I should be getting my shower right now, but I wanted to post the news that I got the rest of the garden weeded last evening, and I rushed around like a mighty wind and planted corn where the peas had been this evening. Hopefully it will grow. With Paul around, it’s not “sheep’s in the meadow, cow’s in the corn”, but rather Paul’s in the corn! Yikes! Yows! Shut your eyes Sally! He knows what the corn is and I tell him to “be careful for the corn” and “don’t walk on the corn”, but sometimes he is concentrating on something else, and then either sits on stalks of corn or walks right over it. The corn that is there has suffered greatly, and some has perished due to Paul’s gardening. Sometimes, I just have to work hard not to cry over my pathetic, pitiful garden this year. I wondered what I was weeding for…just to have a bare dirt spot for Paul to play in? It may turn out to be just that.

In my great rushings around, I tried to set up a water sprinkler for a little bit this evening before we went to Bible study. I got soooooo disgusted! I have three sprinklers, and currently none of them work. I have one like we had a home, but something is wrong with our pressure tank and we don’t have enough pressure to run it (and I haven’t researched it to fix it yet,or hired someone to do all that, so my fault). Another one won’t spin around. In desperation about 10 days ago, I bought one for $5.97 at Wal-Mart, hooked it up, and watered the garden. It has rained since then, so this evening was only the second time I was going to use it, and it won’t wave the water back and forth. Oh, it made me so mad. Why can’t something just work! Anyway, I couldn’t spend any time trying to fix on it because I had to get Paul off the potty, get supper heated and eaten, feed Hannah, change clothes, and zoom to Bible Study. Now we are home, it is dark and getting late, and I am going to take a shower and go to bed. Maybe I can work on it tomorrow.

When I was putting up tomato cages earlier this week,

I turned around and next thing I knew, Paul was crawling

through the tunnel!

I have shifted into a higher gear for this week (I hope I can sustain it for the week!), so I may have to put up the rest of my cute pictures and neat stories a little later. We are having the big Sibling Party at our house on Sat., and I am giving my best shot at reducing our property’s resemblance to the Kettle farm, or Imogene Herdman’s place (whichever one you’re more familiar with). I know I won’t get it completely accomplished, but my motto is going to be, if one of the attendees doesn’t like the way something looks, smells, feels, whatever, they are welcome to my cleaning and gardening supplies/tools and are free to change it. Otherwise, we’ll enjoy the occasion and be happy with whatever state the place is in come Saturday.

My number one thing for operating in a higher gear is to wear good, lace-up shoes. You can’t move as fast or as efficiently in flip-flops and other cutesy footwear. Next, get up before everyone else. Next, move fast. Fourth, wave goodbye to procrastination.

On that note, I am going to sign out so I can slice up the bread I made today and get it in the freezer. If Hannah holds off on her last feeding long enough, I will even get the dishwasher unloaded and put more dirty dishes in it before going to bed. Oh, I also need to put away the cho. syrup I made today. I don’t feel like doing any of these things. But, no procrastination this week!

Guess who decided she needed to eat every two hours today? Yeah, Hannah, who last week only ate 6 X per day. She’s going to get in 8 feedings today. It doesn’t mesh so well with my new gear!

It seems like this year we had a lot of celebrating on Mother’s Day weekend, and we had no less on Father’s Day weekend. I wrote in the last post of the birthday party for Andrew’s dad (he can’t help it he was born so close to Father’s Day). On Sunday, our church had a carry-in breakfast in honor of Father’s Day. After church, Andrew’s parents met us and then we picked up my mom and headed right on back to Lake Moomaw where some of the rest of my family was already. To say it took a lot of planning and preparation to pull all this off is not an overstatement. I don’t know how we managed it all, but we did, and I even enjoyed it. I felt like roadkill most of Monday and was in bare-bones survival mode, but we sure did enjoy Sunday.

