Kiki's Blankie

This was a good find at the library today. Jontu picked it out and it was written just for him, I think. It is all about a little monkey who has a blankie. He immediately identified with it, since he calls his special blanket, "blankie" too! Gotta love the library.

Also this is how Jontu picks out books at the library right now.

He goes down one or two rows in the children's section, and randomly pulls out books.

I add it to our pile and try to keep it within 6-8 (so the librarians don't have too many to put back

when he is done). Then we go to the table and sit and pick out 4-5 to take home with us. It takes him

all of a couple of minutes to do this and then he is ready to go. It is fun!

What did you do Wednesday

Besides our sunburns, we sure had a perfect day at the beach yesterday. It was really hard to leave even though we knew that the longer we stayed the longer it would take us to drive back home if we hit rush hour traffic. Thanks to our cousins for helping to make our day!

Jonev enjoying the water, he was giggling each time the waves crashed into him. It was so fun to watch him enjoy himself. He is such a happy guy and loves to laugh. This is the second time we have been swimming this week and he has just loved the water both times. In fact he was jumping into the pool by the end of the night on Monday. Yesterday I got him out of the car and before I could grab his bathing suit to get him dressed he already had his feet in the water and then Jongr tried to stop him and of course he sat down in it. He wasn't very happy when I pulled him out to change him and try to get some sunscreen on him.

Jontu, Jonev and cousin A playing in the sand. You can see that we were lucky enough to be able to find a beach that you can park right on so we didn't have to carry our stuff for miles. It was so nice!

Jonev enjoying the seaguls that were flying around the beach, he kept pointing to them when he saw them. What a cute boy!

Jongr spent most of his time either in the water with the boogie board courtesy of our cousins or collecting sea shells. He says the reason that he collects them is because they are so pretty. We collected a few special ones for Grandma Jones and some sand to send her too. She loves the beach in Ocean City, NJ and our day yesterday reminded us of all of the fun time that we have spent with her on the beach. We love you Grandma Jones!

Peach Picking!

Here are the pictures from peach and blueberry picking last Friday. It was so much fun and we have truly enjoyed the yummy peaches this week. It was truly worth it. I wanted to can some, but that didn't happen. We will probably eat the last of them in smoothies and peach cobler today and tomorrow.

The orchard we went to even supplied you with a wagon to help you carry your stuff around, Jonev thought it was so much fun pushing it around with big brothers pulling it.

A picture of everyone while we were trying to help the kids pick the ripe fruit and not the green ones. LOL!
Jonev heading off to join his brothers and cousins in picking the blackberries. He really thinks that he is so big.
He actually picked some, the first one he picked he used his mouth. LOL! Too bad I didn't get a picture of that for posterity. He loved the blackberries and had purple fingers to boot.
Here are the blackberries that we picked along with our cousins, Jontu looked down right as I was taking this picture. Thanks for the fun memories, it was so much fun! In fact I am thinking about driving back up there before the season ends and making some blackberry jam.

Yummy Carrot Pancakes

These pancakes are so yummy and a great way to sneak in some extra veggies. We have made them 2x now and I really like them and so do the boys. It makes plenty so that we have leftovers for a snack later. This recipe is from Recipezaar.com

Carrot Breakfast Pancakes

Ingredients

1. 1 3/4 cups milk
2. 2 eggs
3. 1/4 cup butter
4. 4 medium carrots, chopped
5. 2 cups flour
6. 2 tablespoons baking powder
7. 1 teaspoon salt
8. 4 tablespoons sugar
9. 2 dashes nutmeg
10. 2 dashes cinnamon (For cinnamon & nutmeg, I'm very generous with both, but be careful not to add too much)

Directions

1. First you will need to get your blender out!
2. Pour Milk into blender; add eggs and butter.
3. Mix briefly to put egg and butter through milk.
4. Add carrots and blend well (until carrots are completely mixed through; no chunks left!!) Add flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar; mix in blender until all ingredients are mixed through.
5. Then add nutmeg and cinnamon and mix for about 1 minute.
6. Check thickness; if you feel it is too thin, add a little more flour (Tbs or 2) Spray frying pan with cooking spray.
7. Heat to medium heat, and cook pancakes.
8. Make them whatever size you wish!
9. Cook until golden brown.
10. They will be a beautiful golden color!
11. Enjoy them with a small amount of pure maple syrup!

Search, share, and cook your recipes on Mac OS X with SousChef!

Rural Pondering

Today we went to E and B Orchards in Hempstead, TX. It was so much fun! I will post pictures of it later. It was so nice to be in the open, rural space. It was so nice to see the farm fields, the cows munching on the grass, the slower pace that life in the country has. It reminded me of these old pictures taken on one of our visits to Idaho almost 2 years ago, we took my brother David out to the field that he moves sprinkler pipe in and while he was working we went for a short walk.

