This is how we do it.

This is how we miss our daddy when he's gone for 2 weeks.... In beautiful, scenic, Pine Valley!
Chubs has a not-so-secret penchant for chewing on sticks:

If you notice, he's looking in the wrong end of the binoculars (strangely that's his favorite)

We went to church on a beautiful day, can't beat Pine Valley Chapel.
This is what happens when Cooper gets the camera:



Not bad for a 4 year old eh?

You can't see it because I'm in none of the pictures, but I miss Jesse!

June 11, one year to the day.

Dear Marshall,
On this, the one year anniversary of the day of your birth, we commemorated by taking you to the water park:
And feeding you spaghetti for dinner (your unquestionable favorite):
And, because you can't go through the grocery store without yelling: "Nanna! Nanna! Momma! NANNA!" We honored your apparent wishes and got you banana cream pie: Your Great-Grandpa Syphus came as an honored guest because today was his birthday too! Exactly 80 years older than you!
And everyone must love you so much because they gave you lots of cool toys:
Marshall, you came at the most opportune time for our family. You show us what's important and keep us laughing. You love to follow your mommy or daddy or Cooper or Leila around the house. Cooper likes wrestling you (you are plenty big enough!) and Leila likes to giggle with you and "kickle" you. We know when you are done with your food because you start "windshield wiping" your highchair tray and flinging the food on the floor. You like it when we sing "Down by the station early in the morning, see the little puffer-bellies standing in a row, see the engine driver pull the little handle, chug, chug, toot, toot, off we go!".
Your favorite way to communicate is growling and hitting the bed and you laugh whenever we do it for you. Every animal in your animal book has to make a growling noise or you lose interest, except for the duck, he always gets a kiss from you.

If you missed the party and want to watch his one year video here it is:

Growing

Our little family is growing!

No! Not that kind of growing! I swear I'm not pregnant (would I be blogging? No, I'd be barfing).

Growing food! We planted our garden in March and we are finally harvesting! Made some yummy huevos rancheros with these baby tomatillos:
Still waiting for these squashies, and by the rate squash's grow I don't think that'll be very long. I'm an avid composter (ask my husband what happens when he mistakenly throws banana peels in the garbage!) and sometimes it doesn't all break down into organic matter like it's supposed to, sometimes it sprouts and grows! Like this volunteer onion:I also have a mystery volunteer plant that isn't pictured here, I think it might be a canteloupe! Our little tomatoes are coming along, no red ones yet!
We get maybe 1 or 2 strawberries every few weeks, but at least the kids get something out of the garden they really like: This years gardening has been amazing, I especially enjoy the tomatilloes, they seem to grow even better than the tomatoes and squash and I am a sucker for green salsa!

I won't even pretend though, that my garden is half of what my dad's is. I just went over there on Saturday and picked about 6 pints of boysenberries. They get that many every 3 or 4 days!! My mom makes mouthwatering jam out of them and I'm trying to get her to enter it in the fair!

Bounteous

I heard from a few friends about Bountiful Baskets and decided to try it for myself!

Bountiful Baskets is a C0-0p (not a business, so they don't make any money, they are run entirely by volunteers). So you sign up on the website and find a pick-up location nearest you, you contribute $15 and on Saturday morning you pick up 6 fruits and 6 vegetables. The fun part is you don't know what you'll get, so it's a surprise! This week I got:

• 7 potatoes
• 6 ears of corn
• 4 tomatoes
• 4 red bell peppers
• 7 heads of Bok Choy
• 1 head of romaine lettuce
• 9 peaches
• 1 box of blackberries
• 1 honeydew melon
• 1 bag of grapes
• 7 bananas
  

They take all the $15 from everyone and buy fruits and vegetables at wholesale prices in large quantities and then split it up between everyone. You never know what you'll get and the amount varies. The part I really like is that they buy from small, local growers, and for things that obviously don't grow here (like bananas) they buy from small farmers in other countries (like mexico). BTW - the bananas are HUGE! I've never seen bananas that big! Check out the website and sign up for yourself!
BountifulBaskets.org