Trip to the apple orchard

Our Sharp Arrows group went to the apple orchard in September.

We got to try out lots of different varieties of apples.

Will carefully considered which ones he liked best.

They even let us pick a bushel of apples as a group.

Twist and pull. Nothing to it!

These apples didn't fall far from the tree and were smashed.

Plumb tuckered out

You know your baby is tired when he falls asleep in his tracks.

Too cute!

Some results from the garden

I tried to grow some onions. They started out about as big as the tip of my pinkie finger and a couple grew this big. They came in handy when I made my Jack Daniel's sauce.

I took forever for the broccoli to grow. Here's a picture of it still on the plant:

And here it is off the plant:

If you let broccoli keep growing, and don't pick it, the little green part that you eat turns into a bouquet of yellow flowers. Who knew?

Here is one of the few strawberries that made it away from the garden. We didn't have very many this year, mostly thanks to Brighton who would lean over and eat them straight off the plant. They tasted delicious! As I was cleaning out my garden last week, I found, well it was actually Brighton who found, several more strawberries that are growing now. I had forgotten that I had planted plants that grow twice a year. Now there are strawberry runners all over the place. Time to replant for next year.

Did you know the if you let your lettuce keep growing it will look like this:

Wonderful, but not edible, lettuce trees!

Here is a picture of one of the two carrots that grew. (Yes, only two grew even though I planted several. But two is better than none!)

The peas grew and were eaten by the kids before I could cook them.

We had green beans several times for supper.

My tomatoes have done pretty well. I don't have pictures of the finished product, but they are still growing which has surprised me.

We had cucumbers growing out of our ears, even though I only planted two plants.

We still have green bell peppers. I only planted one bell pepper plant and we have had 10 or so peppers with 7 more still growing.

The corn grew, but not that well. Or maybe I should say that we just picked it too late. I was waiting for the right time to cook it and by the time the right time came, the corn was all sticky and nasty when we ate it. The two ears that we picked way too early, or so we thought, turned out great. Now we know to pick earlier next year.

It was a great experience having the garden this year and I can't wait to try it out again next year!

Lucy...and all her many phrases

Lucy is at a really cute stage right now. Well, at least sometimes she's cute. Sometimes she's not. But this is all about her cuteness and if I ever blog again, maybe I'll talk about her non-cuteness. (And for those who think she is always cute, call me sometime so you can listen to her scream in the background.)

One night we came home from Walmart and we were bring in the groceries. Brad had put something in the fridge and reminded me that we needed to get the chicken put up before it went bad. I wasn't really paying any attention to Lucy, but she had opened up the fridge and then asked me, "Mommy, where is the chicken?" Because I wasn't paying attention I just casually muttered, "Huh?" and walked out the door to bring in more bags from the car. When I came back in, Lucy was just shutting the fridge and asked again about the chicken. I was paying a little more attention this time and said something like, "Huh? The chicken? It's in the fridge." and I walked back out the door. As I came back in I saw Lucy standing in the kitchen with the refrigerator door open and I told her to shut the door. She did, which is amazing, and asked, "Mommy, where is the chicken? I looked in the frigerator and it's not in there." "Yes it is, Lucy." and I walked out the door again. As I walk back in she is looking back in the fridge, again, really looking this time and says, "Mommy, I can't find the chicken." As she throws her hands down at her sides and sticks out her lower lip to pout. That's when it hits me, she is looking for a chicken in the fridge. Not the chicken, but A chicken. It took a little while to explain that there wasn't a clucking chicken in the fridge.

Another fun thing Lucy talks about right now is where things "live" at. She asked where to put her jacket one day and I told her to hang it up on the coat rack by the door. She asked, "You mean where my sweater lives?" Which also tells you we don't do a lot of cleaning because sweaters aren't supposed to "live" on coat racks, but in closets. She asked for a spoon one day. I told her to go and get one out. She asked where they were. I said, "Lucy, you know where they are, just go and get one." She said, "Oh, is it where the forks live?"

The other day she said she needed her hands wiped because she was all done with her toaster noodle. (AKA: toaster strudel)

She's just too cute. Sometimes.