2 months

 

Happy 2 Months Caleb!  

You are growing like crazy.  You change so much every day and we are still captivated by you! 

You are such a happy baby.  You are starting to smile when we talk to you.  You are pretty content to be on the floor, in your bouncy chair, or in the arms of one of us.  Mason and Emma ask to hold you all day long and you generally allow them to without too much of a fuss. 

 What's happening at two months:

~you are a great traveler and usually fall asleep in the car
~you are so easy to put to bed (usually between 7:00 and 8:00)
~you enjoy bathtime
~you don't really have a nap schedule yet...just sleeping whenever it suits you
~when you are awake, you are very alert and happy
~you hardly fuss
~you can't make it through a church service yet without having to nurse
~you like when Mason and Emma talk and sing to you (Emma sings to you a lot in the car, mostly songs she makes up on the spot)
~you just moved out of the cradle into the crib

We love you so much sweet boy!
xoxo,
mommy

cottonwood

We took a little day trip to Cottonwood Lake with Lacy and Karly.  Mason couldn't wait to try out his "canoe suit" (aka life jacket!)We did lots of fishing and canoeing until the rain came in the afternoon. 

 

Mason went out with daddy and Lacy.   He loved every second of it.

 Emma, Karly, Caleb and I hung out on the shore digging and fishing. 

 Then it was Emma's turn to go out with daddy and Karly.  She had a blast. 

Gotta love a day at the lake!

sleeping

Don't get me wrong...we love the moments when you're awake and alert.  And they're becoming more frequent, which is a ton of fun.  But we still enjoy all your sleepiness too.  

 It's amazing what this sweet boy can sleep through. 

 A rough and tumble brother and sister constantly playing/dancing/singing around him.

Thunderstorms, complete with hail pounding around.

The bloodhound howling at various animals and birds.

You just keep sleeping and we'll keep adoring your peacefulness.  

rain and a horse

Just enjoying a little afternoon rainstorm.  It's been lovely to see the clouds rolling in and feel the breeze cooling everything off.

Then we hear the loud thunks of hail on the greenhouse and watch our garden turn to shreds.

We got another small hailstorm that is making for some slow progress in the garden.  The plants aren't totally destroyed but just enough that we need to wait for new leaves to grow and continue on their merry way.

All three kids love being outside.  Caleb turns his head to the breeze and shows his contentment, often even smiling.  This works well for placing him in the shade while we pull weeds or stack firewood.  Mason is a hard worker, never wanting to stop for a break.  Emma will take a break every chance she gets to "check on Caleb."  That's an important job too.  Keeping everyone happy.

It's been awesome to watch them discovering new things every time we're outside. Ants, grasshoppers, yarrow, purple flowers, and rocks are becoming part of daily conversations.

On one of our recent evening walks Emma had a new experience:

One of our neighbor's horses came running towards us.  As soon as Emma notices she exclaims, {eyes wide in astonishment, stopping in her tracks}  "Horses can run!  I didn't know that could do that!!"

Oh to experience summer through the eyes of a child!

july in the garden

I wish I was better at recording our gardening endeavors so we could read them from year to year.  I have a gardening journal that I started way back in 2007.  I start off great at the beginning of the season, sketching our garden and where we planted everything.  And that's about as far as I get.  So seven years later I'm about 15 pages in.  

That leaves us always asking things like:

When did we start the tomato seeds last year?

Was that 2009 or 2010 when it snowed in June?

Which type of tomato kept rotting on the bottom?

Do you remember that kind of zucchini that we didn't really like?

And the list goes on.

Oh well.  I guess the best part is that we're doing this whole gardening like, learning as we go and really enjoying it.  

Our greenhouse looks more like a jungle these days.  The tomato plants are getting more and more little green tomatoes every day.  The basil is overflowing.  Pesto making in the near future! The peas are about done, but we are still getting a few here and there.  The swiss chard has offered us several side dishes and is still doing well.  Just gathered another bunch this morning.

The pepper plants are starting to flower.  

We spent the afternoon yesterday enjoying a break from all the afternoon rain storms we've been getting.  Mason and I pulled all the weeds in the big garden.  Emma read books to Caleb on the porch and daddy split firewood. 

We got a hailstorm about a week ago that shredded a lot of the big leafy stuff in the garden, but Mason and I found lots of new growth.  The cabbage may come back.  We have several rows of carrots (our hardest thing to get to sprout).  The beans are looking good as well as the beets.  Mason pulled all the weeds around the sunflowers he planted.  They're doing really well. 

We all came in hot, tired and covered in dirt.  Rootbeer floats were definitely in order!

fishing

The clean clothes have been sitting folded on most of the living room surfaces for going on three days now.  The kitchen floor needs mopping in a bad way.  Piles upon piles of stuff is filling the rest of the house in preparation for a garage sale. 

But sometimes you just gotta pack a picnic dinner, head to a nearby lake and do some fishing. 

The rest can wait.