Cuteness catch up!

Elliot has recently gotten into playing cars, he loves his new wooden ones from Grandma and Grandpa. Also, I saw a shirt he needs "I'd rather be naked!" oh and notice the farmer tan, even though he always has sunscreen on!
A little bit of this attitude has been showing up lately. 3 year old Sassy!
we are now able to wash our cars in our driveway, and I do have the best washers around!
Perfectly normal, Elliot loves sitting on Gabby. She usually responds with "it's no fun to have a brother sit on you." but you can see she has fun too!
this is what we made for my birthday. chocolate molten cupcakes with chocolate buttercream.
Don't let the picture fool you, he loves to put this fire chief rain jacket on (it's G's old one that I remembered to get out on a VERY rainy day). he is upset because he really wants to BE OUTSIDE, not standing at the door while I take a picture.

Freezer Jam

Last weekend we met up with my goMom group for some strawberry picking. The strawberry field was a little muddy and the berries pretty picked over already, but we had fun and got a bucket filled with berries. here is a picture montage of our freezer jam experience.
Gabby didn't have a drop of red on her.....
Elliot is fond of squishing berries and eating them too!
Glad it wasn't busy because the kids loved running up and down the rows.

Our bucket full of RIPE berries, they were a little over ripe and ended up being half mush within hours.
the mess I was left with, bowls and bowls and mixing spoons and pots and more!
Final product: 3 containers of strawberry jam, 2 of strawberry blueberry jam. the berries taste almost a little fermented, but so far they taste yummy on vanilla frozen yogurt.

Strawberry Festival

Today was our 2nd annual trip to the Pungo Strawberry Festival. We knew what we were doing this year, plus Elliot isn't a newborn like last year. I miss Ski to Sea weekend back home, it has been too long since I have been to a real parade too. We left the house and made our way to Pungo in time for the parade. It was so much fun plus the kids were excited about it! Our friends and their son joined us at the parade and another couple met up with us later on too. Last year the weather was so hot I worried about my brand new baby in the heat, this year we didn't have to worry about the heat too much. The day started out great, almost "chilly" in the low 70's. During the parade it started to sprinkle, but we aren't afraid of rain! After lunch the sun beat down and we all got warm for a few minutes, then rolled in the dark clouds. RAIN, lots of RAIN caught everyone scrambling for cover. We decided to stick it out, although many people dashed for the field filled with cars. The rain stopped and it turned out to be a great day, a few showers came and went. Sometimes you just have to roll with the punches, play in the rain and who cares if your clothes get wet and your flip flopped feet dirty.

Our route to Pungo took us over the drawbridge, although it was unnecessary (thanks GPS for making us go 3 miles to do a u-turn).

Funnel Cakes! Fried dough with powdered sugar!Classic cars in the parade

Fancy shoes for line dancing
Can you do this? He jump roped too!

This band was my favorite, they reminded me of Drumline when they danced.
Hillbilly! I tried to capture some of the "southern-ness" of Virginia
Everyone was excited about pig racing!

These pigs were only 8 weeks old and had already gone to P I G school for 3+ weeks

Strong Dad, won a blow up hammer (already in the garbage thanks to E's teeth) and a Shrek toy!We left Pungo in a long line of cars, not a bad view to end our day at the Strawberry Festival.

CSA 3

No picture this week, we got into the basket before I could snap one. A large head of cabbage and more spinach (anyone have good recipes for these things?), green beans, 2 yellow squash/zucchini, head of lettuce and green onions.

I used the green onions, last weeks cabbage and the lettuce to make Asian Lettuce wraps. Yummy and fairly simple. I used ground turkey, shredded cabbage, carrots, water chestnuts, green onion, ginger, garlic, soy sauce, splash of rice wine vinegar and sesame oil. Wrapped it up in the lettuce leaves. Even better if you have cilantro and fresh lemon zest.

Sweet G

Oceana Naval Air Station had their (annual) Family Fest. We never would have known about it but Clayton volunteered to work it. It was a fun thing to do on a hot Thursday afternoon. On the way there I was explaining to Gabby about the "vestible" and telling her that it was to celebrate Navy kids, she understood that and later in the evening told me "today is all about me and Elliot because we are Navy kids." Navy functions are typically inexpensive, I bought $10 worth of tickets= 20 tickets! The only thing you needed tickets for was food (hot dog 1 ticket, hamburger 2 tickets) drinks (soda or water 1 ticket, beer 3 tickets, snow cone 1 ticket). What to do with all the tickets I had??? have a junk food filled day, and then use the leftovers to buy snow cones for Clayton and his crew working the concession stand...... Clay somehow got the job of BBQ'ing hotdogs, by the time he was done he had cooked approximately 1,000!
First stop, the fire truck! Gabby flirted with the firemen. They got a call and had to go, but they got back in time for her to flirt with them as we were leaving the fest.
Not sure, is this McGruff the crime fighting dog? There was also a Fire Dog, Snoopy and others....
which brings us to the creepiest Dora you have ever seen! Sponge Bob was pretty bad too.
Gabby tried her hand at roping cows
This girl even looks good in a helmet!
Her first REAL horse ride! She loved it! "Yee haw, thats what a cowgirl says!" Elliot tried the horse too, he wasn't a fan.
When she was about 1 Clay used to ask her if she wanted a pony, I have a feeling the answer would be YES!
Cotton Candy, such a sweet treat!

Ended the day with a blue raspberry and lime snow cone mustache!

