Three Year Olds are Very Disobedient and Very Adorable

That was my Facebook status a few days ago. And it is very true.

The disobedience part is a whole other post--or probably a couple dozen other posts--but I'm just going to show you a little of the adorable part right now.

Nathan walked into Noah's room one night to check on him and found him like this:

Thanks, Grandma Tanner, for the race car helmet!

Rodeo

Last week, we went to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. Yeehaw.

The Houston Rodeo is the biggest in the world (or so I learned in elementary school), and it is really fun. They always have really big names in entertainment giving a concert at the end of every night, but the real show is the rodeo itself. Bull riding, wild bronco riding, calf scramble, and so on.

I got Nathan tickets to the rodeo for his birthday, so off we went last week. The first order of business was to get something to eat. We had some Hill Country sausage followed by...

...a deep fried Snickers bar and deep fried Oreos. Oh yeah.
After we ate, we walked around a bit and then headed into the stadium to see some rodeo events.

Reliant Stadium is kind of a big place, y'all.

Obviously, we were pretty far from the action, but my camera could zoom in for a few good pictures. Here are the chuck wagon races. You pick one and root for it, and it's all good fun!

There's the calf scramble, where like 40 teenagers run after 20 calves, and if you catch one, harness it, and drag it to a designated area, I think you get to keep it (or you get some cash or something).
Run, guys, run!
It doesn't take long before those kids slow down significantly. I mean, that's a lot of space to cover and a lot of running to do. It made us tired just watching!

We were rooting for this kid, who caught his calf by the tail. He was stuck holding the tail for the longest time. Eventually, he wrestled it to the ground and put the harness on. What a triumph.

All the bull riding and calf scrambles were fun and all, but the real highlight of our evening was the mutton bustin'. This might have been a new event this year; I'm not sure. But it was definitely my favorite. Basically, they get a bunch of five and six year old kids and have them hold on for dear life on the back of a sheep. It is hilarious.

A few of the kids ended up falling off right away or maybe getting stepped on in the process, and a couple of them rode until a rodeo clown had to pluck them off the sheep lest they hit a wall. At the end, a couple of the kids were in tears and a few were obviously feeling triumphant. They gave all the kids a trophy, and the winner got a big old belt buckle.

It was just so dadgum funny to see those sheep hopping along with kids dug into their backs. Fistfuls of wool and legs wrapped tightly around the middle--that's what mutton bustin' is.

We left right after that event and didn't stay for the music because Nathan had to work the next day. But we took our picture in front of some bull statues on the way out.

Yeehaw, y'all.
Go Texan.

In My Spare Time

Yesterday and the day before, Jane took extremely long afternoon naps--like, over two hours. Yesterday she got close to three hours!! Now, this would not be odd for Noah, who is a great napper (once you can get him to finally go to sleep). But Jane has never really slept more than 90 minutes total each day, divided between two naps. So to have them both asleep at the same time for two hours seemed like a completely amazing occurrence. I almost didn't know what to do with myself!

So what did I do, you ask? I blogged. I wrote that post about my garden that was comprised of more than a handful of pictures and a short caption for each. I used words--grown-up words like "cathartic" and "brunt." I used my brain a little.

My friend, Sarah, had the same experience yesterday--her baby slept for an unusual two hours in the afternoon. She chose to spend her time taking a leisurely shower (unheard of for moms!), actually doing her makeup, etc.

So, moms, if you unexpectedly had two hours at home, what would you do with them? Do tell! This could be fun!

Cathartic, Peaceful, and Satisfying

Y'all, I totally did not anticipate that I'd enjoy my garden so much. I'm not sure how best to describe it; the word cathartic often comes to mind, as well as peaceful and satisfying. There's just something about watching stuff grow. Not having completely processed the way it makes me feel, I can't exactly put it into words, but I will say that I go out to the backyard about twice a day just to check everything out (again), pull a couple weeds, etc. And doing that somehow restores something in me.

Now, ask me how much I enjoy watering my garden when it's 90 degrees at 9am in August. I might have different feelings then. Ha!

Anyway, I know that not everyone who reads this blog is as inspired by my garden as I am (of course!), but you will just have to bear with me on the frequent postings right now. I promise I will move on to something else soon--in fact, I have a few posts partly written--but for now, this is where my mind often is. Actually, I tend to do this soaking-all-aspects-of-something-up kind of business every so often when I get into learning something new (crocheting and cooking come to mind). I soak up all the information that I can, and I learn a lot in a short amount of time. Perhaps, if I were always like this, it'd be a little unhealthy to be too focused on one thing at a time, but it works for me because I don't often get this way. I won't have another bout like this for a couple of years, if my past is any indication of my future, so I've decided to just go with it, learn all I can, and allow myself to be absorbed for a little while.

