Fork and Spoon

And now Amelia will demonstrate how to use a fork.

She's still refining her spoon work.

Sprout!

Besides my garden I've been working hard on another project this summer. 

 Amelia is going to be a big sister! (Grandma made the cute outfit for her, and if you can't read it, the shirt says "Big Sister to bee")

 Meet Sprout!  My friend insisted that I name the baby something and because I was pregnant at the beginning of the gardening season I decided on Sprout. 

Sprout is due January 30 and we can hardly wait.  We had our ultrasound yesterday and we didn't find out the gender.  That will be a surprise again along with the names we have chosen.  I was pretty nauseous this time but fortunately that went away as I transitioned into the second semester.  Sprout has been just as rambunctious as Amelia was in the womb, but surprisingly was pretty quiet for the ultrasound.  I've also had some very strong food aversions this time which is new for me.  For the first 4 months I couldn't stand the taste or smell of chicken and coffee.  Fortunately these are also starting to diminish.  Instead of having strong cravings that last forever, I'm very suggestive this time.  If I hear something like pretzel M&Ms for instance (by the way, I've never had them before)  I need to have them and then I'm satisfied and move on to something else.  With the last pregnancy I seemed to stick with a few cravings throughout the whole pregnancy.  I've also had some nesting very early this time and have discovered if there are things I should have done during the day I end up losing sleep over it that night.  Therefore I have lists everywhere of what I need to get done now, this week, month, etc. 

Not only is Amelia becoming a big sister at the end of January, but her two girlfriends, Lila and Allie will also become big sisters the same week.  It has been fun to be pregnant together and just crazy that our due dates are all within one week. 

Fun Days

We invited Amelia's friends to join us for the kiddie parade this year. 

 Lila was able to make it and brought her chair.  So of course we had to pull out Amelia's chair and in typical kid fashion they ended up trading chairs. 

Amelia wasn't so sure about running out to grab candy.  When she finally got the hang of picking it up she kept throwing the candy back to the people in the parade.  

We went to the big parade on Saturday and she loved the music and kettle corn!

That night I let her try her first sucker.  She didn't open her mouth back up until the sucker was gone. 

On Sunday we went to the car show and petting zoo.

She loved petting the animals and got really excited when she saw the bunnies. 

She loves to dance!

Mowing

Our neighbors gave us a little lawn mower that their grandson had outgrown.  Since then Amelia loves to "help" Daddy mow the lawn.  It's very cute!

Garden & Canning

I've finally developed a green thumb this year and have the best garden I've ever grown. 

 My tomato plants are taller than I am. 

Although Amelia keeps picking green tomatoes for me I don't think that I'm going to run short any time soon.

 Here is the cucumber patch.  I've made so many pickles and pickle relish that I've started giving away bags of cucumbers.  I'm ready for them to quit producing. 

 Here is the whole new section that we planted this year.  The front of the picture is a zucchini plant while the right side are squash and grapes. 

Here is a nice looking spaghetti squash.  My packet of seeds was a variety pack.  What are the chances of three out of four plants being spaghetti squash?  We've never tried spaghetti squash before so hopefully we like it.  Next year I'm not taking my chances with the variety seed packet.

Here are the pepper plants.  Most of them are banana peppers.  I have one bell pepper, one Anaheim,  and I think two cayennes.  I've been able to pick handfuls of peppers but not too many yet. 

 My zucchini plant leaves were so huge and crazy that I missed this zucchini until it too was massive.  Now I check the plant more frequently. 

 This is a typical harvest for a week, although this week I picked this much twice. 

 And here is my canning bounty so far.  Sweet and sour pickles and a double batch of sweet pickle relish.

 Tomato jam, bread and butter pickles, sweet pickles.

 Dill pickles.

 Tomato sauce.

 I got two cases of peaches from the St. Peter Food Co-op.  So I turned some of that into peaches in a honey water syrup and vanilla bean peach sauce.  I also had to do another round of pickle relish because I was sick of looking at all of the cucumbers on the counter. 

 I then took the skins and pits of the peaches to make peach pit jelly.
 

Another round of tomato sauce and applesauce made from apples we got from my cousin. 

Peach nectarine jam and different recipe of dill pickles. 

Pool Party

In July we had Amelia's girlfriends over for a pool party. 


Allie brought a silly sprinkler.  Amelia wasn't so sure she liked it but she kept going over to stand in the water spray anyways. 

Lila brought a snack to share and Amelia decided to be the boss of the canister.

The girls all loved sitting at the table and eating pizza.  

They loved the pool as well!

Ice Cream

One of Amelia's favorite activities at Grandma's house is sharing a big bowl of ice cream with Papa!