Love, Mommy

Hi Jakey.

What a big boy you've grown up to be.  You're 17 months old now and climbing on everything like crazy!

Luckily you seem to have forgotten your favorite form of exercise (climbing to the top of the couch and banging your hands on the mirror hanging above the couch).  Whew!  Mommy was worried she had given birth to a little monkey instead of a sweet baby boy!

And you're sleeping so well these days too!  To bed by 9 and awake by 8:30.  It's awesome.  One of the biggest challenges to motherhood (lack of sleep) has been *lowering voice to a whisper* conquered!

You do have your moments though.  When you are not happy with the injustice of bedtime, or not being allowed to touch mommy's phone (we're working on trust issues after Jake used my last cell phone as a chew toy), your tough boy side comes out, but we don't see this side of you often.  It's good to see some other faces from you every once in awhile, as long as you return to your usual, smiling self eventually!

Jake, I love to watch you explore and learn about the things around you.  You're so ready to laugh or ready to smile or ready to run to me for a hug.  I just think you're the sweetest baby boy in the whole world.  The other day when you were bouncing on mommy's tummy, I got the biggest kick out of your laughter.  It was contagious!  And even though your bouncing was a little uncomfortable for mommy, I encouraged you to keep bouncing so I could hear you laugh.

You're so sweet and I'm so grateful for your big personality.  There's nothing I would change... um... but, well...

There is one teeney-tiny thing I would like you to do for mommy... or, not do as it happens.

When mommy picks you up to take you to your bed or just to carry you from point a to point b... would you mind *not* pinching mommy in the arm, or any other area?  It kind of hurts when you do it... and it especially hurts when you choose the *less* toned part of my arm to pinch.  Your sister never pinched when she was your age... she just tried to ruin our eardrums with her shrill cries.  Could you give that a try one of these times?  *sigh*

Also, going limp like a noodle is another one of those "not helpful" things you seem to do when you're frustrated.  That's a little more preferable to the pinching, but still not very fun to work with.

That said, your still my favorite boy in the whole world and I still love you to pieces.

Love, Mommy

Oh, and please tell Katie that she'll be seeing her own letter soon enough.  Mommy has a few things I would like to tell her... not the least of these things is a big "I love you".  But there are some recent developments that we really need to discuss.

That's all sweet boy.  Carry on with whatever you were doing.  (Unless you happened to be playing with daddy's computer, or pulling all of my pots and pans out of the cupboard, or doing any of the other things you're doing in the pictures below.  Then stop what you were doing and go do something else.)

Daddy's computer is not a toy.

Yes, that's the fan remote.  And yes, it does turn on the lights.  And turn them off.  And on. And off... as many times as you push the button.

And the floor vent cover should stay on the floor...

And Mommy's pots are for cooking (just because I don't use them every night doesn't mean that I don't need to keep them tidy).

This is dangerous.  Please don't attempt this in the future because you could fall.

Do you remember Mommy telling you this?  And do you remember your response?

Happy 3rd of July!

A day in pictures (with lots of words thrown in because I just can't help myself!)...

We left a little later than I expected... Jake slept till 8:30 and I woke up close to 9 listening to him talking in his crib.  So I woke up late.  We lost time from there.  I got ready, John loaded up, Jake had his bottle, I had to vacuume the living room (granola bars should not be eaten in the living room), then we finally got going.

We were trying to get to the lake in time for breakfast but that didn't work and we missed out on some biscuits and gravy.  And we left so late that we had to stop for gas and lunch.  I was resting my eyes and didn't see the exit John took, but once I heard him say "What is this", I looked and saw that he had taken the one exit (that I know about) where you have to drive for about 10 minutes to get to the town.

So we had a little detour.  Got gas and ate at 5 Guys.  It was really good!  There was also a little shop across the parking lot that John thought I would like, so he stayed with Jake while I went to look.  And he was right.  It was a cute purse boutique.  (I could have just said "store" but the prices were "boutiquey".)  And I wanted probably 90% of the stuff there.  I held firm and didn't buy a thing.  I may have drooled a little, but I kept my wallet safely inside my $10 Walmart purse.

We finally arrived at the lake, just in time for everyone to have lunch.  Katie was in her swimsuit from playing in the little pool.

She was sweet to share it with Jake.  Here's a pic of her with her hand over the sprinkler part of the pool.

