A Million Posts

No, this is not my millionth post (despite appearances), but I did just add a TON of posts.  Be sure to scroll down and click on "Older Posts" or I've added links to all the new posts below (for those of you basking in your summer laziness as I am!), so just click on the title to view!

- A Very Special BOYS ONLY Day with Daddy -

- Some Very Special Visitors -

- Strawberry Festival -

- Valley, Meet Jamen! -

- Totally Random -

- Concerts in the Plaza -

- Ma & Papa's Visit -

- My Baby's 7! -

- Happy Father's Day! -

- Baby Jamen -

Thanksgiving

I've been a horrible blogger...surges in female hormones, accompanied by a leaching child within and 2 leaching children on my sides...it'll do it to ya! I really don't have much energy or motivation to do much of anything these days...especially with this nasty head cold I've been contaminated with. So I'm a little behind.

I think it was the week before Thanksgiving Jonah really wanted to look through the Christmas decos. So I naively took them down and let the kids sort through the boxes. Not a good idea on my part. It didn't take long before there were Christmas things everywhere! Jonah was pretty excited to find that his Santa suit I made him from last year still fit. He grabbed a handful of batting for a beard...pretty clever! Jax was excited to find that he had a a snowman towel. Now we have Santa and Frosty!

We spent Thanksgiving with my family this year. My sister DeDe and her boyfriend Todd came up from San Diego, which was nice to see her (its been a while D!). This is pretty much what the guys did for the majority of the day...sat around watching football and randomly talking music.

Jaxon LOVES his wooden shoes (after all, he's a little Dutch boy!)! He would wear them everywhere if it weren't so annoying for the rest of us. He was so excited to see that I had a pair just like his (don't know whats up with the jewelry he's wearing...something he dug out of Gramma's toy box)!

My youngest sister Carina got all Martha Stewart on us, wrapping the napkins up all fancy and making place cards for everyone.

She made a DELICIOUS turkey (Brandaan, this was up there with yours!). We all got a kick out of the citrus "bikini" the turkey was wearing though. My mom made some awesome stuffing...I think the best yet! And of course all of the other food was delicious as well. I love Thanksgiving!

Jonah was so excited to eat, he sat down a good 20 minutes before dinner was actually served!

By the looks of his face, I think Jaxon got into the food a little early! :)

Happy Belated Thanksgiving to you all!

Labor Day Weekend

Saturday we got together with a bunch of people (EQ) from church for a BBQ in the park. Its always interesting when the men folk are in charge, but all in all it was great fun.

Of course Jonah was the official cowboy at the party.

It was interesting trying to grill up 5 tri-tips and like 40 chicken wings on that tiny grill. But the guys did well...thanks Scott & Jake for being the grill masters! Notice David? Look a little closer.

Yah, thats tri-tip in his hands...gross. He was the official meat man. He brought the meat, pepped it up...and boy did he get his hands dirty...
...and then he cut it. He did an awesome job! Thanks baby! You can grill me up some of that any day!

Here's the gang. Well actually its the gang before a couple more families showed up. We're all snacking on my (actually PW's, but I made 'em) oh-so-delish bacon-wrapped jalapenos and some great homemade salsa one of the gang brought...mmm.

The kids sure enjoyed their garlic bread and chicken wings!

And had TONS of fun playing at the park!

So that was the fun part of our weekend. Sunday was just a relaxing lazy day for us...a much needed lazy day. But Monday was our real labor day...and I mean LABOR DAY. In the morning we dropped the boys off at my parents and David and I headed down to the studio. He's supposed to have this pretty important guy from Ernie Ball come down this week, so we thought we should probably clean the place up a bit. With all the construction going on in the last couple months, its gathered a LOT of dust...and that is even after we clean it once a week or so. Yuck! I didn't take before picks, but here's what it looked like after. This is actually just the make-shift studio. Its only got 1/2 the board, only some of his equipment, and not much space at all. Its actually the apartment part of the building, but it was the only part that was done with construction that he could actually work out of (there's one more room next to it too).

So that was the bulk of our cleaning...at least the important part anyway. We were pretty exhausted when we were done. I guess the boys played hard at Gramma & Grand Pa's, 'cause Jax crashed (and I mean CRASHED!) as soon as we got in the car. Thanks M & D for watching them!

Hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend!

