Garden of Eating....

Now is the blissful time of year when we gardeners are rewarded in spades for our efforts earlier in the seasons. When our children gobble round red tomatoes as if they were Halloween candy hordes... and really, aren't they nearly as sweet? A few weeks ago, I had to cajole Carter to get him to come to the garden with me. Now, once out the door, he makes a beeline for our planting space, singing out "strawberries" and "tomatoes". He can identify "garlic" "onions" and "peppers". Should he ever have to grow his own food, I'm giving him a great early education.

... and if Carter could only grow Jelly Toast, we'd be all set. Actually "Toast... Cream Cheese... Jelly" is the official order of the day. After breakfast, we head straight to the bathroom for a good scrubbing. He loves to watch in the mirror as I scrub a dub his face to remove all the sticky residue. I smush his cheeks into funny shapes and he just smiles away.

Arden, you are so lucky to have Carter as an older brother. He's all kindness and kisses. We've seen some kids at the playground who don't get along so well with their siblings.

Arden looking happy and alert. Happy is not what she's been with her napping today... because she just learned to roll over from her belly to her back. She's been going to sleep on her belly, waking up when she rolls over and howling with frustration when she can't figure out how to get back to where she began.

But in general she's still a pretty happy sort. Lots of smiles for belly raspberries and daddy tickles. I've even got a few giggles.

What a respectable young gentleman.

Come here! I'm going to lick you in the face!

I went in to get Carter up from a nap the other day and he came over to me while I was sitting on the floor getting a diaper ready. I thought he was going to kiss me on the cheek, but instead he stuck out his tounge and licked my cheek very deliberately. "Carter! Did you just lick me?" I chortled. So, of course, he did it again.

Greg and Deann, proud grandparents (aka Papa and Mimi) stopped by this weekend to participate in the bounty and to visit us and the lil' ones. Okay, mostly the lil' ones and a little bit us.

They're into thoroughbred horse racing (they have quite a few horses now) and it was different having the laptops tapping into racetrack feeds all day Sunday. One of Deann's horses is named Ready's Rocket and it has the modern-day record for number of races one at Churchill Downs.... I got to watch him extend his record live, it was quite a thrill and I didn't even have any skin in the game.
My in-laws have never been quite so happy with me as they were this weekend at the dinner table. It was as if I was on Iron Chef and the secret ingredient was tomatoes. Well, okay, I took a half day to do it instead of just an hour. Fried Green Tomatoes, a platter of sliced tomatoes with fresh basil, balsamic and homemade mozzarella cheese, and Spaghetti with Fresh Tomato Sauce and homemade Meatballs.

The harvest continues at breakneck pace. I have 4 trays of tomatoes ripening on top of my freezer, and I just pulled up a wheelbarrow full of onions this evening, with more needing to come out in the next couple of days. Whew!

Summertime

Summer is in full swing now and I just can't catch my breath most days. Here's Carter at the splash pool in the next neighborhood over. We're not members but his friend Mira gets him in with her guest pass. He likes to splash around in the various little fountains but lately he's been copying the adults and getting into a chair to relax and socialize.

Well, I can't say where or when this picture was taken but I'll bet Cierra took it and Arden was looking at Carter. She just lights up when she can watch her big brother doing things. And Carter really loves it when she makes her little communication noises. He laughs hysterically and then tries to repeat it back to her.

The garden is in full production right now. Peppers are starting to come in, and the tomatoes are at it in earnest. I've been giving away tomatoes left and right. Our biggest so far this year was 1lb, 6 oz. It was ripe enough today that I figured we'd better get to eating, so Cierra and I took some hearty slices off it to make some fantastic BLTs for lunch. We still had half of it left, so I carved that up, threw on some cheese and balsalmic and had that for dinner. Our garlic is all dug for this year, hung and drying in the barn. Onions are bulbing up nicely, and the watermelon is just beginning to set fruit.

I'm looking forward to my first market day of the year in early July. I'd be there more often, but it's rare that Cierra is off on a market day!

