Visitors from Texas

My very dear friend Jessica came to visit me with her two kiddos and we had a blast! She has a very good description of all that transpired on her blog, http://souzafam.wordpress.com/ under the title Potty-trained and crawling, and I echo her sentiments about our time together. What a blessing it was to us to have them visit us here! And we were so busy with 4 children under the age of three that we didn't take any pictures until they were about to step out the door and at that time our subjects were unwilling.

I did manage to get Josiah to sit by Charlie for a second, but the picture didn't focus well.

And here is one shot of the cutie, hiding behind his blankie. He talks so well for an almost 2 year old and is super smart! He and Jack played really well together, except at the very end of the visit. By then I think they were tired of sharing and a little tired. But every time we got in the car for the next few days, Jack reminded me that Josiah sat right next to him in the car.

Thanks so much Jessica for coming all this way! We had a WONDERFUL time!


Here are a few other pictures of what we've been up to:

The boys playing in a little pool in the backyard. Jack is "helping" Charlie down the slide. The day we bought the pool, Jack went down the slide at least 15 times, but hasn't been feeling adventerous lately. Charlie loves the slide!

Father and son. Charlie with his blonde hair and fair skin. And as he is out in the sun more, the red tint is really coming out.

This is typical Charlie. He is so quick to smile and laugh!

Jack finally caving to his mother's request for at least one smile for the camera. Apparently he is too busy to be bothered by such a task.

And at the request of my good friend, Jessica, I am posting a few recipes. For those who don't know, I love to cook and try new recipes. And often times I alter the recipe to fit our family's tastes or add things to try to sneak in some veggies for the sake of my eldest who isn't a willing veggie eater.

Whole Wheat Waffles (from the cookbook Wholesome Sugar-free Cooking, ingredients in italics are my own addition)

2c. whole wheat flour

1 tsp. baking soda

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 to 1/2 tsp cinnamon

2 Tbsp. honey

2 eggs, beaten

2 c. buttermilk

1/4. olive oil

1/4 c. pumpkin (canned, like you would buy for pie)

Add ingredients in order given. Don't beat too much. To make it more fluffy, you can beat the egg whites separately and add last. It takes 4 min to cook with our waffle iron.

I like to double this and freeze the leftovers. And then eat them later just like store-bought frozen waffles. Also at the urging of a friend, I just tried storing the batter in the fridge, b/c you just can't beat eating them fresh and it worked great.

gotta run, i'll post the other requested recipe later......

Outdoor fun!

Mark and his dad decided before we let the chickens out to roam the backyard, we should clip their wings so they can't fly over the fence into the neighbors' yards. We managed to get all five into the house and close their front door. Here they are opening the back door. You should have seen it! Feathers and wood shavings were flying!

Snip,snip!


Charlie stood up without assistance while watching the chicken catching and clippings. We're just waiting for him to take that first step!

Clipped and ready to roam, it seemed the chickens enjoyed eating the grass, scratching the dirt, and hopefully eating the bugs too.

How does our garden grow? Well, just see for yourself. Right now, its doing great! You are looking at tomato plants (staked), blue lake bush beans (green beans, in middle), and cucumber plants (vining off the front of the raised bed). We also have a squash plant that is flowering as well.

This one is doing well, except for the sugar snap peas in the middle. My friend from up north told me that she hasn't had success with them down here. So maybe I planted them too late. I'll try those again in the fall.

Today we had a backyard cookout with our little fam. Mark built a fire in a small pit and we roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. The boys and I enjoyed it immensely!

Charlie was a mess!

He is quite the character!

Jack helped his daddy collect twigs for the fire. He also "helped" coral the chickens back into thier coup. I'm not sure what it is about kids chasing chickens, but apparently its a lot of fun. Those poor chicks!

We're home!

What a great vacation! We were blessed with safe travel, spent wonderful time with family and had a great experience on the beach! We went on a boat to a small island off the coast, toured the Air Force base and saw lots of plane take off, fly, and land, visited Gulf World, and played at the beach every day. It couldn't have been better!!

Gulf World was a lot of fun! Here is Jack exploring the underworld as a turtle.
Charlie is such a cute, happy turtle.

We really enjoyed watching the real turtles swim around.

Penguins

Sea lions.

Jack and his cousin looking at more turtles.

Mark and Charlie posing for a picture in front of a macaw. They had a lot of these birds.

Having a snack of popcorn before the dolphin show.

It was hot, so we stripped Charlie down!

It was really fun watching the dolphins jump and swim! The park had three shows and was the perfect size for little kids. We had a great time!



We saw a lot of animals on the beach. This pelican came ashore to get a fish that a fisherman left behind.

Here it is eating it. We also saw dolphins, sand crabs, sand fleas, blue crabs, a small shark (that a fisherman caught), and lots of birds. Jack enjoyed chasing the birds.

This is how populated the beach was on our visit! It was great to let the kids run around without worrying about someone snatching them up or getting into other people's things.

Jack taking a break from sand play.

Charlie perfected the bear crawl on this trip. The sea shells didn't feel pleasant on his knees or underfoot for that matter.
He found lots of things in the sand that he wanted to show us.

We tried to have a family photo taken on the beach. However, it was very bright and windy, so they aren't the best ever b/c the boys didn't want to look up at the camera or smile.

Squirmy kidos!

I was tickling them to get a smile. Jack liked it but Charlie had different feelings about it!

Great Day!!!

I apologize for not posting yesterday. We had a pretty relaxing day. The Beach in the morning and we just relaxed inside in the afternoon.

This was the desert Laura made for us. Cake balls. MM good.

Charlie enjoying dinner.

We decided to grill and Jack was excited about being outside. He loves running on the deck.

Jack collecting rocks to throw off the deck into the water.

Jack throwing the rocks.

The town house we are staying in is the red one on the right. It is a 3 story 4 bedrrom 2.5 bath.

This is what we grilled, fresh grouper, fresh shrimp, asparagus, chopped red potatoes, whole corn on the cob, and cake balls for desert.

Monumental Day

This day has been eventful. We all woke up, Jack was first at that, 5:20 AM. I told Jack to tell Laura "Happy Mother's Day" and he said "Happy Birthers Day Mommy". We had pancakes for breakfast and then headed to the beach. We went in the morning and in the afternoon.

Charlie was ready for an exciting day. He was all lathered up with sun tan lotion and sporting his gilligan hat.

Jack carrying around a water gun.


Charlie stood up on his own for the first time today, and it was on the beach.

We saw alot of this, Charlie headed towards the ocean.

Jack playing with all the water toys. He loves gathering sea shells and then just throwing them right back into the ocean.