Peach Picking

The cousins went peach picking together yesterday and had a fabulous time bouncing in the little red wagon.

Quotes of the Day

"You guys think I'm a nut but I'm not." -Tucker, out of the blue one morning during breakfast

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Austin: A couple more minutes in the garden and then it'll be night-night time, little buddy.
Tucker: A couple more minutes in the garden and then it'll be night-night time, big buddy.

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Tucker: Why does the screen make noise when I shut it?
Me: Because it's hitting the door jam.
Tucker: Ha! That's funny. The door isn't jam!
Me: [Trying to explain...]
Tucker: The door jam is not the kind of jam we eat?
Me: No.
Tucker: The door jam is not sticky like the kind of jam we eat.

Produce Flaunting

We have been accused of produce flaunting because of this impressive display of butternut squash in our windowsill. There are several more in our pantry (ones with blemishes that won't store well) and more than a dozen still out there. If you had this much butternut squash wouldn't you flaunt it too? Of course, the only thing better than this much butternut squash would be this much of several varieties of squash because then it'd be even prettier. :)

Quote of the Day

Tucker: What are you making?
Me: Diced tomatoes.
Tucker: Dust tomatoes? Ha! That's funny. [Driving around on his truck, looking around the kitchen] I see dust tomatoes!

[This was actually from several weeks ago, but I was waiting to upload a picture, and then forgot. They don't look very impressive because I should've cooked them down longer so the sauce would be thicker and they wouldn't separate like they are in the picture. Oh well.)

Home Sweet Home

We arrived home Friday evening after our epic East Coast road trip. We were gone 12 days, stayed in 5 different places and spent 6 days in the car (well, 4 full days and 2 half days). It is so good to be home.

Molly celebrated by sleeping 18.5 hours yesterday.

The highlight of the trip was the time we spent at my mom's house in Vermont. We got to relax, see friends and play. The second week we also saw a lot of friends and my new nephew Dylan, but had to battle through several cold rainy days at camp in Maine, very little sleep, and then several grueling back-to-back days in the car. On our way home I spent a lot of time looking at the Virginia page of our atlas, noting all the fun vacation spots within a four hour driving radius. :)

Here are some pictures:

Vermont

A few videos from our time at my mom's house. Her connection is so much faster than ours, I need to post videos while I can!

Molly picking blueberries:


Tucker blueberry picking:


Tucker and my mom doing a dress-up parade (there have been a lot of parades this week at her house):


On an unrelated note, I was a bit surprised at lunch yesterday that our waitress didn't know that wheat was in all bread. Hmmmm.

Where does milk come from?

Yesterday, on the second day of our drive to Vermont, we started passing a lot of dairy farms. I told Tucker that those cows give us the milk we buy.

Tucker: Where does the milk come from?
Me: People milk the cows....
Tucker [interrupting]: I think they put buckets under the cows and catch all their poop. Cows' poop is white, and that is how we get milk.

We have since cleared up the confusion. It turns out milk is NOT cow poop.

In other news, we arrived at my mom's house in Vermont yesterday afternoon after a relatively good (but long) car trip. We were concerned Molly might scream for hours on end like she did on the way to Chattanooga, but we thankfully managed to avoid endless screaming. Of course, she barely slept. What other 9 month old only naps for 40 minutes on a 8 hour car ride? That is a LONG time for her to entertain herself. I went to the thrift store last week and got a bag of items that she had never seen before so I could give her new things in rapid succession. The list included: my little pony, baby doll that talked, kaleidescope, bracelets, light up squishy ball, etc. It was well worth $6.93.

We spent the night at a Days Inn in New York on the way. We splurged on two rooms because there was no way anyone would sleep if all four of us plus the dog were in one. Plus, what in the world do you do when the baby needs to go to sleep at 6 pm but it's a wee bit early for the rest of the family to retire?

Tucker and Molly were thrilled by the hotel. Molly chased Tucker around the rooms, and Tucker wanted to go to bed right away (at 5:30 pm) because he was so excited about the bed. Tucker was also thrilled that he'd be in the same room as Molly. She went down a little after 6, and was quickly out like a light. We sent him in somewhat after 7:30 pm. For the first half hour he was totally silent and we thought he was asleep. But then the excitement got to him and he started making a bit more noise, and woke Molly up (she's a very light sleeper). Then he spent the next hour making faces and hamming it up for her while she sat up in her crib and grinned at each other. Silly kids.

Today is our first full day in Vermont and we had gorgeous weather this morning to pick a ton of blueberries and take a ferry on a 20 minute ride across Lake Champlain. I think I can get used to this vacation thing.

Molly's Unusual Eating Habits

I was nursing Molly before she went to bed tonight; like usual she was totally distracted. The world is very interesting and new when you're nine months old. She has a habit of eating for a few seconds, then arching her back and looking around, then eating some more. Tonight I noticed a new variation on the theme: she would nurse for a few seconds, then come off and eat her toe for awhile, nurse for awhile, then eat her toe some more. She seemed equally pleased with both of her eating options.

Quote of the Day

I was looking at a pair of shoes online, which were pictured lying on some gravel or something. Tucker was working at his Magna Doodle next to me, and turned to look at my computer.

Tucker: What are the sandals doing there? Why is no one wearing them? Because the sandals are dead? And no one can wear them if they're dead?

Hmmmm....