Taco Soup Night

I am a bit of a soup-a-holic.  Soups are just so easy, filling, and soothing on cold nights.  My family particularly loves taco soup, and Hadley loves to help me prepare it.  It takes so many canned goods, that we use her shopping cart to go to the "store" (pantry) and pick everything up at one time.  She has been on a major cooking kick for several months now.  My little helper.

I let her think she was reading the recipe, and then I REALLY read the recipe.  She got all the canned goods and put them in her shopping cart.

 

Our favorite Sunday night meal that Ma (Justin's grandmother) makes, is Soup Night!  She makes potato, vegetable, jambalaya, and chili.  And then there's cornbread, sandwiches, and desserts galore.  She's one amazing woman.

 With every can, I had to give one little push to make sure she was well in the middle of the pot before pouring.  She tends to stay close to the edge, which makes me nervous.  I guess all that is good practice, though.

Mmm, delicious soup from a delicious little helper.  Bring on soup season!

Canaan County Apple Festival

Well, it's no secret that the newest addition to our family is the "apple" of our eye.  We are beyond blessed to have this rambunctious ball of fire in our family.  I really had no idea what we were missing yet, somehow, it feels like he has been with us forever.  We had what truly felt like the first day of Fall, to host the Canaan County Apple Festival.
 

The Giving Tree has a little boy on the cover, hoping to catch an apple as it falls from the tree.  I thought that was appropriate decor for the gift table ;)

I loved this sweet verse that was a prayer of David's, when he felt troubled.  I pray that Canaan will always want God to take of him.

Weldon Park provided a beautiful backdrop for our rustic, Fall-themed party.  The walking trails throughout the woods are so serene.  They kids loved sliding and swinging the most.

I cut out apples and hung them from branches.  On each apple, I wrote a fun fact about Canaan.  It was so sweet thinking about special things about our sweet boy.

I used the apple theme for some of Canaan's newborn photos. Displaying the picture of him in the apple bucket wearing the crocheted apple diaper cover and hat, helped tie our theme together. 

 

It was, especially, bittersweet adding Canaan's 12 month picture into his frame.  Oh, how I love watching him grow, though. 

 

We served apple juice for the kids at the party and apple cider, from Jackson's Orchard, was a refreshing treat with our sweets.

For sweet treats, we had cupcakes, red and brown thumbprint cookies from the local bakery, apple fritters, and apple dip.

I saved Canaan's baby food jars, for a few weeks, to store homemade apple butter.  The house smelled amazing when all those ingredients stewed together in the crock pot.

Individual old fashioned apple pies were the other party favor for guests to take home.

Canaan was not a bit shy about digging in to the icing on his cupcake. I put some on my finger, at first.  But after that, he just dug right in.   At least one of the two whole teeth in his head, is definitely sweet.  He even got icing in his eye at one point. 

 We were so thankful for the sweet family and friends who came to celebrate Canaan's first year of life. We are thankful for Godly people in our lives who will encourage Canaan in the ways he should go.  Canaan, we love you so very much.  Happy 1st Birthday to our sweetest boy!

Laundry Room Makeover

Our laundry room had absolutely no storage in it; not a single cabinet.  And for the family who now makes their own laundry detergent...all ten gallons of it at a time, this is just not acceptable.  So all I had to do was say the magic words to Grandaddy, and he pulled through for me as he always does.  He managed to find me some cabinets stored in his shed (FREE), so I just bought a gallon of black paint and went to town.

 I used part of an old, bi-fold door to cover up the water heater.  I needed to better organize our pool gear, too, and found that hanging the towels, bag, and swimsuits up made them easier to grab and go.

