say "You rock!" Somehow this got morphed into an insult in Sam language. So now, whenever he's in time out in the corner, he yells emphatically, "YOU ROCK!!" and jabs his pointed finger at the offender. Again I am forced to duck into the other room so he doesn't see my giggles, hehe.

Oh how I love this girl. She brings me sanity during those days when Sam's nose is permanently stuck in that corner. She has decided that instead of apples, oranges, or pears that she prefers carrots. Funny kid.

I got her a cookbook and designed most of our meals for an entire week around it. Granted she helped with maybe 3 of the meals, it was worth it. This is the first night. She wanted to make soup, then bread to go with it. Here she is sauteing the onions.

Onto the rolls! She did probably 75% of the cooking (I did the chopping and such), I am so proud of her! And for those of you wondering, yes, she is cooking in the buff. That should not surprise you any more. :P

The final result! Of course neither of the kids hardly touched the soup...bah.

TRIP TO RALEIGH.
Russ woke up one morning and decided to head to Raleigh--with or without me. Knowing that he wouldn't survive even the drive there by himself with the kids, I got my things together and we set off for the 2 1/2 hour drive.

Luckily, it didn't take as much coaching to get him to sleep as I thought it would. Thank heavens.

Hello, Girl Who Never Sleeps In Cars. Sigh. At least she's really, really good. Give her a book, an occasional snack, teach her the ABC game...and you're good to go!

We arrived and are in need of food. NOW.

A mediocre Subway lunch it is. Oh well, at least everyone is happy.

I had to get this photo as I have a similar one of Brooklyn when she was about the exact same age.

My water baby. This is before she insisted I don a pair of flippers and we both sport goggle masks.

Artists.

Gymnasts.

Historians. Both Russ and Brooklyn wanted to badly to gong this bell. After we came out of the Natural History Museum sure enough, there were some kids messing around with it. It was pretty neat.

Paleontologists.

Then we came home and the next day it was so hot that we decided to spring the $40 and get a backyard pool. I think kids had just as much fun setting it up as the actual swimming.

But the water was good too.

P.S. No, Russ is not that white. He is wearing a white shirt. :P

We hit the annual Peanut celebration at Plantation Grove. It was neat--boiled peanuts, lots of information on them and how they saved this area back in the WWII days. Also some really beautiful artwork and goodies like free peanut cake and lemonade. We wanted to get something from a vendor and guess what Brook chose...peanut butter cookies with mayo and pickles sandwhiched in between....I asked her 3 times if she was SURE it was what she wanted. She was very adamant that it was, and that Sam needed one. Ahem, yeah, Sam's went bad in my purse. Ew. Anyways, these are the only 2 shots we got, lol. Very cute, but not much about peanuts. Oh, and Dut has scabs on her nose b/c she was trying to do a walking handstand the day before and fell and got a rug burn on her nose. Hehe.

We actually made it out to a playdate awhile back--it was at the fire station! Both kids LOVE it there. The trucks, ambulances, gear, stickers, hats...what's NOT to love?!

The other day I randomly decided that it was time to drag the paint out and cross some To Do's off my list. Russ took Sam to the aquarium and Brook and I painted the 3 closet doors in their room, my bathroom door, touched-up 11 walls in the house, and re-painted my bathroom. Here's the Before:


And the After:
It still needs more work--another coat of dark paint (particularly on the light, which I wanted to replace, but there were complications), re-paint the trim (Brooklyn got a bit too paint-happy, plus they need it anyways), hinges for the doors on the cabinet, new faucet and other randomness, but SO much better. Much more calming.

This Summer I've been playing on the Crosswind's softball team and have LOVED it. I'm pretty bummed I'll miss the rest of the season when we head to WA. Such a great team with awesome people!

And last, but not least, Shelan came to visit us! The kids loved having someone else to ambush and I loved having someone I trust to watch the kids while Russ and I got a date night or two!

We snuck a few senior pics in as well. Love you, Whammy!

Alrighty, signing off for another month. The next will be full of vacation photos. Woot!

Monthly Update...

We've been busy. Very busy.

Swimming lessons
Playdates
Cohabitation
Sleep issues
Chickens
Garden
Holidays
Work (both of us)
Gym
Birthday parties
Farmer's Markets
Softball
And more!

Phew. I haven't felt much like taking photos because I've been so dang TIRED!!! lol. I'd like to catch you up on all of it, but I think you may fall asleep reading it. :P I'll touch on a few though.

My new "hobby" (the quotes are because anyone knows that my hobbies are more like obsessions...) is healthy food. Pretty general, huh? Seriously though. For weeks I read nothing but books, articles, posts, etc. about organics, gardening, farming, cooking, baking...and I am LOVING IT.

My shopping habits have taken a bit of a drastic change--instead of 15 stores per week (gotta get all of those coupon deals!!!), I've backed off to one trip to the co-op, one to the farmer's market, and one to Harris Teeter if any of the sales apply to us that week. Couponing is FUN, but I am more than burnt out at this point and am more than happy to sacrifice my savings and pay a little more (monetarily and time-wise) for the yummy goodness we get each week.