Sandwiches, sandwiches.... Carter likes bread. Toast for breakfast, Sandwiches for lunch, and sometimes toast for dinner. Peanut butter and jelly is a favorite....

And he likes to eat them all by himself.

Whoa, big brother. You'd better go clean your face before you give me any more kisses.

Cierra taking a moment to help Arden learn to fly. Cierra's got so much going on, but she is great about leaving work outside the house so she can spend time with them when she gets home. And that gives me a little breathing room most evenings.

Reality check: Arden is 3 months old now. Can you believe it? I can't. Time is flying.

Well that's all the pictures and I don't have any amazing stories springing to mind so I'm going to get some pre-Father's Day rest. Good night all!

Keeping Busy

Aunt Kaelie dropped by for another visit! Well, she was in our fair state for a friends wedding, but it didn't hurt that she got to spend time with her niece and nephew. It has been hot and stormy lately down here, but the last few days just plain hot. Good sprinkler weather, so we got one out, fired it up and tried to get Carter to run around in it.

But it was scary, so Carter spent 20 minutes standing just outside it, getting his toes wet. He slowly warmed up to it, getting carried through, and eventually standing still in the water. Never did grasp the concept of running through himself.

Here's all three of the ladies... all of a sudden Carter and I are outnumbered! Well, this is a good kind of outnumbered.

Cierra looks like she's hoarding the children. Jeez, no need to squeeze 'em that hard. "Myyyy Preciouses" she hissed at me when I tried to loosen her grip.

Well, she is precious.

Him too. You can't see it, but I'm pretty sure he's playing with Mommy's phone. That's his concentrating reallly hard face.

Arden's having a staring contest with that frog photo album on the side table. Here's the weird thing... the frog lost.

Okay so, we had professional photos done around Easter, then waited a couple of weeks to get them back. Cierra posted them here on the 19th and waited for me to write an update. We all got ill except for her and we're just now getting back to 100 percent. So here are the super pretty pictures... thank goodness we waited until I could write that to post them!

We never put anything on Arden's head, so that still looks strange to me.

She got her first haircut this week when Cierra lopped off her tiny rat-tail. The hair on the rest of her head is definitely getting longer, so it looks like she'll have a much shorter bald period than Carter.

I'd promise another, better, post soon, but with the kids and garden both taking up my time, that might prove to be a lie. The first tomatoes are just starting to ripen, and I'm digging up garlic like a madman right now. Last night I had to put two 150 watt work lights out in the garden to finish stripping the bulbs I'd already dug after sundown. So I'll write again when I can. Until then!

Playing Catch up....

Whoa. I am such a procrastinator. Yes, I've been promising Cierra I'd get around to writing this blog for a week now. But with two kids, a week can be over in the blink of an eye. 99.9% of my life is filled with feeding mouths and changing diapers with a side of frantically trying to encourage sleep. Throw in keeping the lawn mowed and preventing the garden from dying and I don't have enough time to rest my own eyes.

Okay first off, I promised Freeman that his visit would be covered in this edition a loooong time ago. Here it is Freeman, the one picture you get. Well, there are more but Cierra only uploaded one and I am way too lazy to go try to find them right now.
Freeman made the most of his limited time here. He's occasionally making runs up and down the East Coast delivering antiques here and there for a friend of his. When he comes through town he usually only has time to stop for an hour or so, but a couple of cancellations on this last trip enabled him to spend the afternoon with us and then stay the night. Lots of fun, this guy. Now we just need to get Aunt Kate to come down with him sometime! As you can see, Arden got along well with her uncle.


Speaking of getting on well, Cierra has gone back to work and it's the three of us at home most days now. Carter is so helpful. He tries to soothe Arden when she gets upset.

She's so alert now, and her head control is pretty perfect. Cierra and I don't even have to worry about supporting her head while we pick her up anymore.

Interesting! She's content to look at her surroundings for fifteen minutes sometimes. This is a real boon if I'm trying to clean something up or feed Carter.