Directly across from the other cabinets, we hung this cabinet that actually came out of the kitchen of my home church, in Auburn.  Grandaddy helped with a small renovation job they did, and got to bring home one of the old cabinets.  Since I was more than happy for any extra storage, I took it off his hands.  It is already working really well for us, just with storing things that otherwise get thrown on the kitchen cabinets or table (which drives me crazy).  I just need to get some new handles for the door.  I hope to add a shelf to the bottom of the arched area to maybe display some knick-knacks, pictures, etc.  Oh, how I love a good project....and just organization, in general! I've been told that www.flylady.com is a super organizational website.  I need to check it out in all my spare time ;)
Maybe NEXT summer?!

Savoring Summer

This summer has really been great; in some ways feeling like it has lasted forever.  I think it's because I have tried to soak up every last minute of fun with my family.  When I start to get a little blue about returning to work, I remind myself how fortunate I am to have all the breaks that I do.

Recently we headed to Habegger's Amish Market for our annual summertime field trip.  After lunch we perused the market for a bit, oohing and aahing at all the canned goods and specialty candies.  We bought a coconut fried pie and dark chocolate coffee beans for Granna and Grandad, since we were visiting them later that night.  Those are two treats they really enjoy.

It's so hard to believe that last summer we took Hadley's picture in this buggy, and I was still pregnant with Canaan.  Now he's sitting there, with his sissy, feeling like such a big boy.  Amazing the changes from one year to the next isn't it?

My side of the family drove to our house for a fun evening of grilling and swimming.  Swimming with little ones can sometimes get a little stressful when they decide, after 15 minutes, they're done with the pool, or when they're just not a big fan of the water, in general.  But, honestly, it's times like those that I just have to smile and remember that we will wish we had those days back, someday....someday ;)

After relentless horseplay in the pool, we enjoyed delicious barbecue, courtesy of Justin and his amazing grilling skills.  I always enjoy hosting company, so having the whole gang here was really fun. 

One of my favorite days of the summer was when Hadley and I went shopping and ran errands all day long together.  We started out our morning with her very favorite breakfast:  biscuit and gravy.  She was such a trooper the entire day, and I loved having my little sidekick with me.

Yes, we are hanging on to every last ounce of summer fun! 

The "Fruit" of his Labor

Grandaddy mows himself a path from his and Nana's backyard, to his barn/shed behind his house.  This is also where he keeps his garden, so he simply rides his golf cart back and forth to take care of his bounty.  It's very convenient.  Grandaddy let Hadley sit in his lap and steer the golf cart.

Every year, Grandaddy gets tons of pleasure giving his tomatoes and cucumbers away.  He grows way more tomatoes than he and Nana could ever humanly eat.  He just loves knowing other people are enjoying them.  In fact, he gave us so many that it looks like I will be making bruschetta and a tomato tarte for our family pool party this weekend.   

In our part of the world, farming has deep roots in our families.  Now each generation gets further away from that, and it breaks my heart.  There are so many life lessons that kids can learn from farmwork.  I can remember visiting my Grandaddy and Grandma and going outside to ring the dinner bell, which told my Grandaddy and Uncles that it was time to come in from the fields and eat.  When our kids get bigger, I want them to help their Grandad haul hay and do other chores on the farm.  It's so important to me that kids understand where they come from and what makes up who they are. 

I told Grandaddy that he needed to enter this cucumber in the state fair.  He always grows gorgeous zinnias in his garden.  Anyone who visits gets to take a bouquet home.  Hadley held on to them all night and said she was going to get married with them.

When we left Grandaddy's garden, and rode the golf cart back to his house, we walked around his orchard.  Well, it's not really an orchard, but he does have six fruit trees that are bearing a ridiculous amount of fruit.  The peaches aren't quite ready, but I'm going to research some peach preserve recipes anyway.  Hadley picked blackberries right off the vine and couldn't get enough of them.  She swiped two from my hands and would eat them as fast as she could get them. 

Plum in one hand, blackberry in the other.  The plums were to die for!  Nothing like walking up to a tree, tearing a piece of fruit off, and biting in.

