Snacks

These days I'm hungry all the time.  Maybe because this guy is growing like a weed.  

If we lived in town I'd eat a lot of pizza.  

As it is, this is my favorite snack.  Sweet and salty and yummy.

I need some variety though.  What's YOUR favorite snack?

Weed Destroyer

 My Dad got me this amazing tool.  Fiskars Uproot Weeder

You can pull out sand burrs without getting them in your fingers!  

You can pull out giant creeping poky vines right at the root!

You can pull out weeds as the sun goes down and feel sad (SAD!) that it's too dark to see more weeds.  

I LOVE it.  I feel hopeful about the battle for the first time ever.  

Lindsay!

My friend Lindsay is biking across the USA and she stopped at my house!  Here's her blog-it's awfully fun to follow along. 

 She came and spoke to the kids at my school-here's a super cropped picture-I had to crop out all of the other kids.  It was a great presentation-she highlighted the importance of wearing a helmet and I was so happy to already do something "Librarian-y" like schedule a speaker!  Thanks, Lins!

And because visiting my house is all about work-she came along with me on errands, helped me take Katie and Jimmy to the Dr., and we fixed my couch!

 Well, OK.  Eric came by to borrow some foil for the farm and he got roped in too.   If you've visited us in the past two years, I know you are thankful.

We took her to see the World's Largest Hairball, and to get the world's best sno cone (grape!), and generally had a blast.  

Anna showed her how she could ride with no training wheels.

It was a wonderfully fun visit.  I hope she can come back again someday.

Then I had to drop her off and watch her pedal away.  So hard!  Good Luck and be safe Lindsay!

3 weeks old

He sleeps most of the time.

 He's calm and sweet and snuggly.

 Every once in a while he'll find that thumb.

 His big sister Katie messes with him constantly and he doesn't seem to mind.

 He loves to be swaddled.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The soul that rises with us, our life’s star,
    Hath had elsewhere its setting,
      And cometh from afar.
    Not in entire forgetfulness,
    And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory, do we come
    From God, who is our home:Heaven lies about us in our infancy.

William Wordsworth  Ode:  Intimations of Immortality

Mean-ness

Really?  Do new nursing Mamas really need to see her belly?  Because we don't look like that.

Tumbleweed 21

 This year The Tumbleweed Festival added another night of music!  On Friday night 9 local bands played.  I loved this!

Margaret and Mary came to meet baby Jimmy.  In the rain.  

 

 Because it never rains here, we just kept sitting in the rain, thinking it would quit any minute.  Here's Katie running around getting wet and listening to Russ and Debbie Tidwell-our debate coach and his wife and in charge of the festival this year.  It was fun to listen to them play.

Everyone's favorite cousin came along.  For most of the entire weekend he had at least one child on his back.  He is a treasure.

 Then Matthew and Joe and Zac played.  They'd never played together.  Not even a practice, since we had that baby and all.  Sounded great.  They played an Avett Brothers song, and Anna gasped- "I love this song!"

Katie thought that everyone at the festival was family-and she was close to right.  We had close to 40 people there who we count as family.  Here's Kiki feeding her a bierock.  I think everyone you can see in the background belongs to us in some way.

Even Anna got some Jimmy time in.

Uncle Steven got some snuggles.

And Uncle Mark proved he can bond with nephews even before they're old enough to be bribed with treats.

It was a perfect weekend.  You should come next year!  Could we shoot for 50 people in my section?