Back to our great day on Sunday. The carry-in breakfast was great. I am getting used to these meals with little kids. By the time I get Hannah fed, or get Paul his food and set up and help him eat some, and then start to get my food, Dale (our pastor) is announcing the shut-down and clean up, or else announcing that there is a lot of food left, would folks please go past the tables again. I’m thinking, “Hold your horses! I haven’t gotten any food yet!” But, I don’t say that and just zoom past the tables and try to be sure to take all I want on the first pass because it may all be put away before I get another chance. Then, I eat like I am going to a fire (glad I learned to eat fast when I was young), and usually am just about done when they come to take my chair and put it away. Thankfully all the little quiches we took got eaten, which was good so we didn’t have to worry about what to do with the left-overs since they aren’t good lake food.

We got to the lake around 2:30, maybe, I’m not real sure. I had to feed Hannah right away, but there were plenty of other people around to help supervise Paul and help him eat. Gail and James were grilling marinated deer ham with onions, bacon, and potatoes. It was very good. We had lots of other food too, including cantaloupe, watermelon, cookies, potato salad (courtesy of Andrew’s Mom), potato chips, and sandwich supplies.

Andrew’s dad rode in the boat a lot. He wore his famous hat.

Paul and Bobby played in the dirt down by the water. Both of them were really tired, but they handled everything very well.

We all did plenty of skiing, well, all that we could and had time for. I skied twice, once between each feeding of Hannah. I had to rest up in between times. I sure can tell I don’t do this every week like when I was younger! Luke tried to ski on the trick ski, and I can’t remember how successful he was. Andrew and Katie did an Endurance Moomaw again (ski the length of the whole lake, unless you are too wimpy and have to stop and climb in the boat first). (I should mention that Lake Moomaw isn’t that big, not anything compared to Smith Mountain Lake. You can go from one end or Moomaw to the other in, oh, about 45 min. or an hour, probably, at an average speed of 35 mph.) Those of us sitting on the shore didn’t know about this long run. We sat there, and we sat there. Then, we sat there some more. It was getting later and later. I knew it was past the latest time I wanted to leave the lake to come home, but of course we wouldn’t leave without someone. After a while, we started to wonder aloud if something had gone wrong. We reasoned that since Dad was in the boat, if they had any trouble, they would get it figured out. After a long while, Luke came prancing up to the picnic area (he had been in the boat). Lo and behold, they had run out of gas down at the other end! They had flagged another boat which kindly brought Luke back to get some gas, and then took him back to our boat. No wonder they were gone so long! As soon as the boat got back, we loaded it onto the trailer and packed up to come home. It was about dark as we were leaving, and my little children were totally ka-putzed. Paul was asleep in an instant, and Hannah soon was too.

Dad & Katie skiing

Elma watching Hannah so I could ski.

Sitting around wondering where the boat was.

(Chuck & Elma, and Paul on the right)

It sure made the day go so nice to have Andrew’s parents along. They were a tremendous help in keeping up with our little folks. Oh, by the way, my mom did ski. Gail didn’t, since she was recovering from a bad case of swimmer’s ear in both ears.

Back to coming home, it was a long trip. Hannah was unsettled because she wanted to be laying down in her bed and sleeping instead of in her car seat. She slept intermittently, and fussed and cried some. We stopped twice to feed her, but it was only half feedings, and wasn’t what she really wanted. We finally got home just after mid-night. It was a fun day, but I sure am glad we don’t do that every week. I don’t know how in the world my mom managed when we went skiing about once a week all summer long. I just know that I am not my mom!

For those of you who would like to see more pictures of this event, sorry. I just wasn’t able to be poking around with the camera very much since I was with Hannah, or trying eat myself, or trying to help Paul, etc.

Well, this is enough blogging for now. I am slowly getting a few things posted. Life is happening faster than I can blog!

Friday the 13th was Andrew’s Dad’s birthday. That’s what the pie shells were all about. We were having birthday pie instead of birthday cake. I don’t know if Chuck knew it or not, but Paul was very involved in the making of the birthday pies, especially the chocolate pies.

Paul unwraps the chocolate squares.

Yeah, I know he was touching it with well-traveled fingers, but I figured for the amount of time the filling was going to boil, the heat would kill any germs, bugs, or bacteria.

Andrew grilled chicken for the party.