You, lovely readers, are bearing the brunt of that right now. I can almost promise it will be short-lived, though. :)

On to the update!

Here's our garden today:

You may have noticed that I planted some things in the row closest to the camera. I put some cilantro and parsley plants in the ground that I bought at a garden store the other day, even though I have a bunch of basil and cherry tomato seedlings I need to find space for.

When I planted my basil seeds, I brilliantly just kind of dumped several at a time into these little pots I bought. Well, guess what happened. Big surprise: a whole lot of little basil plants grew in a clump. Rather than try to unwind all the roots, I just decided to put one of the clumps in the ground to see what happened. I'm not sure if they'll duke it out for superiority or if one day I'll just decide to clip most of them off and give a few a better shot. It doesn't really matter to me; I have two other healthy basil plants, and growing basil from seed was just kind of a fun experiment.

My sugar snap peas aren't doing so hot. They're growing, but very slowly, especially in comparison everything else in the garden. They also always appear a bit dry and elbowy, and they don't have a lot of foliage. There are some peas on them, but I'm not sure how prolific they'll be and whether or not they'll be worth the garden space they're taking up (I'd plant something else in their place, otherwise). I pulled a couple of dead ones up and planted some seeds for some yellow wax beans in their place. I figure something ought to get some good use out of that trellis. :)
I am constantly wanting to plant yet another something in our garden, and, as you can see, we are out of space. So yesterday, as I was fingering this newly purchased packet of yellow wax bean seeds, I scanned our backyard, looking for a possible home for them. Then I saw the perfect spot:
This is a telephone pole in our backyard (isn't that on your home wish list? Ha! No!). The previous owners/renters put this trellis on it, I suppose to make it more attractive. It occurred to me that some leafy bean vines would be quite lovely growing along that trellis. And Nathan completely agreed with me--I did think it was one of my more brilliant moments, myself--so we are going to pull out those weird bird feeders, clear some space near the bottom, and plant a few bean seeds.

Look at all the strawberries growing!

This one was totally white-green yesterday morning. By the afternoon, the seeds had turned red, and by the evening, there was one little red spot. This is what it looks like this afternoon.
The peppers are making progress.
Now on to the tomatoes, or "today-toes," as Noah calls them.
Remember that first tiny tomato that I showed you? Well, that largest one is it. It has a lot of friends now. :) There are 15 on this cherry tomato plant so far.

This one is the largest, though. This plant is supposed to bear 1-lb. fruits, eventually.
Hopefully, Nathan will have time this weekend to clear out this little corner so I can plant a few more things . . .

. . . like zucchini seedlings! Their little heads just rose out of the dirt yesterday. The weather is so nice that it almost seems to me that they're smiling at the sun.
And that's that! Hope you enjoyed the update!

Jane's New Stats

Janey's new stats:

Length: 31-3/4 inches. She's back on the charts at the 99th percentile!
Weight: 22 lbs., 12 oz., which is the 77th percentile.

Jane had a good checkup, although she did have to have four shots, poor girl. She's healthy and doing just great!

Greek Pasta Salad

I made this dish for Jane's birthday party, and my mom has asked me for the recipe, so I thought I'd just post it here. Basically, this is just a Greek salad with pasta instead of lettuce. Enjoy!

By the way, the amounts listed here feed a crowd, so you might want to cut it by a third or by half. Also, I just eyeballed the proportions, so if it looks like this is too many tomatoes or something, by all means, follow your instincts and preferences.

-----

Greek Pasta Salad

1-1/2 16-oz. boxes bowtie pasta (or other small pasta), cooked
1-2 pints cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
1 English cucumber, halved lengthwise and sliced
1 cup pitted kalamata olives, roughly chopped
6-oz. tub crumbled feta cheese

Dressing:
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons chopped fresh oregano (or 1 tablespoon dried)
salt and pepper

In a large bowl, combine all the salad ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk the dressing ingredients together, then pour over the salad and toss together. Enjoy!

Firstfruits

A sweet strawberry.
That's the first thing we've picked out of our garden, other than herbs.
Here's to a prolific season!

This Could Get Out of Control...

So I was browsing rareseeds.com last night and checking out what I'd like to plant for this fall. This is what I came up with:

• Butternut Rogosa Violina Gioia Squash - An Italian Butternut-type squash, these have a violin shape and wrinkled tan skin, the flesh is deep orange and sweet, perfect for desserts, roasting, stuffing and baking.

• Butternut Waltham Squash (I like the name because we lived near a town called Waltham outside of Boston) - An old favorite with good yields. Excellent tasting, rich orange colored flesh. Great baked!

• New England Sugar Pie - The noted small sugar pumpkin of New England. The orange fruit weigh 4-5 lbs. and have fine, sweet flesh that is superb for pies.