Waffles & Sickies

The following week after Christmas certainly was not as eventful (or even as close to) as exciting as the week before.  Since we've been back from Visalia, it's been pretty not fun around here.  Jonah was sick with the stomach flu...he threw up one day, was totally better the next, then the next he spent on the toilet.  He seems to be totally better now, but then Sunday David came down with it.  He stayed home Monday, but was better enough (not all the way) to go to work for a couple hours yesterday.  Thankfully he seems to be fine today.  Jaxy got sick around New Years and is still...he didn't get the stomach flu, thankfully, but has a really bad cold.  He seemed to be getting better yesterday, but of course today he was just SOOOO stinkin' cranky and made me carry him around everywhere...huh, I'm tired!

For Christmas my brother & his wife gave us a Mickey waffle iron.  It makes these mini-waffles shaped like Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Pluto, Donald, & Daffy.  So this morning we decided to try it out.  Jax helped me make the batter (he looks funny 'cause every time I tell him to smile or say "cheese," he says "eez" and squints his face).

And voile!  (the weird brown splotches are chocolate chips)

Jonah LOVED them!  He had firsts, then seconds, even thirds!  Jaxon hasn't had much of an appetite the last few days, so he just starred at them and kept pointing to the Pluto one saying "puppy, puppy."  Good work Brandaan & Melissa!  I'll do just about anything to get my kids to eat breakfast and so far this works!  Jonah's all excited that you can also make brownies & muffins.

Poor little sick Jaxy!  He seems to be getting these colds too often!  I'm really hoping he doesn't get an earache, but unfortunately he most likely will.  He's been pretty miserable...I'm just glad he's not miserable and throwing up too...I'll take caterpillar snot nose over barfs any day!  Anyway, when (if) he lets me put him down, he pretty much just hangs out in my bed watching movies...not great parenting, but it makes him happy for a little bit at least.  Let me just say, MY BACK IS KILLING ME...that boy is HEAVY!  I did take him down to see the cows yesterday - thought the fresh air might be good for him.  If I ever find my camera charger, then I'll post them (I had to use my video camera to take them this morning!).

Jonah has been obsessed with his new video game from David - Ratchet & Clank.  The PS3 usually stays at the theater, but since the boys have been sick, David brought it home for them all to play (or rather waste a LOT of time).  

I told David this morning that although I've enjoyed having Jonah home, I'm ready for him to go back to school so we can get back to our regular routine!

Catch Up...

We had some fun happenings last week.  Jonah starting school has really been good for us. Jonah wakes up on time and goes to bed earlier, I have some time to myself (for once) while Jaxon naps, and I get to spend some one-on-one time with Jaxon. I even have a little bit more energy to actually cook and bake again. In fact the last couple of days I've had quite the baking bug.  I've been actually cooking real dinners, making lemonade and salsa (which David calls "heaven on earth!") pretty much every day, cookies, coffee cake, and even bread.  I'm pretty proud of myself, but I hope this burst of baking energy keeps up!

David's been able to go to work earlier most days this week, so he's been able to come home earlier (well for him at least - 8 or 9pm isn't early for most people!).  So we've all been able to enjoy a little more of him lately.  The other night the boys had fun balancing on his feet in the air (all until they bonked heads and both were crying - its all fun and games 'til someone gets hurt, right?).

Jonah found a new hiding place - between the oven and counter - he thought he was pretty clever!

Jaxon has become quite the little farm boy.  The other day I found him with his boots on (and its amazing that he ALWAYS seems to get his shoes on the right feet-Jonah even has a hard time with that still!) and bucket in hand trying to open the door to go outside.  He knows what boots and buckets mean...fruits and veggies and seeing the animals!  Smart boy!

That same day we went to visit the cows (as we do pretty much daily) and they were all up by the fence.  Usually when one is close, it backs away - they're all not quite sure about us still.  Well they all came up to us and let us pet them and everything - the calf even started licking us (and for those of you who didn't know, cows have rough tongues like sandpaper!)  I don't know why, but I just love having cows!  Maybe because I don't actually have to take care of them, I don't know.

Wednesday David's brother Matt and his family came to town for a little vacation, so the boys and I got to spend the day in Avila with them playing on the beach and swimming at their hotel's pool.

While at the beach, we went up by the swings and left our stuff.  We looked down and saw that there were just sworms of birds around our stuff.  We found that they had stole our bag of goldfish crackers and were all fighting to eat them. (this picture doesn't do it justice - this was after Matt scared 1/2 of them away).

Jonah was the only one who could successfully scare the birds all away.  But when he found the bag of crackers, the fish were all gone and the bag was torn up.  Poor guy was so sad the birds had eaten our only snack.

