Weekend Project

After reading about it, talking to friends about it, pondering it, and even taking a (mostly worthless) class, I finally jumped into the world of canning. Over the past year and a half I have become more and more convinced of the merits of eating locally, so preserving some of the summer harvest for myself seemed like a natural step in that direction.

So Friday morning Austin and I drove out to Yarnick's (one of our local farms) and bought a half bushel of tomatoes and a half bushel of Italian sweet peppers, plus some onions and jalapenos. Austin conveniently took a three hour nap (I asked Zach to pray specifically for that), the entirety of which I spent in the kitchen. And when he woke up, simple vegetables had been transformed into beautiful, tasty salsa.

Canning is kind of addictive, as it turns out. I keep grabbing my Ball Blue Book and looking for more things I can make. So many possibilities!

Mommy's Helper

This morning after breakfast Austin and I went upstairs to brush our teeth and do morning chores like making the bed. I was doing this and that in my room and noticed that he was going back and forth between my room and his. You know what he was doing?

Carrying diapers from the basket in my room into his room and putting them in the drawer! (I think there are a few on the floor because the drawer got full.) The correct drawer, no less, even though it is hardest for him to reach. I love it!

At Least One of Us Has No Reason to Feel Guilty

After church this morning Zach suggested we go out to lunch. Given that it was basically naptime, we knew we had to choose someplace quick and casual. We settled on Wendy's. (It just reopened this week due to a fire last summer, so it is currently the place to go in Indiana.) This is not really like us, you know. Going to eat fast food, I mean. We could probably count the number of times we eat fast food per year on one hand. We are more into slow food, organic food, local food...

But anyway, we went, ignoring any feelings of guilt. Zach ordered their new Asian Sweet and Spicy Boneless wings (which we highly recommend, by the way) and a baked potato, I ordered chicken nuggets and mandarin oranges; we also ended up with a small fries due to a Wendy's mistake. We figured we would just share our stuff with Austin. Did he want Daddy's wings? No. Did he want Mommy's chicken nuggets? No. Did he want french fries? Maybe a few bites. Did he want mandarin oranges? Yes. He ate the whole bowl while Zach was getting our drinks!

Kind of makes you feel good, you know? You must be doing something right when you take your kid to Wendy's and all he wants to eat is mandarin oranges.

Bible Story

Every night at bedtime we read a Bible story with Austin and pray with him. Here's how it went tonight, with a picture to help set the scene.

Daddy: This is a man whose name

Austin: (pointing) Daw! (dog)

Daddy: is Isaiah. God

Austin: Daw!

Daddy: sent him to tell the people

Austin: Daw! Daw!

Daddy: what they should do. He is called a

Austin: Daw!

Daddy: prophet. Can you say "prophet"?

Austin: Daw!

Daddy: The people are bad and God sends him to tell

Austin: Daw!

Daddy: them to stop being bad. He says that

Austin: Daw!

Daddy: if they don't, God will hurt their country, and wreck their cities, and burn up their houses.

Austin: (laughs)

Daddy: God is sorry when His people sin and

Austin: (laughs)

Daddy: do wrong things. God sends Isaiah to help them stop doing what is bad.

Goodness, I love this little boy!

Pictures I Should Have Posted Already

Sorry, Mom and Becky, I know I haven't been posting pictures of Austin nearly often enough for you. Here's some cuteness from July that I just never got around to posting before. Most of these are from the Collins' visit a few weeks ago.

I think this is cute; they're watching SportsCenter together.

Austin vs. Eeyore

Lazy Summer Days

Can it really be nearing the end of July? Summer, as it always does, has been flying by way too fast. We have not been doing too much around here, just enjoying all the time with Zach that summer brings. Here are some snippets of what we've been up to.

• Our worms are doing great! Most of them are much bigger than when we got them, and the bottom of the bin is filling up with castings. We are contemplating starting a second, larger bin when they start to reproduce.
• I discovered a nifty recipe for "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes." It comes from a book by the same name, actually, but I found the basic recipe online. (I am pretty sure they put it out there for free to convince you to buy the book.) Somewhat to my surprise, you actually end up with really tasty bread in about five minutes a day. No kneading, just mix up the dough, let it sit in the fridge, then bake. I haven't bought a loaf of bread in several weeks. It is cheap and healthy--no high fructose corn syrup hidden in this stuff! Check out the recipe here if you like.
• I have also found some awesome recipes for granola bars and "health-nut muffins." You can probably tell that I'm really trying to find alternatives to processed foods. I don't like looking at ingredient labels and seeing a bunch of weird chemicals that I've never heard of. But I still want to eat yummy stuff.
• I have been able to do a lot of reading this summer. Admittedly, a lot of my book choices have been pretty light, with little to no literary value, just for fun. But I have read a few more serious things. For fiction, I highly recommend The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Don't let the somewhat funny name throw you off--the book is warm, humorous, and touching, and will actually teach you something about WWII history as well. As far as nonfiction goes, I just finished The Shaping of a Christian Family by Elisabeth Elliot. Very convicting and inspiring. I feel like I gained much more vision of what I would like my home and family to become for God's glory.
• Austin went to the doctor last Friday and weighs 24 pounds and is 32 inches tall. He has also officially said his first word: "duck." Or as it sounds when he says it, "duh!" He doesn't say mama or dada consistently at all but he knows what a duck is. Hmm.

I know this was kind of a random list but it will have to do for now. Perhaps I will motivate myself to post some pictures in the next few days.