• Table Queen Squash - Dark green Acorn type fruit. Iowa Seed Co. introduced this variety in 1913; possible Native American origin. The small fruits have sweet, orange flesh.

• Harris Model Parsnip - Delicious, tender, white, 12-inch roots have a sweet flavor; refined in appearance. Great boiled, fried, or used in "Parsnip Bread". A good producer and popular variety.

What else should we plant this fall? What grows well in the fall? I always think of squash (I think I've got that covered!) and root veggies: parsnips, potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, etc. But I can get carrots and potatoes so easily and cheaply at the grocery store that I'm not that motivated to take up my garden space to plant them. Unless one of you out there tells me that the flavor will be extraordinarily superior if I grow them myself.

Also, I've never really grown anything from seed, so this makes my fall garden potentially problematic. I might be a little crushed if everything I plant dies. I might need to take a mini growing-from-seed course from Courtney.

My one main regret regarding our summer garden is that we didn't leave room for zucchini. Not only do I love to cook and eat it, but it's also overpriced at the grocery store, in my opinion. So I picked up a seed packet the other day (again with the seeds! I'm intimidated by them!) but figured that it might be too late, in addition to the fact that there would be no way I'd find a place to plant them. But when I mentioned this to Nathan this morning, he said he wouldn't mind clearing out another area so we could make room. Hooray! He enjoyed doing it the first time, he said, and besides, he likes lots of veggies around. So after I find out if there's any chance I'll have some success planting these seeds, we may extend our garden.

I told Nathan that I could see us having a huge garden one day (he loved the idea). For one thing, I'd love to grow heirloom tomatoes of every color. And there are a lot of colors: green, orange, pink, purple, red, striped, white, and yellow, according to rareseeds.com. I'd also like to plant a few more herbs, some melons, cucumbers, and (if I ever have the room) some blueberries.

Y'all, this could get out of control. Awesomely out of control.

Garden Progress

I thought it might be fun from time to time this spring/summer to chart the progress in our garden. To that end, here are some pictures of our humble beginnings.

This was our garden on February 20, a few days after we planted it.

And here is a picture from today:

Here's our very first tomato. It's a husky cherry red. So cool! I'm excited, because there are at least 30 blooms on this plant alone. Hopefully, if we don't get any pests or anything, we'll have a ton of them this summer!
Another view of our first tiny tomato:

The first thing we actually spotted growing was this strawberry.
It has grown to a pretty nice size now. Can't wait to see how it turns out!
Between the two strawberry plants, there are nearly ten strawberries growing. Hooray!

I just noticed the other day that we have some sugar snap peas growing, too.

And here are the first buds on one of the bell pepper plants.

Yesterday, I got down in the garden while the kids were sleeping and pulled all the weeds, and I found something out: pulling weeds by yourself in the sun on a beautiful day is darn cathartic. I would even say it is restful.

And so I don't destroy the peace of that thought, I'll leave it at that.

Rice vs. Baylor

Through work, Nathan scored four box seat tickets to the Rice vs. Baylor baseball game at Minute Maid Park this weekend. Since they're fans of both teams and would be in town this weekend, we invited Nathan's parents to go with us.

It was a beautiful day, and they had the roof open:

Of course, Nathan and I love Rice baseball because we went there and because Nathan played on the team his first two years in college. But Nathan's parents are a little more conflicted: they went to Rice and support Rice baseball, but they have been at Baylor for lots of years now and go to most of the Baylor baseball games. After a little bit of back and forth, Nathan's dad ended up wearing a Baylor shirt, and his mom went a little more neutral. Ha! Nathan and I wore our Rice hats, and Nathan wore his old Rice Baseball shirt.

Here we are!

We'd like to take Noah to a game at Reckling Park sometime soon, too. Sometimes, I drive through campus and show Rice to Noah (it's conveniently across the street from the park we often visit), and I often point out the baseball stadium where Daddy used to play baseball. We think it'd be fun to take him to his first game there this season.

When we go, though, we won't be hearing the *ping* of the baseball bats; they have changed the regulations because those bats were considered too dangerous since they hit the ball harder. The new bats have less of a ping sound and more of a thunk. That's kind of disappointing to me in a very superficial/sentimental way, because those pings could be heard all over campus, and they just signify spring afternoons to me. That won't mar the fun too much when we get over to Rice for a game on campus, though!

By the way, getting a box seat at Minute Maid Park is pretty nice, y'all. Free BBQ and Cracker Jacks ain't no bad way to watch a baseball game.

Please Get Off My Bed.

