Ice cream face

Elliott sure does love his ice cream!  Especially when it has hot fudge on it... (just like his mommy!).

The Slide

The Slide:

A series by Jonas

Jonas is definitely a boy with no fear!  He just waltzed himself right up the stairs (on the 2 years+ swing set) plunked himself on the slide and down he went smiling all the way down.  These photos are of his second time down, I didn't really expect him to do it the first time, so I missed that one...

 

A Day at the Park

We met up with some friends for a fun play date at the park.  I was also hoping to get some good 'St. John' style playground photos.  I got some great ones of Eli...

 And Tucker...

 But the ones of Jonas and Elliott aren't quite what I was hoping for...

Cute, yes...  But we'll just have to come back another day and try again.  Perhaps we can talk daddy into coming with us (it's hard to be both the mommy AND the photographer sometimes).

Here are some other fun pics i got.

Waiting...

I was SO looking forward to the crew that has been coming around our neighborhood the past few years selling/spreading pine straw.  I've done it myself int he past, but found it well worth the money to buy from the traveling crew and have them spread it.  Unfortunately, I been waiting and waiting and waiting...  And our flower beds were looking so sad that I just went out and bought my own and had to spread them myself this year :(

 

Well, at least it's done now and the neighbors can stop giving my flower beds dirty looks.

Happy Mother's Day

I just wanted to say 'Happy Mother's Day' to all the fabulous women in my life (may they be mothers or not!)!  I love you all!

Jonas + Mama + Elliott

Strawberry Jam

I've never made home-made jam before (even though my dad has been making his home-made raspberry jam for as long as I can remember...) and I have been wanting too for a long time.  So, with our freshly picked berries me, Jenny and Angie got together and had a jam party.

First we washed and hulled our berries.  Them we mashed them all up and measured it all out.  I think we had enough berry mash to make about 15 or so batches wow!!

 Lots, of sugar and lots of pectin!  It turned out SO good!  I can't believe I've never done this before...  I need to go buy some croissants to eat with all this yummy jam.

In the end we each took home about 10 half pint jars.  That should last a while, hopefully...  (it's hard not to just sit and eat this stuff right out of the jar with a spoon...).

Look at how rich and red this stuff is!  I've never seen strawberry jam so red, it's usually a little pinkish.

Berry Picking

For 3 years I've been saying that this will be the year we go strawberry picking...  Finally this year we did it!  Yay!  And, oh my!  These berries are wonderful!  We have a little church group get together every Thursday, and today our activity was strawberry picking at Patterson Farm.

 Unfortunately for the boys, I didn't let them out of the stroller :(

These strawberries were SO yummy it was hard not to eat every berry I picked.  I did fill my bucket eventually though.

Sewing lessons

Sylvia had bought me this pattern and offered me a sewing lesson when she gave me her old Singer.  I got the fabric and Sylvia came up for a couple days to teach me her skills.

It took forever to cut out all the pieces!  There were SO may of them, sheesh.  Needless to say, that's all we got done on day 1...

On day 2, the boys weren't napping very well, so Gigi played with the boys up in the playroom while I tried to figure out what the directions on the pattern meant.  I'd do a couple steps then head up to make sure I did it right.

 It took a lot longer to sew together than I thought it would, but I think it turned out pretty good (just don't look too close...).

 Thanks for the lesson Sylvia!  Hopefully I'll get another project going before I forget it all again.