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Last week we took a trip to the Columbia Zoo, because we don't have a zoo here in Charlotte. Having been to some depressing small zoos, Cierra and I were both a little ready to be underwhelmed, but it was really great! Lots of beautiful animals and the smallish habitats made for really awesome viewing. The gorillas were sleeping right against the glass and their handlike feet captured Carter's attention (and mine as well!)

We brought our cart for Carter to ride in but he decided he'd rather be free, so I mostly used it to haul bags around. Carter took it upon himself to push and he was such a good pusher, all I had to do was steer.

Here we are looking at some animal. It's weird, but Cierra says we didn't get a picture of any animals. I'm the last person you can trust to get a seemingly obvious picture, but it's just strange that we forgot to document that we were in fact at a zoo by getting a few shots of an animal or two. Perhaps as you're leaving the zoo they remote wipe your memory card of all animal related shots so you'll come back to try again.

And here's Carter holding my hand as we walk across a stone bridge through a fountain. This is in Center City Charlotte, and the little bridge had openings he had to really stretch to get across. I thought he wouldn't want to try it, but after a few minutes of watching the big kids do it, he was raring to go. I held on tight, worried that I might be the only thing keeping him from getting drenched, but he never misjudged one bit.

Family Time

Nose kisses! Carter is such a cool big brother. Always wanting to give Arden a hug or kiss. I keep having to remind him that she needs to be treated gently though. He wants to involve her in regular play but that is not to be for a while.

Well in the past 8 days we have been very busy with visiting family. First Opa and Oma Bardonner came down for Easter (sadly Aunt Alexis was sidelined by illness and Great-grandma Treva jumped on that excuse not to board an airplane). Then Betty, Hunter's Mom, took the train down from Virginia for four days. This past weekend we hosted Greg and Deann (or Papa and Mimi to Carter). I took them to the airport on Sunday night and was just relaxing on the couch with both kids asleep thinking, "Ok, well that's all the family visiting for a while" when a text message pops up on my phone and Uncle Freeman is popping by for an hourlong visit the next morning while driving a van down to Florida for a friend. So we have lots of fun guests in these pictures, but there are just so many that I think I'll let some speak for themselves... I think most of these are in reverse chronological order. Silly blogger... why can't I reorganize them?
Greg and Deann visited last (apparently Freeman's visit missed the picture deadline, we'll get you next time Freeman) so here they are first.

Zoinks!

Smiles! Arden doesn't do it very often yet but when they come they sure are great.

Papa pushed Carter in the swings for about 4 times as long as he's ever let anyone go before.

Carter and his stable of vehicles. There's the pony bike, the retro trike, the Radio Flyer wagon, Lightning McQueen, and now a new (to us) tricycle that's actually more his size. This one even came with a helmet, which is just awesomely cute.

A new toy... It sings and you can tickle it!

Oma (April to the rest of us) Bardonner enjoys some Arden time.

My mom took this picture of Oma and Opa with the whole family. She is such a good photographer.

And our little family. Not too bad!

Carter wanted to go down backwards so I told him to hold his hands up too to increase the thrill.

A basket full of eggs on Easter.

Opa and Oma helped us dye the eggs.

Carter rides a toy at Bianca's house.

We went strawberry picking! 6 gallons of strawberries. That ought to cover us for a little while. :)

Carter was very helpful. He would take a bite out of each strawberry before putting it in the bucket just to make sure it was good.

On the road to strawberry picking.

Popping out of our overgrown shrubbery is one of Carter's favorite activities.

Crocs on the slide don't make for a very smooth trip.

Looking at the birds in Discovery Place.

Arden wants to be a dancer. Already pointing her toes.

Mom was so good with Arden. She got her to sleep every time.

Look at me! I can climb stairs all by myself!

Carter has a blue version, so it's only fair...

Mom must have snapped this picture of me trying to document our Easter egg hunt. No matter where I was, Carter turned away from me as he was picking up the egg.

And one last pic of sleepy Arden. Until next week!