Many years ago, Grandaddy designed a stream and fishpond and using a Bobcat, literally dug it out all by himself, in his backyard.  It tickles me, because this is the sort of thing that most people would pay a landscape designer tens of thousands of dollars to construct.  He used water from the bluehole, beside their house, and ran pipes so that the water in the fish pond is constantly running in and out and not getting stagnant.  He is constantly making changes to the plants around it, never fully satisified with how it looks.  It, of course, amazes us.  

After our time outside, enjoying the "fruit" of Grandaddy's labor, we headed back inside for supper.  Canaan snoozed comfortably on Grandaddy while Hadley played with toys and the adults just "talked."  Another pastime that is so special to me....visiting someone just for the sake of visiting.  I think with the explosion of email, facebook, texting, etc, that visiting is quickly becoming a thing of the past.  I hope we can be intentional in visiting ;)  Looking forward to making some new recipes with my home-grown fruits and veggies!

Pool Playdates

There is no better way to beat the heat of the summer than in the water, that's for sure.  We were so excited for our recent swim playdate with Carson.  I love visiting with my forever friend, Robin, and her precious kiddos, Carson and brand-new baby, Carly Ann.

Carson flexed his little boy muscles when he gave Hadley a ride on his four wheeler.  These two almost ambushed the soybean crop, until I came to the rescue by pushing them out.

I spent an absurd amount of time at Patty's house when I was growing up.  Robin and I were joined at the hip, so to speak.  So it's really special when I can go back to her mom's house to visit.  It's so neat to watch our kids playing the same way we did.

Briley and Tanner showed up before we left.  We love Briley's sweet heart.  What a great example she is to Hadley.  Hadley loved that she could actually stand up in the shallow end of this pool and didn't even have to wear her swim belt.  Although, she got a little too fearless when she walked under the rope and began going under water.  Never fear, Mama saved the day...and Hadley :)

The next week took us to a teacher friend's house.  Melissa was kind enough to invite several of us teachers, with little ones, to her house for a fun time in her pool.  It's a small world, but Justin and I actually bought our current home from Melissa's parents.  They bought this house with the intent to flip it, and then we bought it from them.  It wasn't until 8 months later that I got a teaching job at Melissa's school and we figured out our connection.  I haven't been brave enough to bring Canaan on a pool playdate yet.  It has been some nice mommy-daughter time, though.

Little girls in their tutu bathing suits playing in camo buckets.  It doesn't get much better than that!  Enjoying every minute of our summer break!

The Land of Canaan: 10 Months

Well, we officially have a crawler on our hands.  Last month, I was so worried that Canaan wasn't going to figure out the whole going forward thing.  Boy, was I wrong.  This boy crawls forward now like it's nobody's business.  And it's opened up a whole new world for him....our little explorer.  He has even learned how to crawl up a step, which takes him out of the living room and into the rest of the house.  That's when it's really all hands on deck with our little guy.

Within days of getting crawling down pat, Canaan also learned how to pull up on just about anything.  He crawls in to our pantry and pulls up on the bottom shelf and tries to wreak havoc on things there.  I have already had to rearrange that shelf, thanks to my active boy.  He tries to pull up on objects that move, though, and that really throws him off.  He doesn't walk well yet, so it really frustrates him when something goes to moving on him. 

We have introduced some real food in to his diet, over the past couple of weeks.  He loves mashed potatoes, applesauce, green beans, and bananas.  He still gets three bottles a day, but only seems to "love" his night time bottle.  He's really not interested in the other two bottles, but still needs that milk, so we attempt it anyway. 

Canaan is "doing" so much more now that he's mobile, that it tires him out much earlier in the afternoon.  His last few waking hours, for the past couple of weeks, have been tough.  A mixture of teething and exhaustion is never a good combination.  So we've gotten creative with long walks or trips to the park...honestly anything that gives us some sanity.  We're hoping this part passes quickly.

My goal for next month is that Canaan start to go forward in his walker.  He can only push himself backwards in it, so I'm anxious for him to start that forward motion.  Isn't there always something to worry about?  Sigh...

But, for now, I am savoring every moment with my precious Canaan.