Shortly after this picture Katie took her hand off of the sprinkler and it splashed in Jake's face.  But he didn't cry.  He didn't move either which was kind of funny, but at least it didn't upset him.

He liked the sprinkler too... he played in it while Katie was swimming in the lake.  Oh, and he had lots of fun throwing in rocks.  Daddy helped him clean them up and put them into the little watering can (the same one I couldn't find on Friday evening when I wanted to water my plants!  Mystery solved!)

Then it was time for Jake to investigate the fun time Katie was having in the lake... A quick look back and then full speed ahead!

Here's Daddy, Jake, Grandpa, and Katie in the lake...

Jake loved the water.  He settled into his little inner tube and hung on.

Here we are after a little clean up.

A quiet (for about 3 minutes) time for reading:

And finally...

Oh, and yes, I mean 3rd of July.  I didn't take many pics today (the 4th) but I'll post them sometime soon.  It's strange that yesterday felt more like a holiday than today did!

Another garden update so soon?

I had to show everyone that my garden is actually going to produce some produce... and I am so excited!

John usually waters for me in the afternoons so I've kind of been slacking letting the plants "breathe" in the evenings and since I'm not an "outside" person, I don't usually check on the progress beyond taking a quick phone pic to share here.  So, imagine my surprise when I looked - really looked - at these plants.

And I saw tiny little baby cucumbers!  I don't know what I expected them to look like.  I mean, I had never grown something like this before (and when I say "like this", I mean something that actually flourished) so this whole flower-equals-actual-food amazes me! 

And now, without further ado, here are pictures of the cucumber and pepper plants that yours truly planted...  and I threw in pics of some other stuff that John can take the credit for, since he planted them or something like that.

My cucumbers!

My peppers!  

I was getting worried about the growth, or lack of growth.  Looking at these now, well, I don't think I need to worry about them growing, I need to worry about them growing too much!

Just some pretty flowers around the yard.  (We didn't plant these... my mom did this some years ago, so I guess I can only take credit for keeping them alive by not doing anything with them.  No, really.  I've never touched these plants.  I don't remember them looking so pretty in past years though so maybe the veggie plants agree with them.)

I always catch my breath when I open the curtains in Katie's room and see these in the yard.

Just some pretty shrubs on the side of the deck.

Now back to John's stuff...

Pumpkin plants (John put in two of these back in May while I was sitting on the deck drinking my water and blogging about him planting our stuff.  Oh, and ranting about the SyFy channel not having anything on that is actually representative of SyFy.  That was annoying.):

I think I assumed that pumpkins produced one pumpkin per plant.  I'm starting to rethink that.  

Tomato plant (John planted 3 and they are all doing great):

Oh, here are the grapes that were already here... but a couple of years ago John put up a trellis for them that runs along the whole section of fencing.  It's nice because our kitchen window looks out into the back yard and right into the patio of the neighbor in back of us.  Who likes to sit on his patio.  A whole lot.  All summer. The grapes block the view *just enough* and they are also edible.  Bonus, and bonus!

I didn't take pictures of the strawberry plant or the watermelon plants.  They just weren't that exciting.  We don't think the watermelon will "take" (we planted it right next to the fence with our grapes and the grapes are growing really well so maybe they are sucking all of the nutrients from the soil.  Bummer.  I would rather have had a crop of watermelon than pumpkins) and the strawberry plant was looking good (green) but no flowers.

But I'm still having a great time with this whole gardening thing (or at least my pseudo-garden experience!).

I've decided that I'm going to get out there every day, every couple of days, whenever I have a free minute to check on progress and I'm so glad that I was inspired tonight while the kids were out with Grandma and Grandpa and the house was quiet. 

I moved the slide and pool onto the deck so John didn't have to (you're welcome hon!), then I weeded a little (okay, a lot) and watered my plants all the while enjoying the sun and beautiful weather.  

What a nice evening.

Then the kids came home tired out from dinner, shopping, and the park and the rest of the evening was full of bath time, jammies, playing, and finally peace and quiet.  Now I'm tired.

And on that note, I'm off to bed.

Oh! 

Before I go, I have to ask...

Um...

Does anyone want a couple (pounds) of tomatoes/peppers/cucumbers?  I have this funny feeling that we might be a little overstocked come July...