There Must Be Something In The Water

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Weighing in at 4 pounds this zucchini was discovered hiding among the lower leaves of a tomato plant in my garden. I swear I think our rain water has steroids in it. One day the cute little zuchs are almost ripe the next day they attempting a complete take-over of my garden! We shredded this sucker up and made 1 zucchini bunt cake, 2 dozen zucchini muffins, 2 loaves of zucchini bread, and put 6 cups shredded zucchini in the freezer for later.

Anybody want any zucchini?

Mr. Salamander Goes To School

Journaling Reads:

One weekend, towards the end of August, Matt was pulling weeds from the flower bed in front of our house. I remember noticing how cold it was that morning and feeling a relief that autumn is just around the corner. I had put the girls in the bathtub and was doing the usual swish and swipe of their bathroom when Matt came traipsing in with a huge grin on his face. “You’ll never guess what I just found!” he said to the girls as he opened his hands to reveal his newest treasure. Matt had found a salamander. in our garden. in the land of “I’ve not seen a salamander since I was 8 years old”. NEATO! The cute little bugger was enjoying being passed around from warm hand to warm hand. Matt totally scored some cool dad points for finding THAT creature! He made sure he tucked Mr. Salamander back in the flower garden under the lily plant.

Fast forward to last week. The girls both had the honor of brining something to preschool for show and tell. Many of my facebook friends saw the comment I made about Abby taking a toad for show and tell. Let me just say he was the hit of the class and Abby declared she had the best day of preschool ever. Never mind she’s only been in school all of five weeks. It was still the best day ever.

Matt and I were wondering how we were going to live up to the coolness of bringing a toad to show and tell when it was Bree’s turn. She had captured a few cicadas and even a weird looking beetle but nothing was really fitting the bill. On Wednesday night she had tearfully settled for a Praying Mantis from the garden. All was not right in Bree’s world. Thursday morning rolled around, much too early in my opinion, and as I was sending Matt off to work and wrangling two grumpy girls to get their hair combed when the light bulb went off in my head. Matt headed out to the flower garden with high hopes of finding Mr. Salamander hangin’ out in the flowers. YES, Daddy scores again!

By this time daddy is running late for work and puts me in charge of finding proper accommodations for Mr. Salamander to travel to preschool for his turn in the hands of every. single. preschooler.

Oh yes Mr. Salamander…the places you’ve been.

You are a world traveler in this Chinobilly’s eyes.

Hopefully he didn’t tell all of his salamander buddies to head for the hills. We may need their assistance again someday.

Tomatoes

Wow! In the last two days I have picked over 10 pounds of tomatoes from our little garden. It's very exciting to see our little garden do so well yet quite intimidating to think I have to can all this goodness. I've been skimming through a few canning manuals that my mom gave me. For now I think I'm going to stick with the basics of canned tomatoes then work my way into the sauces and pastes. I think I might have bitten off more than I can chew...ha!

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Journal reads:

I planted 17 tomato plants in our garden this year in hopes that three would survive. All 17 plants are thriving…much to my dismay. The plants are yielding about 5 pounds a day so I guess I better get this canning thing figured out again. I know it will be so nice this winter to make salsa with tomatoes grown in our very own garden.  

Tap, tap, tap...Is This Thing On?

Hey,
Yeah, um…. so, you know how when you haven’t talked to a special someone in a really long time, you think about calling her up, but you know that you will have so much to say, and right now you really need to round up the kids and get to swim lessons, so maybe you’ll call after, but then you have cranky kids begging you to make dinner so maybe you’ll call after that, but then there’s dishes and bath time and “mamma when is daddy comin’ home?…will you cuddle “wif” me till he gets here?” and then it’s just too late, so maybe tomorrow, but then tomorrow comes and you wake up with a migraine so you’re behind all day and then…you realize it’s been weeks and weeks and then you don’t call because you know you’ll never have time to properly catch up and so you kind of drift apart but you think about her lots ‘n lots and wonder how she is and so finally you just email at 11:45 at night just to say, “Hey, I just wanted to tell you I was thinking of you,” but you wish it was more, because she’s your friend and you love her and you’d like to tell her all your stories and you’d like to hear all of her stories, but right now you’re doing your very best to just keep your head above water, so you just think, “some day soon I’ll call” and you hope she’s not mad, but you know she’s probably not because she’s a real friend, a good friend, and she knows how it is. She knows how YOU are.

You know?

It’s been like that.

I’ve missed you.

I’ve thought about you.

I’m trying to slow down…to just breath...to have a moment…here and there…where I can let my thoughts wander…draw close to my Lord…wander down memory lane cuz my cuties are growing up too fast…to just regroup.

I’ve just spent the afternoon with my friend Jen² scrolling through the photos taken at the girl’s birthday party. After she left I sat down and looked at all the photo’s I’ve taken and not yet posted here.

Since May 18, 2010!!!!

Um yeah, that was the last time I visited this ol’ blog porch. Wow, I’m gonna need to be a bloggin’/scrappin’ ninja to plow through this list!

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Here’s the Chinobilly Notes version, so that we can move on, and act like this long and awkward absence never happened:

1. We planted a garden; it’s going really well but the zucchini are on a mission to take over the garden and my freezer.

2. We’ve spent special time with sweet friends, at the zoo, at the mall, parades, fireworks, camping, playing in sprinklers, and just visiting; you know doing the summer thing.

