To Infinity, And Beyond!!

Another Caleb/Noah funny:
~~
Caleb: "Hey, Noah! We've got new minty toothpaste!"
Noah: "Is it REALLY minty?"
Caleb: "It's INFINITY minty!"

Tomatoes, Zucchini, and Thumb

Wow - it's been several weeks since I've posted! ~~ Where to start? We are FINALLY getting to harvest some tomatoes. I have a bowlful on the counter that I'm hoping to can tomorrow - I should get 4 pints or so. That's actually 4 more than we thought we would get! We have TONS of green tomatoes out there, but need another month or so of summer before we would lots to ripen. We have had two good weeks of warm and humid weather, so that's why the bowlful. We also got a total of 7 zucchini! My basil and parsley was also prolific, so I may try to harvest the rest and make up some pestos to freeze. A good friend came over last Saturday and we made a batch of "Orange Green Tomato Relish" - it's really yummy - tastes like REALLY good sweet pickle relish, and the guys are enjoying it on burgers and hot dogs. We got 9 cups from one batch, and I will make one more batch hopefully in the next few weeks. I don't eat it, but it was fun to make and smelled good! :) Green tomatoes, onion, orange marmalade, brown sugar, and balsamic/apple cider vinegar. MMMM. We also were able to shred a bunch of zucchini she'd been given - we got 48 cups for the freezer! (Thank goodness a friend loaned me her food processor - those are slick!! I put a 'want ad' on freecycle for one and am hoping to find one of my own now!) ~~

The latest on Lucas is that he is now 4 months old (on the 19th) - Yikes! About two weeks ago he found his thumb! He's doing just what Caleb did - he kind of munches on it most of the time, but now that he's cutting teeth (yes!) he's starting to suck it a lot more. It's so cute. We are fighting the battle to get Caleb to stop sucking his thumb now - his LuLus are staying on his bed during the day now and he seems to not suck his thumb if he's not holding a LuLu. :) I would guess that Lucas will cut a tooth on the bottom any day now - we can feel both of them very close, but not really see them well. He doesn't seem to be struggling with them right now - just a bit fussier I guess, and lots of drool. The big boys think the drool is gross! Haha!! ~~

We had a good visit on Labor day with Marnee & Papa (Jeff's parents) -- they boys played croquet for the first time and loved it. I'm also looking for a croquet set now. :) They also enjoyed riding bikes in the big driveway, running on the 'trails' they had mowed in their big backyard, and hula-hooping. (I discovered that I have graduated to the 'adult-gimongo-sized' hula hoop -- couldn't keep the kid-sized ones up at all.) I remember a mint-green hula hoop that made a neat whir-click sound growing up. Noah's new passion is to see a tree-frog up-close and personal someday, so he spent lots of time searching the tree-trunks for frogs, but never saw one. Jeff and I just enjoyed relaxing and eating good food. :) ~~

Well, we started school this week! The first two days went REALLY well! PTL I was a bit nervious with how it was going to work with Lucas around, but he's cooperating well enough for me to keep Noah and Caleb moving. Our school days will likely be a bit longer this year as we take more "free time" breaks for me to change diapers, etc., but it's working well. The boys are LOVING it so far - we'll see how long that lasts!! LOL Today we are taking the day off because I have a hair appointment in the afternoon and the furnace guys are here all day so the table is shoved out of their way, etc. We are getting a new furnace today - thank the Lord! The old one was still working - we had to replace a part last year, but it's over 40 years old and really uses a lot of energy, so with all the good rebates we decided to do that now. We will be toasty warm this winter. :) ~~

Jeff has had a busy few weeks - we started up our fall programming this past week and it's been exciting! Sundays we have added a prayer service at 8am. It's a quiet service with focused/directed prayer. I won't be going to that service for a while, but it was well attended and several commented on how they enjoyed it. Then the "regular" service with kids programming, then fellowship and Farley after the service. Fun With Farley is a program I developed of short activities that the kids do in order to learn about and minister to the missionaries we support...they read their updates and answer questions, watch short clips about the countries they are in, do 'fact hunts' on the countries, learn about their 'jobs', and much more. They then get Bible Bucks to spend at the 'store'. It's been neat to see the kids come rushing in to do the next activity, and it's been good for the adults as well to get to know our missionaries better and pray for them. We also write notes to the missionaries as a Farley activity. ~~ Last night we also started back up our Family Night programming. We have simple supper and salad bar at 6pm, then kids/adult programming from 6:30-7:30. There were LOTS of new families there last night - what a blessing. There is a new adult Bible Study starting up, and we also just started a mom's group study! Yeah - I'm excited about that -- there were 5 of us last night, but three more gals are coming who were either ill/out of town. We have three regularly attending infants now, and last night we had 7 toddlers!! (Last year on Wed. nights we had one.) God is good - I pray He continues to minister to families in our neighborhoods. ~~

I'm staying busy with work for TKDa - I am now running invoices for BNSF Railway once each month, so I have steady hours for that. They also recently had to lay-off the Rail Division administrative assistant, so they have asked me to take on some of what she had been doing. Some weeks that makes me busy, and some weeks it's just the usual 4-5 hours. I am grateful for a good paying job that I can do at home, especially when so many friends have lost jobs in the past year.

Wow! I need to do this more often. :) Enjoy the pictures!