Big Milestones

We have seen big changes in Parker this last month. He turned a year and decided to show off some big boy skills. He has decided (on two occasions now) that feeding himself with a spoon is much better than waiting for me to feed him. So yesterday, I let him and shot this little video of it. We haven't done that much practicing, but about a week ago, he literally refused to let me feed him his dinner, and then did it again today. I am all for independence, but the independence vs. messy factor is a hard battle for me right now :)

4th of July weekend he took 5-8 steps several times. We haven't seen much walking since. until yesterday. After his afternoon nap, he decided walking is for him, and every time I turned around he was walking towards me instead of crawling. After capturing many spills on camera, I got this little venture down the hallway (a little dark), showing off for daddy last night. He walked almost as much as he crawled yesterday. He will be on the go, go, go now. I do a double take when I see him come walking toward me. It just looks foreign still. The girls clap, cheer and shout every time he just gets up and walks to them.

He has also decided to grow teeth. His first two teeth have come through the surface in the last two weeks. He now has his two eye teeth coming in. Yes you read it right, not his bottom or top middle teeth... his eye teeth.

He had his one year check and shots a few weeks back. One more set of shots, then he his good until he his four. He weighed in at 21.6 pounds and was 30 inches long. He fell into the 25% for height and weight. He matches his sister Melia, who is also in the 25% for height and weight. Eva is in the 50% for both.

Goats, Veggies, and Fruit

Last night we went for a bike ride and stopped at "Frontier town" a few miles from our house. In this town they have four goats. All of the kiddos LOVED feeding them. P was having a conversation with them, in babble of course, while M and E scoured the ground for every leaf, twig, and branch they could find to feed them.

(Sorry for the quality, it was on my cell phone)

E kept saying, "Come here little fella" She cracks me up.

We have been sticking close to home this past week and finding little things like this to do with the kids to get out of the house. We have been battling what appears to be the flu. It has gone through all of us, but M can's seem to get rid of it. It landed us in the ER for fluids last week, and we went back to the doc this afternoon. He referred us to a Ped. GI doc. We, amazingly, have an appt. for tomorrow afternoon. It usually takes months to get in as a new patient, but our doc convinced them it was a priority. It has been going on for almost three weeks now. Poor Girl. A few hours of the day she seems sick, and then the rest of the day she acts as if nothing is wrong. There are many more details, but I just don't have the energy right now to spell it all out. Any prayers would be greatly appreciated :)

On Sunday we picked our first two Zucchini and today we picked two more. We gave one to our sweet neighbor who is going to water our garden when we are on vacation next week. The garden is out of control. We have about 40 baby green tomatoes growing (and a ton more blooms), 5 little cucumbers with about 30 more blooms, and 3 more zucchini growing as I type, with about 35-40 more blooms. I better start looking up what to do with zucchini :) It is a highlight in my day, when the kids and I go out to see if anything new has grown. Before the week is out we will most likely have 3 or 4 more zucchini ready to be picked and our first two green peppers.

Last weekend we ventured out and picked 11 lbs of strawberries. Many were consumed, but the rest were turned into 10 jars of yummy jam. This was my first time canning, and it has me pumped for future canning endeavors. I plan to can tomato sauce with all our tomatoes. I would also like to can peaches and pears in the fall.

Garden Update

Our Garden has exploded in the last few weeks. It has been so great watching everything grow and change right before our eyes. I can't wait to start eating it. :)

Our TWO zucchini plants are overtaking everything.

Look at the size of that leaf.

There are about 6-8 blooms on each plant so it looks like we are going to have ALOT of zucchini.

We have three pepper plants with 4-5 baby peppers on each right now. Our tomato plants are growing out of their cages and our cucumber is crawling everywhere.

Our lettuce is almost ready to give us our first salad.

Chris built another box this week with the left over wood, and I transplanted our beans. The zucchini was taking all their sun.

The beans are blooming, so we should see beans forming soon.

The girls are as excited as we are about the garden. They go out and check it every morning after breakfast. We'll see how excited they are when they have to eat the fruits of our labor :). We also have cilantro and onions...Can't wait to make fresh salsa right from the garden.