Happy Birthday John Deere

One of Soren's new words is "ta-cer" (tractor), so we jumped at the opportunity to take the family to a local festival celebrating John Deere's 90th anniversary. Olivia enjoyed the inflatable slide and jumping castle, while Soren's favorite was digging in the corn to find hidden treasures, John Deere fruit snacks! Both the kids loved to "drive" all the tractors. Grandpa, your grandkids made you proud!

Grandpa, just call us when you need some help!

Scarecrow Festival

Our local arboretum had a scarecrow festival this weekend to help raise money for the maintenance of its facility. It was a beautiful sunny day, so a friend of mine decided to take our children to this festival since both of our husbands were busy for the day. The kids enjoyed looking at all the scarecrows, but I definitely think the highlight of the day was the corn maze. They did a good job of leading us in and around and getting us all turned around, as well as navigating us out of the field.

Here we go!

Soren always wanted to run in his own direction, just glad we didn't lose him!

Olivia enjoyed the races

While Soren enjoyed the sand

My 2 Precious Sunflowers

Go Pirates!

This past weekend was the Homecoming football game for our town. We had a couple of family friends over for supper and then walked 3 blocks down to the high school football game. We made it to half time, well just barely. The 2 one year olds needed to go to sleep, but the 3 and 4 year olds, along with their parents went back to our house for a bonfire and smores. Yummy!

Headed to the game!

Go Pirates!

Aloha!

Purple, purple, purple, that is definitely Olivia's favorite color these days. So, you can just imagine her excitement when she needed to bring something purple for sharing time at preschool. After going on a purple hunt, she settled on this purple lei. I was explaining everything about leis, grass skirts, Hawaii, and before I knew it were were trying to shake our hips. As you can see it this video clip, she loved that part best!

I love, you love, we all love...olives?

Eleven years ago when Erik and I first met, it didn't take me long to discover his love for olives. After going to one of our favorite Italian restaurants, he decided to try to replicate their bread dipping oil. It had olive oil, fresh diced garlic, Parmesan cheese, and then Erik of course added olives to his version. I do have to say that it is very delicious. Now whenever Erik makes this treat for himself, he has two little mouths right beside him wanting some of that yummy bread dipped in his special sauce. After both kids were introduced to this dipping oil, they too were on the path of loving black olives. The other day, Soren was signing "eat" while pounding on the refrigerator, and being the clever mother that I am, I figured out that he was probably hungry. When I opened the door, there was a piece of string cheese next to an olive container. When he pointed in that general direction, I thought for sure that he wanted the cheese. Nope, I was wrong he wanted the black olives. We have actually had to make an olive limit, 5 per kid, which just so happens to be the same number of fingers on one hand, coincidence? We will let you decide. So, the next time that you are at the grocery store where the olives are on sale, promise not to laugh at my cart, doesn't everyone by 10 cans of olives at one time?

Face the music, Laura, Face the music!

Oh, to procrastinate, or not? That is the question! Have you ever fallen behind on something so far that it just felt to daunting to even attempt to catch-up? That is what has happenned to me and our website. It all started with our kids' first double birthday. I was busy prepping for thier birthday, then planting the garden called to us next, followed by evenings of fun with family visits, reunions, star gazing, and now here I am harvesting the garden that was part of the beginning of all this procrastination. I owe an apology to all my faithful babyjellybeans viewers. Every once in awhile I would check the site and I would be astonished to see the visitor number steadily climbing, my face would turn a pinkish hue as I quickly retreated and closed the window before anyone would see just how much I have procrastinated. Now it is time for me to face the music! I shall post! I will catch you up on the past! I shall post! I will keep you informed of the future! I shall post!

The Blessing of Seeds

After six years of apartment living, we were so excited to finally get to have our own garden. We planted tomatoes, green peppers, zucchini, squash, lettuce, onions, green beans, broccoli, basil and cilantro. Just like the first time you do anything, we too learned many lessons this summer. We learned how to battle slugs and vine boars, when to harvest onions, the importance of planting at the right depths and give the plants enough space to grow. But more than anything we learned about God's amazing gift of seeds. In the spring, I brought out all the seeds for the entire garden in my hand at one time. Now, 3 months later, the bounty of the garden doesn't even begin to fit inside my hand. After bucket load after bucket load my freezer and deep freeze are plum full. Wow, those little seeds when tended to and brought up with love and guidance, blossomed to such productive plants. Hmm, seems to be a parable in there somewhere. Well, would you look at the time, it is time to go feed my two precious little seeds, or umm, children.

Spring

Fall

I Scream, You Scream, We all Scream for...Olives?

Eleven years ago when I first met Erik, it did not take me long to learn about his love for black olives. After frequent visits to one of our favorite Italian restaurants, he began to try to replicate their olive oil, diced garlic, parmessan chesse bread dip. It didn't take long for Erik's version of the dip to include black olives. He likes to make this about once a week or so, so there always seems to be an open can of olives in our refrigerator. The other day Soren was signing eat and pounding on the refrigerator, and being the clever mom I am, I have come to learn that this is Soren's way of communicating, "I'm starving!" When I opened the refrigerator there was some string cheese next to the black olives. He pointed in that general direction, so I assumed, he most likely wanted the string cheese. Oh no, he knew that black juice in the little tupperware container meant OLIVES! And that is indeed what he wanted. Olivia also shares this love and we have actually had to make an olive limit at our house because we are beginning to go through a huge amount of olives. The limit is five per kid, which just so happens to be the same number of fingers, huh, coincendence? We will let you decided...just don't look at me funny the next time you see me shopping and the olives are on sale...doesn't every family buy 10 cans of olives at once?

Chug-a-chug-a-chug-a-choo-choo!

This year's Steam Engine Parade was a first for our family. My parents and brother's family have made this an annual event while we were out of the Midwest, so we looked forward to joining them this year on the mission to throw a Mister Freezie Popsicle to almost every spectator. My Dad restored my Grandpa's John Deere 630 a few years ago and he enjoys driving it among the hundreds of other restored tractors in the parade. If you are a farmer and remember the "good old days" this is the ultimate town festival for you. In order to get ready for the parade, Dad first had to rebuild the wagon that we all sit in. The floor had given out, so Dad replaced it with a new one, a floor that Erik screwed in about 400 screws. That floor is going no where. :-) My Dad also had a friend that built this tiny John Deere using a lawn mower engine. It was so small, my six year old nephew's legs even looked crammed as he drove it. He sure did give all the farmers something to admire chuckle at as he followed Grandpa's tractor. The Mr. Freezies went over well on the warm fall day. With our extra hands on deck for the first time, we actually got a bit ambitious and threw a few too many out in the beginning and didn't have much for the end. It was fun, but it was touch and go for our hands, frost bite almost got the best of us. Note to self for next year, bring gloves.

Grandpa's little helper...he worked so hard he couldn't make it through lunch.

The crew and Hayden's small tractor. (Click on images to enlarge.)

Peek-a-Boo!

Bringing in a New Decade!

Wow, 30, how did that happen? So, here we are, Erik and I have reached a new decade, the 30's. I had the pleasure of bringing in the new decade a whole whooping 20 days before Erik. Fortunately, neither one of us was too phased by the new number. We are thankful for our stage of life and where we are in our journey, so the big 3-0 didn't bring much stress, perhaps just wisdom. :-)

It took me awhile to discover who the sneaky person was who hung up this sign on our tree in our front yard and the birthday banner on our front porch.

Daddy's Birthday Waffle

Not sure which had more frosting on it, the cake or Olivia

There sure is a lot of candles there!