Andrew & Tyrone

Other than that, I just sat around and fed Hannah, or held Hannah, or fed Paul his supper. It was so nice to have my part of the food done ahead of time, and all I had to do was keep up with our children, for the most part. It was outside, so even spills were not a big deal.

Lighting the candles on the birthday pies.

Tyrone & Dustin

While we were eating supper, Sam was proudly proclaiming that he was “four and a HAALFFFF” (lots of emphasis on the half). I asked Steven and Sam how old they thought Grandpa was. Steven thought a moment then said, “Twenty-seven or forty-six.” Grandpa was really happy!

Blowing out the candle

Andrew’s Dad has developed his artistic abilities and has done a lot of nice portraits. He thought he should have a hat that made him look the part (of artist), so who else would give it to him on his birthday but Wendy!

The hat from Wendy & Joe!

My cute niece, Emily

After the meal, Andrew washed the dishes. After feeding Hannah again and changing everyone’s diapers (well, everyone being Paul and Hannah) we headed for home. Andrew and the rest of the grown-up men were taking his dad out to see Indiana Jones in the theater. It was a 9:50 showing, so of course the little folks needed to go to bed awhile. I stopped and got milk at Kroger’s on the way home because Andrew said it would be really late until he was headed home so he doubted he would stop for any milk. What do you know! He stopped and got two gallons of milk on the way home even that late! We are still working on the four gallons of milk in our refrigerator. We have it down to 3 jugs now.

Well, Paul has been climbing around on my lap like a monkey while I get this post ready. The diapers should be done in the washing machine, so we are going to go outside for a while. I hope we get some weeds out of the garden before time to feed Hannah again.

(O.k., I don’t talk like that. I just put it in the title for fun.)

I am Paul’s entertainment a lot of the time. I have dreams and hopes of getting stuff done while my kids are sleeping, but, dream on, because if they are both sleeping, usually I need to be sleeping. So, I am forced to slow waaaaaaaaay down and Paul and I do things together. We end up having a lot of fun that way, and occasionally get on each other’s nerves. This afternoon he got up from his nap early, and we ended up having fun making pie shells. I put a little pile of flour (about a teaspoon) in front of him on the island (he was standing on a chair), and I gave him my second-best rolling pin, which happened to be a little smaller than the one that rolls easiest. Well, he was soon snitching pie dough, so I had to limit that. Then, he wanted not just one rolling pin, but both rolling pins. I let him have both of them while I was pinching the edges and poking the crusts. When I needed to roll some more dough, instead of just grabbing a rolling pin away from him, I asked him to give me one. He very happily did–and it was always the small one! Amazing how bigger is better to him, even at this age. I used the small one, because the result was the same as if I had used the big one, even though it didn’t roll quite as nicely.

This was before I gave him the big rolling pin.

Notice that Paul has the big rolling pin!

Paul snitching dough!

(Photos courtesy of Andrew)

Well, I have enjoyed “blogging” this evening thanks to Andrew. He gave me the evening off, even though he has loads of work to do and is still slaving away down in the basement. He is my super-husband. He fixed supper (well, heated it up, we had leftovers with some microwaved baked potatoes) and fed Paul. He then bathed Paul and got in the wash. That enabled me to take a shower during Hannah’s late nap so I wouldn’t have to do it after she went to bed for the night. I had bathed Hannah before starting on the pie dough so things wouldn’t be a giant undertaking (bathing both kids) for Andrew. It was about 10:00 before Hannah got all her burps out, so I didn’t get started blogging real early, but I enjoyed it when I started.

I realized I haven’t said a lot about Hannah recently. She is definitely a big ray of sunshine around here most of the time. We love her big smile. I hope to soon get a picture of her great big happy smile, but I don’t have one yet. So many people think she looks like Paul and laughs like Paul. Well, I don’t. I think her eyes are the only thing that looks like Paul, the rest is different. But, I don’t argue with people.

Anyway, she smiles a lot, and she has just started to laugh. It almost sounds like a funny cough, but she is grinning like her face will crack open if she smiles any bigger, so I know she is trying to laugh. She also likes to look at books. She will watch the book as we read to Paul.