Lately, I've been trying to remember to document what we make (I'll admit it...I may do a lot of the shopping, meal plans, cooking...but Russ kicks my butt in the baking department!!).

First up, Blueberry Cheesecake Coffee Cake with blueberries from the Burgaw Blueberry Festival (we destroyed a flat of blueberries (12 PINTS!) in 3 1/2 days flat). Yes, we ate the entire 8x8 pan...

Butternut Squash Pie with our homegrown squashes and Russ's fabulously flaky homemade crust.

Hamburgers with meat from a local farmer, homemade tortillas, homegrown tomatoes, and other veggies from our CSA box that comes from a local farm.

Squash Spice Pancakes drizzled with honey and powdered sugar. Ooh, and the hint of sage (which was meant for looks only) was amazing as well!

No, we didn't make the cereal or grow the peaches ourselves, but this is our new favorite breakfast--cereal and fruit with homemade yogurt. Have you ever had greek yogurt? It has that amazing slightly tangy taste that I adore, and this has it as well. It takes about a day to make, then you add a little sugar and vanilla and voila...heaven. I get a gallon of organic milk for about $5.50, which makes a gallon of organic yogurt which would cost approximately $15.50 (not using coupons though) otherwise!

There's nothing fantastic about these cookies...other than the ENTIRE BATCH!!! No special ingredients...just pure sugar and butter goodness. :P I have a couple of fabulous cooks on my hands!!

So this whole healthy eating foray left me standing at a stand at the farmer's market handing over $4/dozen free-range eggs. OUCH. This coupon mama is used to spending $.08/egg, not $.33!!!! This led me into wondering if I could possibly raise chickens (this coming from the girl who refuses to get her kids a goldfish because she's certain it'll die within a day). We thought on it for awhile and finally decide to jump on it! Russ decided that he needed to build the coop himself. Brook had a blast helping him build and paint it (although it's still not finished, lol).

We finally went and got some chicks. Keep in mind...we started out thinking 3 chickens would be plenty. THREE. We ended up getting 6 chicks. Of these 6 chicks, we later found out that probably 4 of them are roosters....doh.

Brooklyn is the "chicken mama". She loves those babies.

Sam is the "chicken monster". They literally flee as fast as they can to get away from him.

The day after we figured out we had a flock of roosters, we were looking for some adult chickens. I found a woman a half hour away getting rid of 9 hens (7 laying, 2 about to start) and 1 rooster for a great price. We didn't have a run built for them yet, so we decided to fence the bottom of the trampoline in. It's actually worked really well!

Along with the chickens the woman gave us a huge watering can and a feeder for the chicks, so it was an amazing deal. Most of the chickens are sweet and some even come over to you, but the rooster....sigh. He may very well become dinner next weekend. I don't mind the crowing whatsoever, I actually kind of like it, but he's just plain MEAN. We hope to let the chickens free-range in the yard in a week or so, but there is no WAY I'm letting him out while the kids (or I!!) am outside, there is no doubt in my mind he'll attack.

Some of the babies. The one of the very left and the other red one that's hiding are the two girls, the rest are boys. From left to right: Pearl, Ming Ming, Carl, Noname (the one hiding), and Flappy. The biggest black one actually ran to me when I went to take the photo, so he's not in there, but that is Leonitus.

I'm absolutely LOVING having 3-5 fresh free-range eggs every day!! After paying a hefty price tag, they're like liquid gold to me! :P


Fourth of July.
Russ surprised me the Thursday evening before the July 4th weekend and said he wasn't going in to work on Friday. YIPPEEE!!! And I'm SO glad he didn't, the sweltering heat held off for 2 days and was a beautiful 85. We played outside all day long and even had breakfast outside! Smoothies, cantaloupe and banana chips, YUM!

Before we headed out for the downtown fireworks, we had to get a family photo with our Independence Day shirts (thank you Suzy!!!). This is Sam's "CHEESE!" face. Lovely.

And us. The fireworks were great--Brooklyn was very brave and loved them. Sam was a bit scared, but did okay when we held him. He would say "Home! Home! Fun fireworks. Home!"

We've been thinking about putting the kids in one room together for quite awhile, and decided to do it on July 4th, as we assumed they'd both be exhausted after getting home. This is Day 4 and although it's still frustrating, it's actually been easier. Instead of taunting us, Sam goes into Brooklyn's bed and they play, which is fine for now. And aside from the second night (Sam woke up in hysterics from midnight until 2am), it's definitely helped Sam's sleeping. He hasn't woken up at night (other than they hysterical night) at all. That's amazing. He was up 2-5 times each night, so it's definitely paying off! That and the other night I went in to get Sam up to pee and found Brooklyn laying with her arms behind her head on her bed and Sam sleeping on her chest. So sweet.

This was July 5th. I told him to sit down and take his shoes off. After 10 minutes Russ says, "Where's Sam?!" assuming he's completely torn the bathroom down by then and we found him like this. Unfortunately, it was only 5pm and we were starving.

Anyways...that's us for now. More updates later. Have a great week!