3. Vacation Bible school was the highlight of May for the twins.

4. But their daddy still rocks their world

5. Matt and I (read Matt totally did all the work) finished the tile job and Abby became Cinderella…I have pictures to prove it.

6. Olivia ate the wall in our laundry room…seriously…she ATE the wall!

7. The wall was only the BEGINNING of the laundry room saga. (You won’t want to miss reading abut THAT adventure…)

8. We took a trip to Colorado, camped out with some of the family, it was wonderful.

9. The girls took 4 weeks of swimming lessons at the YMCA.

10. Abby & Bree turned 4 and they had a “Carni-cus” birthday party shared with friends, fun and food…more on that later…

11. We have preschoolers now…what a rollercoaster of emotions and doubts…for mamma anyway!

12. Summer was just too dog-gone short.

Anyhow, I promise, I’ll tell you the rest of these stories and share pictures soon.

Peace,

The wonder woman wannabe

Ruff-N-Tumble

Apples on the brain

I fell in love with a very cute apple caramel apple kit idea at Jessica Sprague's website last week. You can view the idea here but I'm warnin' ya'll will fall in love too. The scary thing is I had all the supplies needed to complete this project minus the treat box. Can you say ADDICT?
After a search of every craft store in town for the gable style treat box I settled for a different kind of treat box but I wasn't completely satisfied. The following day I was mindlessly surfing the net while the kids napped when I discovered this idea here and angels wept tears of joy. I immediately called my friend Debby and demanded asked her to get me a Sonic drink holder. It's the raging hormones kicking in and I'm gonna milk it for all its worth by golly. Debby feared for her life is such a sweet friend and promptly brought me a drink container that very evening. All I can say is don't mess with this Chinobilly Mamma!

In order to redeem our friendship I made this little darling for Debby.

I also made one for our neighbor friends. It turned out completely different but still way cute. Unfortunately the girls and I were so excited to give the gift to Annie and her family that I completely forgot to take pictures of that one. Just trust me is was adorable too.

Today I am going to be making miniature caramel apples with my friend Stephanie. Our kiddos are going to "help". I'm thinking I will use the not-so-perfect treat boxes I bought for this project.

Right after I check myself into crafty-apple rehab. Wish me luck as my Applemania symptoms are very acute. Apple officials say the bug will likely remain in my system during the months of September, October and November. Right up until the Christmas lights go up.

Grubbin' Abby

(click to read journaling)

I'm getting a little time to digi-scrap. Here is the latest layout done for Abby's album. She is becoming our tomboy.

There are grubs everywhere in our backyard. Great for Abby...not so great for our future garden. Maybe Abby will take care of all of them before the plants go in!

This is what she does with her collection of grubs she gathers in her sand pail.

Such a kind soul she has. Unlike her mother who drowned the woolly boogers mentioned in the journaling.

Nope, she just rides them off into the sunset instead. With her dog by her side.

Mamma Bree

Bree has really gotten into being a mamma to her baby dolls. Last week we had such nice weather that we played outside a lot. At one point in the day Bree was the only one outside so I decided to snap a few photos of her while she didn't know that's what I was doing. It was such a sweet moment and I love that I captured a moment in time of her just being her.
Matt and I have always sung the song You are my sunshine to the girls. It was quite fitting during our adoption journey and it always soothed them and calmed their cries. After the adoption was final we changed the last verse to say: You have been my sunshine today. Well that verse has become part of our special family tradition. We now enjoy singing the song to one another by adding the persons name in instead of the word sunshine. I share all of this with you because as I was clicking away with my camera Bree was singing this:

You are my baby

My only baby

You make me happy

When skies are gray

You'll never know baby

How much I love you

You have been

My baby today.

She is so stinkin' cute! AND I'm the luckiest mommy in the whole wide world.

A Trip To The Firestation

Our local MOPS group (Mothers Of Preschoolers) took a field trip to the fire station. It was spring break for school age children so the group usually goes on field trips so the older kids can join in. I sort of kept it a surprise for the girls and they were so excited when I finally told them we were going to a real fire station. The kids had a blast meeting our firemen, touring the station and getting to sit in the big firetruck.

Jesus has a little lamb

Abby was helping me fold laundry yesterday. Her job was to put the kitchen dishcloths and towels away in the proper drawer in the kitchen. She got a bit distracted with one of my flour-sack towels. She ran into the living room where Matt was working on something and said “Look Daddy, I look like Jesus”. He looked down from his ladder to find the white towel draped around her head. He laughed and told her to go show her Mommy. So she ran over to me and told me the same thing as Matt was yelling to go get the camera. By this time Bree wanted to join in the fun so she grabbed a flour-sack towel too. I am always more than happy to snap off some pictures of my cuties so here they are.

After I took the photos. Bree and Abby start singing a song:

Jesus has a little lamb
Little lamb
Little lamb
Jesus has a little lamb
Her fleece is white as snow.

They told us they learned the song in Sunday school. God has certainly blessed us with two precious angels. My goodness how they make us so happy! Thank you Lord for our sweet little lambs.

Goggles

Abby & Bree love to make us smile. I bought each of the girls a pair of goggles for the bathtub because they hate getting water in their eyes when I wash their hair. We decided to try them on the girls so the could get used to wearing them. They thought the goggles were pretty fun and mommy and daddy got some good belly laughs. They are such a joy!