She also tracks things with her eyes very well. As she sits in her swing, she watches Paul hopping and bouncing around. Sometimes I am doing my work and I look over and she has her eyes glued on me. Sometimes I groan inwardly to think I am the entertainment of now 2 little people, not just Paul. Oh, I nearly forgot. I am not her only entertainment. She is seriously infatuated with ceiling fans! The poor little girl! She smiles widely at them, and would rather gaze at the ceiling fan (still or moving) than eat. I hate to break her heart and tell her that thing doesn’t return her affections!

She has just in the last couple days switched into even easier gears, which gives me loads of delight. Instead of getting up to eat around 4 or 5:00 a.m., she has slept until 6:00 or 6:30 the last two nights. One of those she ate at 8:30 in the evening for her last evening feeding. Wow! I am so impressed! She was going a little longer between her daytime feedings, more like 3 hours instead of 2, but then today she reverted back to the every two hours routine. So, I guess we move forward in jerks and halts, with a few backward lurches.

I recently tried bathing her in the bathtub with Paul (instead of in her baby tub by the sink). My goal is to give them both a bath at the same time so I am only doing bathing once a day for the wee bairns. She did pretty well and didn’t turn her head to the side and drink up water (like she did the last time I tried it about a month ago). The trick is to make sure Paul doesn’t create a tub tsunami or wag a dripping washcloth over her face.

It is nice to have bathtime only once a day, but I am working like a dog all through it to keep everything going smooth. Gather all the supplies. Lay Hannah down nearby. Draw the water and keep Paul from leaping off the toilet and into the tub. Put Paul in the water, bathe him with all speed. Let him play while I undress Hannah. Bathe her with all speed and whisk her out of the water. Wrap Hannah in towels, lay her down. Retrieve Paul from the water and wrap him in his special lion towel. Dry and dress Paul while he is moving nearly all moveable body parts at all times. Let him loose and then dry and dress Hannah. I am usually sweating through the whole process. But, believe it or not, it takes less than 30 min. I haven’t timed it yet.

So, there’s the latest on our little Hannah Joy.

What do these have in common? Paul’s association with them!

This past Saturday we had a busy morning, picking peas and getting ready to go to our church’s picnic at noon. But, nursing Hannah isn’t something that can be rushed. As I was feeding her once again before we left, Paul was standing at the couch with his Bible beside me looking at it. He pointed to pictures and I told him what they were and explained them to him. He turned to one of Peter who was crying after the rooster crowed. I explained to Paul that Peter was very sad and crying because he had told a lie and now he was sorry about it. I told him that Peter wished he had told the truth and so on. Paul kept looking at the picture and I kept explaining it to him. Soon, I realized he had a very serious look on his face, and he looked like he might start crying himself. He then turned around and got Hannah’s big white bear (the one from Aunt Wendy that he likes to snuggle with) and brought it over and put it up beside the Bible! It sure looked like he was bringing the bear to offer comfort to Peter! (Of course, it is possible Paul brought it to comfort himself while he was pondering Peter’s sorrow.) It was almost hilarious, but of course I didn’t laugh. It dawned on me that Paul might not understand everything, so I assured him that Paul had not been bad, it was Peter.

As I mentioned, we went to our church’s church picnic at noon. It was at a shelter in the Oakdale Park at Bridgewater. Boy, oh boy, it was one of those very hot days. We all sat around dripping and nearly cheered every time a breeze went by. The little kids played with water balloons and water soaking guns. For the meal, we brought Paul’s booster seat. It sure makes things easier. I sat it on a picnic table and strapped it to a post.

He was happy enough to be served his food there.

In the evening, after we got home, Paul helped me shell the peas. We shelled them down in the basement so we could be together with Andrew while he worked. Hannah watched us from her swing. I thought Paul would shell a few and then get bored. But he didn’t. He helped just about the entire time. I had to get the end popped open for him, and then he would tear them open and pick the peas out one by one and put them in my bowl. He was also very good about picking peas up off the floor that were dropped. Of course, he would have loved to stir in the shelled peas, but I wouldn’t let him do that.

