As Promised...

Because I have been 'accused' of procrastination...


I'll start with these two pictures:

I must say that Jesse is the happiest baby that I have ever had.  Gabriel was a happy baby, but that was different because my mother in law took care of him and she basically carried him around all day, every day and anticipated his every need so that he had no need to cry.  Jesse, however, is just happy by himself.  He plays with his toes and his little dangling toys or hangs out on my chest in his Bjorn and is just a happy man.  His eyes are still blue/gray/green, too, even though I have not squirted milk in them as I have been encouraged to do by many people.

 These 3 pictures are of our garden this year.  Yes, it is very out of control.  But wait!  Let me explain!

I went to Lowes and got 3 tomato plants, but after I planted them and started watering the garden, I realized that I had TONS of volunteer tomatoes that seeded from last year and from the compost that we put in the garden earlier in the spring.  So now I have tomatoes EVERYWHERE, and I know that I need to pull them out and thin them, but it is also just really neat to see what happens with them.  But I am trying to thin them, but I just can't seem to get myself to pull the ones that have flowers and/or little green 'maters on them, so here they are.  I'll let you know what happens.  Oh and there is also a big sunflower growing the middle of it all.

 This is a picture of our potatoes that we planted this year.  And a tomato and a pumpkin that volunteered.  The 'taters seem to be growing well.  We did well with them last year, and when we were prepping the soil for this planting, we pulled out even more rocks and loosened the soil even deeper.

 We planted the apple tree in the fall last year, but it looks like we may get a few apples off it this fall.  Hopefully they make it to fall without getting either eaten by bugs or picked by Gabriel, and then we can see if they are firm and sweet/tart like I'm hoping.  They are Winesaps.

 We planted the grapes last spring, but since I worked all summer super long hours, they didn't get watered and didn't do well last year.  I have no idea how to take care of them other than train them to vine on the supports and water them, so we'll see if they succumb to disease (or Gabriel).

 These are our raspberries which are actually pretty much done with their fruits this year, but we got a lot off them.  We were able to can a  lot of jelly, which is good because I like raspberry jelly, but I don't like the seeds in it and the only ones that don't have seeds have a lot of sugar.  Elizabeth and I have been canning our jams and jellies with no sugar so it is good and tart.  So good on sandwiches and pancakes!

Ok.  So there are a few pictures of what's going on around here.  We are headed to the pool with the church tonight, so I should have some good ones of the kids to put up soon!

 This is Jordan, our 6th child (Annie is #5) and she was complaining that we had no pictures of her on the blog, so here you go, Jordan!

 And here we all are trying to beat the heat for a few minutes before we go to the pool!