Christie come home..... the house is lonely without you!!!

So here I am .... home alone with the 3 crumb crunchers while the girls in the family are off doing heaven knows what.  So what is a tech savvy guy to do??  That's right, find totally random pictures of his wife and post them for no apparent real reason.  And maybe some other random thoughts too.

I tried to explain to her that when our refrigerator broke down the day before the girls' weekend that it was a sign to not go.  She didn't listen.  So I begged a little..... nothing.  I tried to bargain with her.....  nothing.  Aw crap, fine.   Thought about breaking the car, but that was too over the top for me.  So please come home soon.

More of her self portraits

Lately G-man finds his way into plenty of Mom shots

Especially watch out for Mama Bear

Nothing to say here.

Taming the Jackalope

Gman with his waxing poetic look.  Don't look too closely or his steely blues will suck you in

Growth spurts are tough

So far in 2011 we have really learned that growth spurts are tough.  With the oldest one using sore legs to try and get out of chores or cleaning her room or growing molars as an excuse to skip brushing her teeth to amazing amount of food that Big D can consume about every other day.  But our little G-Man is by far the funniest.  He works strictly from the "Play hard, Rest easy" way of life.  We have started to notice that we have a bunch of pictures of him falling asleep in strange places.  He also has an AWESOME snore that I think must be an inherited thing.  He has also mastered the ability to sneak into bed with his siblings.  He knows better than to try that with me, he'll end up on the floor.  So here is a collage of G-man and all the recent photos of him sleeping or literally losing it while doing something else.  Enjoy!

This is about a year ago because he still has the high chair but this is typical of his sleep eating routine

What was funny about the car sleeping was he went from talking to us to full snoring in like 60 seconds.  Classic.

One afternoon I went in the back yard to gather G-man and pick up his toys.  I sent him inside to get in the bathtub.  A few minutes later when I can in this is where he was about 5 feet from the back door.

When you can't make it from the bathtub to your bedroom for some PJs you are a REALLY tired little boy.

One night he was missing from his bed..... we found him in Meg's bed.  He likes to get against the wall so they don't push him out.

Now D & G share a room but this is still funny how Big D slid over so G Man could climb on board.

I'm not totally immune.   In my defense he was snuggling with me when he fell asleep and then I was done in.

More sleep eating

Holding what is left of his hamburger.......  to tired to put it down.

Top of the stairs..... almost like he was headed for his bed and just couldn't quite make it that far.

Play Hard - Rest Easy

2011 Garden Success

So 2011 has been a weird year for our garden.  The overly wet spring really slowed down the start of getting some plants like tomatoes to get going.  However we have had lots of green and yellow zucchini, a surprising number of green peppers and our corn loved the wet spring.  How wet you ask???  Well......  one morning after an all night rain storm I went outside to this.

 

Let's just say the tomatoes didn't think that was very nice and I was worried my corn seeds would float away.

Meg had 2 cabbage plants from school that she wanted to grow and we decided we would try to grow a HUGE one for the County Fair.   We actually let them both get huge and we picked one a few days before the fair after deciding which one to take to the fair.  Here is Meg with the one that didn't go to the fair.

 

So how big was the Fair worthy cabbage.  Look and see.

For the Fair you have to leave the outer leaves on.

Filled up a whole laundry basket

Christie got permission to take it into Winegars to weigh it before they took it to the Fair.  Just over 12LBS!!!

Meg's cabbage took 2nd place.  The winner was only a few ounces bigger than Meg's

Davis took a couple of Ichiban Eggplants to the Fair and won first prize.  Not bad considering someone else did most the work..... wonder who that was......... hmmmmmm.

BTW - Christie's quilt also won 2nd place.  Not bad for 5 years of quilt school.   ;)

 Now for the fun stuff.  Once our tomatoes finally got going we began to scramble to get a GREAT salsa recipe.  After bottling tomatoes for days and days last year we wanted something more "ready to eat" and since our salsa supply from the church wet pack was about gone we wanted to try our hand at this.  Earlier in the year one of our neighbors had shared some of his homemade salsa during a Fathers and Sons campout.  We decided to give it a go since it was really delicious.  We needed 26lbs of tomatoes (roma's) and we were able to get just over 30lbs picked.  Then cutting everything up took a couple hours and then 3 hours of simmering on the CampChef. 

We are hoping for at least one more round of salsa before the freeze starts.  2 if we are really lucky.  So delicious we want to horde it.

Those who show up at our house with a bag of chips will possibly be rewarded with home made salsa.

 We have since found some pretty cheap stainless steel pots for processing the next batch in.  If anyone has some excess tomatoes (preferably Romas) we will gladly make them into salsa and share with you.   The true test of the salsa will be in about a month once all the peppers have fully developed in the jars.  Then we will know how hot it will be.  This has been so much fun that we are thinking of getting one of the city's free food plots for next year to grow more Peppers, Jalapenos, Seranos and more Roma's. 

PS.  Recipe available after you show up with that bag of chips!!!  Scoops preferred!

Corn

"Get out of the fridge!!!"

I can't even tell you how many times I have to say that everyday!

Fortunately, Garrett is the only one who sits in the refrigerator.

It might be worth mentioning that I'm about to

replace the fridge lock for the 4th time since G's birth.

That's right, 4.

First Day of School

So, I'm a terrible blog poster. I could promise to do better, but it would be a lie. I hope you can forgive me. :)

Here are some first day of school pictures!

G-man

Davis: First Grade

Meg: Third Grade

Pretending to be happy about more pictures on the porch.

I do have a few more posts planned, so keep checking back!

Ice Fishing on Steed's Pond

So it has been a while since I have posted to this blog since I leave most of that up to Christie. However I decided that I would share a little fun that Davis and I had the other day.

So Christie and Meg were in Louisiana for a family wedding and I was home having a boys weekend. On Saturday, January 9th, I had an offer from a friend to do some ice fishing. This isn't my normal area of expertise so having a buddy with some extra equipment is pretty handy. When I asked Davis if he wanted to go ice fishing he quickly responded "yes..... and dad.... can I use that 'Cars' fishing pole in the shed?" Davis already has a Shrek fishing pole but the little thinker was quick to find an excuse to need to open that Cars fishing kit that I had stuffed in the rafters of the shed. I guess any good fisherman needs his summer equipment and winter equipment.

So Steed's Pond is my old stomping grounds. Plenty of time was spent here just being a boy. You know, chasing frogs, swimming, fishing, smashing pennies on the adjacent train tracks and just getting dirty. Good times, but in all the years of living nearby I have never ice fished there.


I was hearing from neighbors and friends that the DWR had dumped a bunch of Rainbow trout and Brook trout into the pond that came from the hatchery they use for the community ponds. Also the rumor was that they were having good success through the ice.

So Davis and I dropped off Garrett with Grandma & Grandpa Pickett and we hit the ice with my friend Jack.

For about 2 1/2 hours we fished and while it was a little slow, Davis was a great fishing buddy. He stuck to it and was quite dedicated. After missing a fish he got pretty mad at himself because he really wanted to "see that fish". Convinced of course that it was the "big one". I think Davis caught 4 fish and we all missed a bunch too. Can't wait to try it again soon, guess I need to buy a few ice flies for the next time.