Jaxon and Collin are so fun to watch together.  They're only 3 weeks apart and so much alike in so many ways.  

This picture cracked me up.  Gwen looked so grown up holding Collin's floaty and talkin' to Jonah.  Do they think they're teenagers already?

Jaxon was a little too brave near the water.  He and Jonah liked the hot tub the best - the pool was a little too cold for them.

We spent that night hanging out at my parents' house celebrating my mom's birthday. Even though it was my mom's b-day, Jonah came home with a present of his own...these magnet marble things.  Jonah thought it was so cool to pinch his nose with them and see them stick...such a boy...I do have to admit it was pretty cool, though.  Jaxon LOVES those magnets too.  He sticks them to the oven and it just cracks him up every time!

I can't remember what day it was, but I came into the kitchen and found this...

Yes, that's butter and yes, those are teeth and finger marks.  Maybe its because he's so skinny and his body is trying to tell him to gain weight, I don't know, but for some reason Jonah seems to sneak butter a little too often...Paula Dean would be proud...YUCK!

Sunday we enjoyed a wonderful day with our little family...David was home and the weather was absolutely wonderful - not a cloud in the sky!  So we went on a walk around the property.  As we came to the cows we found that we now have a new calf!  The boys were so happy to see the baby cow (especially Jax - he kept saying, "Baby, Moo, baby, moo!).  

On our walk we stopped by the garden and had the most wonderful time picking tomatoes and raspberries.  Remember what I said about Farmer Jaxon?  He's a natural!

Aren't those tomatoes beautiful?  And they're ALL that perfect!


This garden never ceases to amaze me - the tomatoes are insane and we found like 6 different types of squash growing that we didn't realize was there before.  These were our 2 favorites:

Pumpkins...yeah, just in time for Halloween!

Isn't this cool with the 2 different colors?

You know they're good tomatoes when you can eat them strait off the vine!

Our harvest (and we didn't even begin to put a dent in them - I'm gonna do some canning this week!):

Country Livin'

Last night we discovered that in just a few days everything seemed to have popped up and ripened around here. So today the boys and I went back to check it out some more and found a few delicious surprises!

We were actually on our way to the blackberries (which are still plentiful-yay!) when we discovered the raspberries are now all popping up...there were loads of them!  These berries are what raspberries are supposed to taste like...oh so yummy!

Just a few days ago there were only a few tomatoes, but today there were literally hundreds!  YAHOO!

We didn't even know there was zucchini growing in the garden, but apparently there is!

Yet another surprise...red & green bell peppers.

Hot peppers...I probably won't be picking these.

Tomatillos.

Aren't these tomatoes gorgeous?  There wasn't an ugly one out there!  The vines are just kind of growing wild, so we were shocked to find they were so perfect - we expected them to be all scared up or covered with bugs or something.

Jonah thought this (unripe) Siamese-twin persimmon was pretty cool.

Pomegranates sure are pretty, but does anyone know how to tell if they're ripe or not?  When they start to fall of the tree?  I have no clue!

These are those flowers that look exactly the same when you dry them - they're growing wild all over.

Its a shame there's so many grapefruit, because I'm not a fan at all.

There's plenty of lemons for lemonade, that's for sure!

I just thought these were unripe lemons, but apparently they're limes.

These oranges are delicious!  They're not so great for just eating because they're real seedy and pulpy, but they make the best orange juice EVER!  As David puts it, it's the kind of juice you just want to hold in your mouth and never swallow - it's that good!

This is our 1 and only mandarin orange.  The tree is still a baby, so we should hopefully get more in years to come.

Have you ever had a fresh fig?  Apparently they're really good, but we've gotta wait until they're ripe.

I never knew that apples grew in bunches - maybe its just this type of apple, I don't know.

These pears are not only big and beautiful, but SO good.  We've been waiting for weeks for them to ripen and we finally had our first ones today.  We were not disappointed, in fact I was shocked at how good it was!  Jonah told me that after watermelon and blackberries, pears are his favorite fruit.

Sadly I think plum season is coming to an end.  We were very spoiled there for a while - we've got 4 or 5 different types of plums - all very different.  There were only a few left today.  Well, we enjoyed them while they lasted!

Believe it or not we even have edible cactus!  David claims its good, but I'm not really interested in trying it.

Our walnuts and almonds are all big and green.

We are so lucky to be surrounded by so much good, fresh produce...we really are blessed and so grateful to live here and to have such a wonderful and generous landlord!