Completely Clueless

I am a newbie when it comes to vegetable gardening. This is my second year of veggie gardening and I was excited about growing pumpkins for the boys this year. My only problem was I was clueless that if you want pumpkins at Halloween, you need to plant them on Flag Day.

So I have pumpkins already sitting by my front door. In past year, I would have thought you were nuts if you have a pumpkin by your door just after Labor Day. But not this year, we are getting ready to trick or treat early...now if I could just have colder weather so the pumpkins will last, otherwise I will still have to buy pumpkins at Halloween.

Canning Season is Offically over at the Van Dam Household

Okay so I am offically sick of canning and freezing food. I still have plenty of tomatoes coming, but I will either be giving them away or throwing them in the field. Here's the load down on what in the freezer and on the shelf in the basement (or someone else's shelf)

First the freezer stuff:
3 batches of Strawberry Jam
3 more batches of Strawberry Jame that didn't set. (It works great for Strawberry Lemonade)
1 batch of Peach Jam
8 bags of frozen corn
6 bags of frozen peaches
Misc bags of frozen chopped onions and chopped green peppers

Now the canned goods:
24 quarts of mixed green/yellow beans
22 pints of spaghetti sauce
30 quarts of peaches
22 pints of peaches
8 quarts of salsa
95 pints of salsa (already given 36 pints away)

I know I planted a few too many tomatoes plants, otherwise I think we did okay. I wish I had more corn in the freezer, but the corn just didn't want to grow this year. So until next we will be enjoyed my past few weeks of labor.

First day of Preschool

What did he actually eat tonight????

Look at that face, he just plain naughty.
Here's his supper, I think it all made it to the floor, in his hair or on his face and shirt.

Instead of eating the cheese curls, Connor was smashing them with his sippie and then pushing them on the floor.

Water + Sand = Fun!!!!

Sunday night we visited my in-laws at the Conference Grounds.

Brendan and Austin playing in the lake

Lucas did not like his shorts getting wet.

Lucas has this habit of sucking his thumb and putting the other thumb in his bellybutton. I finally got the opportunity for get a photo.
Connor absolutly loved the water and sand. He was covered from head to toe.

Brotherly Love...if only for a moment.

Last Minute Vacation

Make a Smilebox scrapbook This past Thursday evening we packed up the boys and head south to Fort Wayne, IN. Mike had heard that one of the country's top ten children's zoos was in Fort Wayne and seeing how our boys love seeing all the animals we thought it would be fun. I had to drop off a few bags in Caledonia, on the way out of town, okay maybe is wasn't really on the way out of town, but none the less we were still only 10 minutes south of our house (Hastings) when we stopped for supper 1 hour after we left. And that wasn't our only detour. Mike likes to take m-37 south to I-94 to I-69. and that's fine, except this time when we got to I-94 there was so much traffic backed up that we just kept going instead of turning onto I-94, not really knowing where we were. Of course Mike keeps defending himself by saying we were never really lost, but I beg to differ. If it wasn't for the nextel signal that kept going in and out of service and the google map on the nextel, I don't know if we would have gotten there at all. It was definitely an adventure. After stopping at three different hotels, we finally got to our room, (no, we don't make reservations before hand, that would mean we actually planned the vacation), and it was way past the boy's bedtime Of course they were excited because we were staying in a hotel room (we don't do that much) and they were making lots of noise and Mike was trying to keep them quiet so we didn't wake anyone. As the boys were getting their PJ's on we had to get out the sleeper sofa for the twins, go back the to front desk and get a pack -n-play for Connor (I'm so glad they had one.) and get Brendan into the closet...he was going to sleep on the floor. Finally the lights were out and it was quiet. Friday morning, I was thankful that Mike had picked a hotel with hot continental breakfast. And after two trips back to the hotel room, everyone got what they wanted for breakfast - Lucas and Austin had fruit loops, Brendan had Frosted Flakes, Mike and Connor had...well I'm not sure what they ate seeing how they ate in the hotel lobby and I had eggs, hash brown potatoes and sausage. It was really good and it was FREE!!!! Next it was time for the Zoo. The boys were so excited!!!! Of course we needed to find a bathroom right away, and Brendan was already getting impatient. It was a great zoo, much bigger than John Ball and more impressive than Binder Park. The only downfall was there weren't any African Animals-zebras, griffaes, lions, elephants. That exhibit was going to be finished next summer. That was a big bummer for me, because those are my favorite parts of any zoo. Brendan was super excited about seeing the komodo dragon. First the boys saw a statue of a komodo dragon and I think they thought it was real - none of the boys wanted to touch it until I told them it was pretend. Then we saw the real komodo dragon who was in his "hut" and after a few minutes decided to come out for the boys, Brendan thought that was cool. Some of the other favorites were the sea lions (we were there when the zookeeper was feeding them), petting the python snake(I kept my distance, I don't like snakes), and watching the monkeys. We had a great time even if we were only gone for 20 hours....until our next adventure.

Back to School!

Okay so this morning was way too early for me. The alarm went off and I rolled over and asked Mike is it 6:00 or 6:15, hoping it was 6:00 so I could sleep another 15 minutes. But that wasn't the case, it was time to get up. Mike got Brendan up and gave him the breakfast of champions....fruit loops.

After getting Brendan dressed and his teeth burshed, we were off to the bus stop, which unfortunate for me is about 4 miles down the road. When we got there, no one else was around....'great, we missed the bus on the first day of school' was my thought but moments later we saw the bus and off he went. I still can't believe I was the one with the butterflys in my stomach and the tears in my eyes. Brendan didn't seem to be one bit scared or nervous.

So here I sitting and wondering how Brendan's day is going so far? Did he like the bus ride? What is he doing right now??? Does he like his teacher? How is his teacher doing....she's a newbie? I guess I will have to wait until the end of the day to find out all these answers.

I pray that God will bless Brendan in this school year, help him to learn what he needs to learn, have the ability to make new friends and continue to build friendship with his friends from last year, and I pray that he continues to love school as much as he did last year.

Happy 2nd Birthday Connor!!!!

A Review of the past Year.

Here are his favorite's right now:
'mo (elmo)
being a monkey and climbing onto everything
Pb & J
Playing with the broom
Combing his hair with daddy's hairbrush.
his blankie
the new computer from Aunt Kelli
playing...or maybe it's fighting with his brothers, he can stand his own ground.
'mo (this time it's cookie monster)
breakfast (every meal is breakfast to him)
Coooookies (he shares in the love of oreos with his daddy)
loves to swim and being near the water



Happy Birthday Connor!!!! Mommy & Daddy love you very much.

End of the Summer Fun

Dylan

What a handsome little guy!!!!

Yesterday my sister in law came over with her adorable little boy and I was able to get some photos of him at 6months old. He did great job!!! I just love his little smile.