My camera and flip video both had dead batteries (Flip now broken, not sure what happened or what to do) so there is no evidence of these cute kids dancing to Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift, but they sure know how to shake it!

E's day at the beach

We had the perfect Friday! Picnic packed, homemade hummis and veggies, greek wraps (tortilla, tzatziki sauce, tomato, turkey, cucumber), apples, lots of water. Fishing cart fully loaded. Shovels and buckets. Sunbrella. Towels and blanket. Sunscreen (well everywhere except Clay's back!)

We left the house around 10am, with one stop at the bait shop and then were at the beach! Elliot surprised me by clinging on to me and not wanting down- well that lasted 30 seconds! He is turning into a beach bum!
he is a great help at fishing, tugs on the poles, gets into the gear, pours sand in the bait bucket!
Elliot couldn't decide if he was scared of the water (here) or if he wanted to play in it. He mostly liked it.
His favorite thing to do, run down the beach and make you run after him!
Dancing at the beach IS allowed!
Finally so wore out from playing, he fell asleep. It was 2 hours late and only lasted 40 minutes While he did this I lay next to him, my stark white legs in the sun, starring up at the blue sky watching birds and jets, listening to the waves of the Atlantic, Clay fished undisturbed and Gabby played in the sand and told me stories!
Only one short nap yesterday led to a very early nap today, which led to someone falling asleep in my arms at 6pm..... I was afraid it was a nap, yes it was 45 minutes. Being so tuckered out he is back asleep by 8pm. Notice his boo-boo, scraped his nose a few days ago going down the one step from the back deck to yard. He of course fell the one place there is cement, tough boy he is tho! I NEED to video his dancing and his sweet sweet laugh!

full

My heart is FULL, full of love and happiness. Today started out to be a bit on the cranky side for the 3 of us, Clay was already at work when we woke up. Nothing was getting done, whining, messes, etc! Elliot went down for a nap, and slept GREAT in his crib for over 2 hours! While he was sleeping I did laundry, showered, cleaned mirrors and windows, read stories with Gabrielle and played her "granny maid" which I lost! While I was showering Gabby was keeping me company, as usual. She was telling me she wasn't special because she didn't have a birthmark. Apparently her friend Quincy has a birthmark on his arm that she learned about yesterday (I missed this conversation, will have to find out the details of it from Clay). Gabby said "Quincy's birthmark makes him special, I don't have one- I'm not special!" We started talking about all the ways she is special, she pretended to jot them down on her list she was making. After a bit she turned it to me, and she made a list of the reasons why I am special! All on her own she came up with ideas. Some wonderful some goofy: "you are special because you have nipples and feed my brother milk. you are special because your buns are bigger than mine. scratch that last one off, it's not a good one!" So silly! Elliot woke up happy, wanting to stay in his crib a few minutes and play around (really, you want to be in there?) We had on Pandora radio, Beyonce's remake of At Last came on. I was singing and Elliot joined me, he totally sounded like he was singing "AT LASST!"

A good day. now to get out of the house. my legs are ssssoooorrreeee from running almost 4 miles yesterday, pushing 60 lbs of kid and a stroller. last night I woke up to hear thunder, and rain- meaning outside is soaked- but the sun is now out!

CSA 2

What a wonderful Friday we had yesterday! No work for the Mr. and for the 3rd day in a row we were out of the house by 9am. Where to? Only our favorite place to go, you often hear Gabby and Clay discussing trips... to the "hardware store" aka Lowe's. We bought a BBQ, and other things for projects to be (sanding and painting dressers soon I hope). We have been without a BBQ since we sold ours when we left Japan. No way did we want to have that dirty grill packed and shippe half way around the world. Our apartments didn't allow them on the balcony (plus would there have been room?) and so it has brought us to now. Clayton feels we are now whole again, being able to BBQ. I am happy we don't have to use the oven on hot days. Last night we used the new grill for homemade turkey burgers, grilled corn, a little red onion and then we had baked beans too!

While Clay was slaving away in the HOT sun putting the BBQ together I took the kids to pick up week 2 of our CSA. The girl working said that last week's bag was spinach and not swiss chard. It sure was meaty for spinach, but then again I am used to store bought baby spinach. This week our basket had: spinach, 4 squash (yellow ones that look like zucchini) a basket of strawberries (already gone!), a bundle of green onions and a cabbage.

I had to use the spinach from last week up since we now have another bag. I put together a frittata, sauteed spinach, mushrooms and a little of the green onion all together. Didn't notice I had bought southwestern egg beaters, heck I didn't know they came in flavors! Add a little flour and a dash of cream (on hand for the chocolate ganache we are making for my molten chocolate birthday cupcakes) and then bake it! I like it, Clay won't touch it b/c well it has spinach and mushrooms and eggs!

Elliot just woke up, from what has turned into his once a day nap. We no longer do 2 naps, although he still gets a little too tired to not have 2. He naps later, for almost 2 hrs and then he goes to bed anytime between 6:30p and 7:30pm. What a big boy he is growing to be! Smart too! I sometimes don't realize how brilliant he is because he isn't quite as articulate as Gabby always has been (who is?). We sing songs and he follows along, yesterday throwing his hands up and saying what sounded like "hooray!" When asked he will point to his; eyes, ears, nose (well he sticks his finger up it), mouth (sticks out his tongue), fingers and toes. Plus he has known his belly and head for a few months!

Gabby is really into watching cooking shows. Whenever she likes what you cook she says "can I have your recipe?" Once I get a few minutes I will have to write the ongoing conversation we have about when she grows up and where she will live!