Can you tell that I just love Paul? I think he is the cutest and best little boy!

Today didn’t have anything in it that was in my schedule except that I picked the peas, put a load of wash in the washing machine, and we went to Bible study this evening.  But, it was all filled up.

When I was feeding Hannah at 7 o’clock this morning, I heard a terrific BOOM (yes, it was very load, like one of those guns that shoots the 3″ long, 1/2″ diameter bullets) right outside our house.   At the same time the refrigerator stopped running.  I hoped it was coincidence, but I feared that the power was once again out in the Power Outage Capital of Virginia.  I was right.  I was sure the transformer right outside our house blew, also sure we were the about the only house affected and afraid it would be a couple days until they came to fix it (since so few people were affected by it).  When I was done feeding Hannah, I called Dominion Power’s number while Andrew was rapidly trying to retrieve stuff from the computer downstairs to his laptop before the battery back-up ran out.  It was frustrating to call the power company because I couldn’t get a live person on the phone at all.  I wanted to tell them exactly what the problem was and where so they could go to the right place and not have to hunt the trouble spot.

I walked out and looked at the transformer, and it sure looked like some stuff was blown out of kilter.

It was pancake morning, but we had cold cereal instead.  Andrew didn’t get enough stuff transferred to the laptop, so he read books to Paul while I picked the peas.  Then, Andrew went to the Rio office in town to work from there until the power came on.  Paul and I unloaded the dishwasher and put away dishes.  Then, we took Hannah outside to feed her again.  While we were doing that, the Dominion truck came, and he got the power back on a little before 11:00.  (It really didn’t take long at all to fix it, only about 10 minutes.  He said a squirrel got up there and shorted things out.)  Yay!  I called Andrew to let him know.  He was going to head home.  I started up the washing machine.  Before too long, Andrew called me to tell me he had locked the keys in the car.

I just switched gears and loaded up the kids and my lists into the Odyssey and we went to take keys to Andrew.  I figured if I was going to town, I had better get my shopping done at Wal-Mart and Sharp Shopper too.  I also dropped my peas off at our pastor’s house.  I had told Diana (our pastor’s wife) I would give her Wednesday’s picking of peas.  Andrew thought he should take the kids home with him so I could get done faster.  I told him Hannah would want to eat again at 1:00.  So, he took Paul home.

Before I got to Wal-Mart, Hannah wanted to eat.  We went right to the shoe department and I sat down and fed her.  That took at least 30 min. to do the whole feeding and diaper changing.  Then, I started shopping.  I hadn’t gotten very far until I met with a total stranger who talked and talked.  I thought of edging away, and then I realized this lady really needed someone to listen.  Her 25-yr.-old son was killed in an accident 3 weeks ago.  I did my best to give her some Bible verses and eternal encouragement.  However, the situation is very sad and they need the Lord.  So, that took at least 30 min. or more of my shopping time, and that’s when Hannah was sleeping.  She woke up and was getting hungry by the time we moved on.  I decided to once more grab the more important items and leave the rest.  I went to the pharmacy section before checking out to once more feed Hannah.  That took 30 min.  Then, we checked out and came home.  It was almost 4:00 when we got home.

So, between laying down for a few minutes here and there in between hopping up to help Hannah burp, getting some supper on the table, and going to Bible study, that’s the remainder of the day.

I have some pictures I want to put up from over the weekend, but that will be for another evening.  I just hope the power stays on for a while.  I am so thankful we got power back so quickly that I don’t mind the “unscheduled” day very much.  Plus, it was such a treat to go to Wal-Mart with only Hannah!  It was so much easier than dealing with Paul and Hannah at the same time in there.  I have the most wonderful husband in the whole world!  (He had Paul sit on the floor and read books for a while (while Andrew worked) and then he let him watch some WTP (Winnie the Pooh)–and Paul got really scared at one point, and then he put him down for his nap.  Paul was sleeping when I got home.  Andrew said Paul did very well.)