Our New Pe(s)ts

One normally doesn't think that sharing your home with 500 or so worms is a good idea, right? But that is just what we are doing. After reading my sister's recent post about her plans to start vermicomposting, we decided to do a bit ourselves. The idea is pretty simple: a bunch of worms live in a bin and eat your vegetable scraps and paper. No need to find a place for a compost bin outside or worry about stirring it. Just let the worms do their thing and in a few months you will have some worm castings (aka worm poop) to fertilize your garden.

Here are the worms right after I dumped them into the bin, starting to settle in and get cozy. They were in such a big twisted mass; I wonder how long it will take them to unwind themselves and spread out. Happy eating, little worms!

Veggies-in-the-Making

Zach decided to try growing a few veggies in our yard this year. We have several butternut squash and some peppers. The peppers are not looking so great but nearly all of the squash look good. It was so exciting last week to go outside and see tiny squash appearing on the vines! Our thumbs are not totally black!

Strawberries

At the suggestion of a friend, we went to a local farm this week to pick strawberries. Mmm...there is nothing like fresh berries: red, ripe, each one perfect because you plucked it out of the field yourself! Austin was interested in the berry picking for the first few minutes, until we realized he was starting to smash our picks a bit. So then we took turns picking and wandering around the field with him.

Even working one at a time, we came home with plenty of berries. Just over eight pounds, I think.

Of course we've eaten a fair amount today. We also froze two trays and made some jam this afternoon. We'll be enjoying this delicious treat for weeks!

New Furniture

The sofa and chairs we ordered back in May arrived this week. Our living room looks quite different but in a good way...much more polished now. Zach prefers sitting on one of the brown chairs; I'm all about the couch. Plenty of comfort to go around.

Fun New Sounds

Austin isn't saying any real words yet, but the sounds he makes are getting more varied. We thought his latest is particularly cute.

The PAs in PA

Zach, Austin and I were blessed by a visit from the Pitigoi-Aron family this week! When we last lived in the same city, we were two childless couples with husbands in grad school (Zach at USC and Gruia at UCLA) and wives working in middle schools (Jamie as a counselor, me as a teacher). Now we live on opposite sides of the country and we have four children between us! Certainly much has changed in our lives but distance does not seem to matter much in this friendship. They are "Aunt Jamie" and "Uncle Gruia" to Austin and we are "Aunt Courtney" and "Uncle Zach" to their girls. While they were with us I never felt as if it had been two years since our last meeting.

It looks like Austin is trying to grab Brooklyn's face but I think really he was just grabbing for a toy. Sweet Sydney (in Jamie's lap) loved to entertain Austin with smiles and silly faces.

Lauren has no fear--I think she climbed to the top of every piece of playground equipment in town! On this particular day we were enjoying a picnic at Blue Spruce Park.

That's my Austin...smile at Mommy a zillion times a day but not when she is holding a camera. Brooklyn's smile is cute enough to make up for it, though.

Truly, this is a family I admire. A conversation with Jamie never fails to challenge me in my walk with the Lord, and I have gained much parenting wisdom from watching her and Gruia with the girls. PAs, you are welcome here anytime and I hope we can make it out to California soon as well!

Trip to the Midwest

At the beginning of this month our family took a little trip to the Midwest. Well, really it was a big trip--one and a half days in the car each way. But I think I prefer driving with Austin to flying--there are no rest areas in the air. Austin did pretty well in the car, although his Mommy and Daddy always felt some relief when he drifted off to sleep.

Isn't this cute? I love the little fists.

Didn't come to a rest area at the right time, so we had to settle for lunch in a parking lot one day. No problem.

We stopped in Chicago the first night, mainly because Zach wanted to have pizza at Giordano's. I don't think I've ever eaten so much cheese in one meal but it was delicious. We stayed at the Priceline-negotiated Hilton Suites and enjoyed the luxury quite a bit. And look, the comfy bed comes with a toy!

The primary reason for our trip was to attend my cousin's wedding in Iowa. Sadly, I did not take a single picture while we were in that state. Suffice it to say, it was a nice wedding and I really enjoyed getting to see my aunts, uncles, and cousins who I don't see often at all.

After the wedding we drove down to Independence with my parents to stay with them for a few days. Austin LOVED the time with his grandparents. By the end of the trip he walked up to Grandma and made it clear he wanted to be held by her every chance he got. He is really developing a sweet personality--he loves to give hugs and cuddles to his favorite people (and stuffed animals).

My sister and I had a playroom behind our bedroom when we were little. For many years it has been serving as a storage area but Mom recently brought it back to its roots for Austin. He especially liked the drums.

A few highlights of the trip...

My parents watched Austin overnight on June 8 so Zach and I could go away for our anniversary. We stayed at the Chateau Avalon. I know it's not likely that most of you will ever desire to have a romantic getaway in Kansas City, but if you do, that is where you should stay. Every room has a theme, sparkling cider is waiting for you in your room when you check in, a delicious breakfast in your room is included, and every room has a two-person whirlpool tub. It. Was. Fabulous. And we got to sleep until 7:30!!!!!! Those of you with an early-bird toddler know how exciting that is. (I used to be able to sleep later than that but Austin seems to have robbed me of the ability.)

We also took a tour of Kauffman stadium and got to see the dugout, visiting team's locker room, press box, and a few of the luxury suites and "clubs."

For Gran and Pops

I know, I know, I have been ignoring my blog for the last few weeks. There is plenty I would like to post about: our recent trip to the Midwest, a visit from some California friends...but no time for that tonight. For now I'm just throwing up some requested pictures for Gran and Pops. Happy Birthday, Pops!