This evening, we came to spend the night at my parents' house after meeting an old friend for dinner at a restaurant. Now, the restaurant scene with my kids is not exactly pretty. By the time they are done eating, they are DONE. As in, we probably need to just get up and leave, because it is a major hassle to keep them in their seats. In fact, Noah didn't really eat anything except about two bites of chicken and a handful of chips because he was so distracted, and the excitement from both the restaurant and going to GG & Grandpa's house was really too much. Finally, the kid realized he was hungry, so my mom made him some mini corn dogs at like 8:30 (keep in mind that he is usually in bed by that time). He ate them, I put him down, and at about 9:00 he came back downstairs saying he was hungry. I had him go back upstairs, promising him I'd bring him something to eat. I asked my mom if she had any of the mini corn dogs left, and she said she had thrown the last couple away. So I took Noah half a piece of bread, after which this conversation ensued (all in whispers, since Jane was asleep only feet away):

n: I don't want bread, Mommy. I want hot dogs.
L: Baby, there aren't any more hot dogs.
n: Yes, Mommy. GG made me some little hot dogs.
L: Yes, Noah, but there aren't any more hot dogs. Here is a piece of bread, if you are hungry.
n: But there are more hot dogs, Mommy, that GG made.
L: Buddy, GG threw them away and there aren't any left. Do you want this bread?
n: Can you tell GG get them out of the trash can and...
L: Baby, we don't eat food out of the trash can.
n: But can you just go get GG to get them out of the trash?
L: No, Baby, we don't eat food out of the trash can. But I brought you some bread.
n: Well GG can cook some more...
L: No, Noah.
n: ...in the oven. She can cook some more.
L: Noah, it is very late, and we are not going to cook more hot dogs. I am sorry that GG threw them in the trash, but now there are no more, and it is time for you to sleep. Now, you eat your bread and go to sleep.
[pause]
n: Please get off my bed.

Ha ha! He may have resigned himself to the fact that there were no more hot dogs, but he sure was not happy about it. Don't shoot the messenger, Noah! Ha!

Party!

This weekend, we had a little family birthday party for Jane.

I was really loving the arrangement of the strawberry rose cupcakes until Noah pointed at a blackberry and said, "There's poop on the cake!" Whatever. I laughed and still thought it was pretty. But it did make for some good jokes later.

Nathan's mom and the birthday girl.

Cuties enjoying the cake.

Typical Noah picture. :)

This chair was Jane's main gift from Nathan and me. The girl loves chairs and climbs on anything that resembles one, so we thought we'd get one just for her . . . one that does not fall over or that will otherwise hurt her! Not to mention its cuteness.

It's teatime!

Anybody up for a shopping trip?

Happy Birthday, Jane Elisabeth!

One Year Old!

My Jane Elisabeth is one year old today.

Can you believe it? She is such a big girl!

Swinging at the park today:

Janey Beth is really growing. Not only can I tell that she is getting bigger, but her little personality is changing as she develops and is able to physically do more things. For example, she is getting around more easily these days and has even taken a few stumbling steps every day for the past week or two, but she is still not walking easily, and she wants to so badly! I think the general frustration she's been venting lately may stem from the fact that she is so close to being able to do the things she wants to do.

My girl loves to play the kazoo. We have a few left over from Christmas stockings, and she learned how to play quickly by watching Noah. It's so cute to see a baby humming into a kazoo.

She also takes great delight in unloading the lower shelves of the pantry and the refrigerator. I generally let her do it, because it keeps her busy and there's nothing that can hurt her or that she can destroy . . . except the paper towels. She loves to pull them out of the bag in the pantry, unroll them, sit on them, pull on them, and eventually pull little bits off and try to eat them. She also loves to climb into the dishwasher.

Jane loves Noah and learns a lot by watching him. The other day, she watched Noah give me a kiss, then she turned to Nathan and gave him one. We're seeing her copying her brother more and more these days.

Both Jane and Noah have started singing and humming more. Just today, Jane climbed up into Noah's rocking chair and started rocking and humming. Noah didn't really do that at her age, so I think it's particularly sweet. Noah, too, has been singing more, and I love that.

Janey also loves to play peek-a-boo. She covers her face with her hands while we say, "Wheeeeere's Janey?" And then she takes them off with a big grin, and we all say, "Peek-a-boo! There she is!" She loves it.

Because I'm not making her official birthday cake until Saturday's party, I picked up some cupcakes for today. Aren't they cute? Noah chose the one with the heart on top. They were darn tasty, too. Jane's is vanilla with light pink crystals on top, there's a fleur de sel (chocolate with caramel and a touch of salt--my favorite), a coconut, and a red velvet.

Excuse the bad flash, but I wanted to see how covered in icing she got. Even after I cleaned her off, she still smelled like vanilla icing.

"Cake is AAAAAAAAAAWESOME!"

"Pardon me while I ponder the wonderfulness that is icing."