New Shoes and a Haircut

We finally broke down and realized that Peter wasn't going to fit into Lincoln's toddler shoes anytime soon, but his Robeez just weren't cutting it for outside play anymore. So we went out and found him a cute pair of surfer shoes much to Dad's delight.



He loves them (mostly because it means he gets to go outside) and just giggles everytime I put them on him. Then he goes around the room pointing at everyone's shoes and saying "Shuus". He's growing up so fast! He already has a collection of about 20-30 words that he uses pretty regularly to let us know what he wants. The cutest are "Ten too" for thank you and "tub tub" when he wants to take a bath (another favorite pasttime). He's also learned to say "Too" when he wants something - probably because we always ask him if he wants some too.

Unfortunately, he also now has a big boy haircut - which I totally wasn't ready for. We were giving everyone a trim out on the porch and decided to touch his up as well. Of course, a toddler doesn't sit still very well and one poorly timed head turn later, we found ourselves shaving it all off.I was so sad to see my baby turn into a little boy with one swoop of the clippers! I'm starting to get used to it, but I think we'll leave the top a little longer next time.

Strawberries

We went strawberry picking out in Fredricksburg again this year... and had much more success in our berry picking. The kids did a great job looking at the strawberries to make sure they were all red before picking them, so we didn't have nearly as many green ones as we did last time. And Peter kept us on track by providing our quality control sampling. Of course, I managed to forget my camera and missed out on tons of cute pics, but here is a picture of the result of our labors!

We took advantage of our Conference weekend stay-at-home time to make strawberry jam and I thought it turned out rather well. This was the first time I've made jam (besides freezer jam) and we sealed the jars using the upside down method, but all my jars sealed and the jam tastes great! It's not quite as thick as I expected it to be (more of a syrup really), but I think that may be because my pectin was a little old. Oh well, we like strawberry syrup too!

Hot Underwear

Thanks to those mission skills for once again helping me resolve a "concern".

We've been having trouble convincing Lincoln that he needs to change his underwear every night. Finally, last night, I asked him why he didn't want to change out of his dirty underwear.
His answer? "I like hot underwear Mom."

Apparently, the underwear straight out of the drawer was a bit cold compared to the pair he'd been wearing all day.
He agreed to put on a fresh pair if I could make them "hot".
Which is how I found myself microwaving underwear at 7:00 last night.
(8-10 seconds for those who are interested)

Next step, teach him how to use the microwave so he can heat up his own underwear!

Pedernales Falls

For those of you not from Texas, that's pronounced "Perdenales" - don't ask me why, it just is. Andrew had part of the day off last Friday so we decided to head out for a little hike and ended up out west to look at the falls.
Unfortunately, months of drought can turn falls into more of a tumble. This was the best we could come up with.
These were much better, but they were from a spring that was flowing out from under the tree, so I don't think they really count.


The nicest thing about a dry riverbed is that you can always find a nice sand pit to play in...

Worms!

For Christmas, my sister gave us a pound of worms... sound odd? Well, she also gave us this book to go with it... Worms Eat My Garbage. All so we could learn about the finer points of worm composting before getting our wiggly helpers. The kids were so excited when the worms arrived in the mail the day before my birthday... they thought it was about the coolest birthday present ever! Turns out, there are about 2000 worms in one pound. Here they are checking them out:


It took us another day to get our compost bin ready, but finally it was time to add the worms. In this video, you can see all the wonderful squirminess as the worms try to get out of the light and you can hear the kids talking about what they're going to feed the worms.