If you live around here, you know it has been pretty hot today and yesterday. Paul loves to be outside, but when it is so hot, it is miserable for me to be out there with him making sure he doesn’t eat toadstools or get out into the road. After lunch today, I set up the sprinkler and got a bucket of water with some cups and cake pans for him to play with.

He had a great time. I did not leave him alone for one second while that bucket was there. Once, when I had to dash inside, I took the bucket with me onto the back porch. I know that buckets of water are a big drowning hazard for little kids. The rest of the time, I sat in the shade of a tree feeding Hannah. After a while, Paul filled a cup with water and brought it over and poured it on Hannah and me. I told him not to pour it on us, but he didn’t know those words. So, when he brought the next cup over, I told him to put it on the green grass. He put all the other cups of water on the grass at my feet. He was so cute to watch. Of course, he got soaking wet. I counted that as his bath for today. One of these days, I may just run under the sprinkler with him!

This evening, we took a family walk for the first time since Hannah was born. Andrew usually takes Paul jogging in the jogging stroller nearly every day. We went out at 8:45 p.m., but it was still very humid and hot. We were back by 9:00 because Hannah wanted to eat and go to bed. As it was, she was fussing part of the way home.

Speaking of Hannah, she is such a wonderful little girl. She has learned how to suck her thumb in several different positions (initially, she could only get her thumb if she was lying down). As you can see, she also likes to hold onto her shirt while she is sucking her thumb (hmmm…I’ll bet that will transfer to a blankie at some point!).

She loves to talk. She just talks and coos and does a high-pitched sound while she gurgles in the back of her throat. It is so nice to listen to, and she is happy and smiling while she does it. I think she laughed for the first time today. She has done the very start of a laugh twice before, but never quite got it out. Today, while I was talking on the phone with my headphones on, I picked her up, and she was looking at me and and had a huge smile on her face and laughed. She must have thought I looked very funny!

That’s about all the excitement of today. I have my food prepared for our church picnic tomorrow, and I have the dry ingredients put together for our waffles for breakfast in the morning. My next move is toward bed to enjoy a cooler night.

What a title, huh?

Well, what’s in the ground is our corn! Yay! Paul and I planted the corn just before lunch today. We used the rows I hoed on Sat. and put Gardentone (I think it is 4-6-6, or else 4-4-6), Super Phosphate (which is 0-46-0), and some regular fertilizer (10-10-10) in the rows. The regular fertilizer will be ready immediately to the plants, and the others are more of a slow release, longer term fertilizer. If you know about those numbers, you can tell that it should do something for our corn. Four ears to the stalk, or 24 inch ears, or, well, we’ll see. I hope it doesn’t blow over like it has so often in the past, and messed up the pollination. Anyway, I stirred it in good with the hoe, so it shouldn’t burn the plants. If it doesn’t do a little raining tonight or tomorrow, I will have to get out the soaker hoses and give them some water to get started. I planted some no-name early sweet corn Andrew picked up for me at Lowe’s (they didn’t have what I wanted, and he said he figured he had better not come home without some) that has a 64-day maturity. I also planted some of Gail’s ‘06 Ambrosia seed that she has kept in the freezer, which has a 75-day maturity. Now, we’ll be waiting for God to give the increase.

Paul in the garden.

What’s out of the gutter is the junk that was clogging it at the elbow here at the back porch. It looked like it was going to give another one of those 10-15 minute downpours around here that we get about every evening, so I drug out the ladder and Andrew climbed up and got the junk out. Hopefully it won’t make a small pond on our back porch–until it clogs again (which it does frequently).

At the same time Andrew was up on the ladder, I was talking on the phone to one of our church members who lives down the road and around the bend (figuratively speaking), and she said her gutter was clogged too and she needed to unclog it. Well, she is an elderly widow, so after telling Andrew about it, he called her back and said we’d be right over to unclog it before the rain. I grabbed up our leftover lasagna and we went to her house. He unclogged her gutter, and then we shared our lasagna for supper. Paul had a great time and wanted to have lots of fun with her tiny little dog laughing and chasing him. The dog was old and crotchety and was nervous about Paul. Toward the end of the visit, she had to put him in another room. Poor Paul. He just wanted to have fun.