Here is one of Jonpa and Jontu taken in front of a field of potatoes in bloom.

Another one of Jonpa and Jontu with a cow in a field.
This is where my brother works, well one of the fields. He has to pick up each pipe and move it to the next spot and then hook it in to the main line all the way across the field. It is definitely good hard work. (I know, I have moved plenty of pipe in my days.) He is in the lower left of the photo.
Here is what you look like after completing the job, wet and muddy and tired, but with that good feeling of a job accomplished. What a great feeling!

Our walk to school

This is Jontu and Jonev in front of our house getting ready to get Jongr from the last day of school for this school year. It is a pretty typical day, Jontu has his stick (one that he has had in his collection since sometime around January I think) and Jonev is ready to see the world from the seat of the strolley.

Along the way we generally encounter at least 2 obstacles of some sort or another blocking the sidewalk. I really don't like this aspect of our neighborhood. Most people use their garage as a basement since we can't have basements here. For our northern friends and family try to imagine where you would put all of the stuff that is in your basements if you didn't have it anymore. However it is really annoying to try to maneuver about 80 lbs of boys and stroller around said obstacles and not roll into the street.
This is one of the many reasons why we do walk though. We get to enjoy so many beautiful plants and flowers as the seasons change. This is a lovely Crape Myrtle tree, it is almost as pretty as the lilac bushes, but doesn't have a fragrance at all. They can be purple like this beautiful one, pink, or white and so many people have them. I don't remember them blooming last year, probably because we weren't out of the house much since Jonev was just a new little baby. They sure made me smile this year though.
This is a view of the bayou that we walk along for a little while, we often see turtles, frogs, snakes, fish, egrets of all varieties, cranes, and even the occasional bird of prey (hawks or falcons) swoop in and pick up a fish out of the water. To me it is a small reminder of the country life I enjoyed growing up in so much. I am thankful for our own little preserve. You will notice the big white objects in the picture, it is the water treatment plant for our neighborhood. It is right by Grant's school and it doesn't always smell the best, sometimes we hurry through this little park a little faster than other times.
This is MonNa (her Jedi name this is not the best picture of her, we were trying to hurry), she lives near us and we walk home with her part of the way. We have enjoyed planting seed pods, racing across the park, watching the animals in the bayou and talking on the way home this past year. You can see the front entrance of Jongr's school behind them. A pretty normal looking elementary school building.

Last Day of Kindergarten

The last day of Kindergarten for Jongr, he is a few teeth short of his first day smile and a few inches taller and has learned how to read.  We are so happy for him. He is excited to be home for the summer. 

These are some of his buddies from his class, they kept moving and this is the best picture, it is truly a good representation of how active they are.  So fun!  He is really going to miss playing with them everyday. 
This is Ms. Cao (pronounced "cow") , Grant loves her of course and so do we.  She has been a great teacher for him, in fact he wanted to go to summer school so that he could have her for a teacher a little longer.  Silly boy!  

Slip-n-Slide Fun

Thanks to some of our cousins, we enjoyed the slip-n-slide this weekend.  Even Jonev decided that he loved playing in the water and didn't want to move out of the way for his big brothers to slide on it.  It was lots of fun.  

They still don't quite want to run and slide on their tummies, I don't blame them too much because I remember getting hurt on the hard ground when I was young.  However they did figure out how to slide and have fun their own way and that is really what it is all about.  


It is even good for drinking from according to Jontu.  LOL!  Silly boy.  

Memorial Day Weekend

I am finally getting these posted. Saturday we took a drive to Lake Sommerville about 1.5 hours from our home and were happy to see some farms and ranches along the way.  The boys especially loved seeing the corn fields and cows, they kept pointing them out.  It was fun.  When we got the lake, there were a lot of people swimming, we were disappointed that we hadn't thought to pack out swim suits too.  However we planned on a picnic and a hike, so we just walked along the shore for a little while ate lunch and enjoyed a short hike.  We even saw some deer and then we came to this little fishing pond and saw deer, raccoon, and bird tracks in the mud.  It must be a good place to get a drink.  The boys had fun identifying the tracks.  

This is towards the end of the hike, Jonev decided that he had enough of the backpack and wanted to get out and walk like a big boy.  He is growing so fast and thinks that he is big enough to do everything that his brothers do too.  
This is the best picture that we have of the group, at least everyone is looking towards the camera.  It was so nice to get out of the city and into the country for a little while.  
On the way home the boys fell asleep of course, but we stopped at Chappel Hill Bakery for some of the best kolaches (that's what the sign says) they were really good.  We will go back again.