September 8, 2010

Happy Birthday Poppy

Aragorn and I went out to eat and the buffet had octopus.... so I brought one home for Frodo.
I kind of assume this is a baby? I could nto get myself to eat it, I don't know if those are 2 eyes but they look like 2 eyes and last time I tried one, I felt sure that those legs were grasping my tongue, that is just too life-like for my taste buds.

Cheese!!
No, Poppy that's a ball.

Brotherly love.

On Poppy's Birthday Grandma and Auntie came over. One of the gifts was this giant box, much bigger than Poppy herself.

I was much relieved that it was a wagon and not a coffin.

Now this is what I call a family-size umbrella, we would only need 3 for the whole family one for the boys, one for the girls and one for us. Excuse the 2 grubbi-muffins in the front row.

They also brought these cookies that were sooooo good. They even made a good breakfast next morning.... what was left of them that is!

There was a rather lengthy process to try to get this put together since Grandpa, Aragorn and Sam were gone....!

Poppy's patience.

Gotta have chocolate.

But I wasn't done yet.

Case if the crocodile tears.

Don't even think about taking this away.

Poppy was delighted with the new jammies that Grandma and Auntie brought for her, but who designs these camera flashes to blind you in the process?

Ok, this was absolutely delightful.... four cranes in the back yard, well, not the yard but up along the fence line. I don't know what it is about cranes but they are so fascinating.

A friend of mine and I are starting a Latin Mass children's choir. Eowyn was dabbling in the music a bit.

A perfect day for a walk.... as the physician would recommend.

Down by the patch things are still growing but slowing down a bit

Wow! The squash has gotten absolutely huge!!

Just kidding, it's not quite that big.

No, those aren't weeds around the pumpkins, it's foliage.

I was having one of those kinds of days too.... which is why I was out for a walk. A little fresh air and an extra rosary clears the mind of it's fog.

Not sure how big this watermelon is but the boy is 10 so you get the idea.
This is a giant tomato and don't ask me why Frodo's hand is glowing pink when the tomatoes are the right color..... his hands weren't pink.

I don't know but that these giant tomatoes are the ugliest things. They really look more like Siamese tomatoes but not just 2 but like 4 tomatoes all connected at the stem.

Baby Box Elder bugs are back.
The Elephant Man Pumpkin

Although I have never seen such huge pumpkins in my life I still find I'm rather disappointed that my image of 8 foot tall pumpkins was just a delusion. I seem to have alot of those.
It was desperado day ... that is I was cleaning out my closet after school. I actually have a floor in there! That was the neatest thing I found. Eleanor ran across Galadriel's "boots" from after her brain surgery and thought they were the "coolest" (mis-matched) boots she ever saw and what grand noise she could make with one of them. Galadriel wasn't so keen on trying them on for size.

Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Happy Feast of the Birth of Our Blessed Mother.
So far as I know the Church only celebrates 3 births (everyone else is it generally their death that is celebrated). We celebrate Our Lord of course on Christmas and Our Lady, today, September 8, both of course who were conceived without sin. We also celebrate the Birth of St. John the Baptist who was purified in the womb of his mother during the Visitation, when Mary visited Elizabeth.

Prayers Please

Please pray for friends of ours.... actually, the friends we just went to the zoo with a bit over a week ago. Their sweet 12 year old Teresa has what they believe to be "optic pathway glioma". Full results are not in yet. This is a beautiful traditional Catholic family, strong in Faith but we all know what kind of test of Faith these times of crisis are, so please keep them in your prayers.

September 5, 2010

Harvesting

Sweet Pickle Relish
I wonder why I never thought to use a food processor before? It's a whiz esp for something like sweet pickle relish that requires alot of fine chopping.

After it is all chopped you add salt. Don't ask why there is no lable on the salt, my children have a thing for removing labels. Fortunately we usually store it in a tupperware container so it doesn't really matter. Just in case you were wondering how we store salt...

Then you cover it with cold water to soak for 2 hours.

Meanwhile we harvested our basil and I went to work making pesto sauce.

Pesto sauce is delicious over hot pasta but it is a good idea to invest in some altoids mints to help mask the garlic!

This is 3 batches of pesto and...
3 batches of sweet pickle relish.
Great on a burger, hot dog or brat.

Aragorn said he wanted marshmallows in his hot cocoa.... have you seen these kinds of giant marshmallows? They are huge. We are trying to get around to roasting the giant marshmallows down by the giant pumpkin patch.... just for the effect.

I have said before, it is unwise to leave a camera lying about when a husband is around.
I'm a crank pot.... and you would be too if you had 4 teeth pop out all at once!!!

More of Not Much

Before
After
You wouldn't believe what it is like to cut his hair.

Where's Poppy?! After a brief panic, my children like to do that to me, we found her here. One can go to sleep anywhere if one has a blankie and a thumb.
Merry was our worst, he would fall asleep in the most unusual spots.


Last Sunday we had a nice time with Aragorn's family out at his #7 sibling's house. We trekked over to a local lake for some boating... well, I stayed on good ol' terra firma. To protect the camera shy I erased their heads



Poppy did go out in a boat for about 1 minute to which he screamed her head nearly off with fright so she was promptly brought back to safe havens. Bilbo took her place and loved it.

The children went tubing, but I don't think this was part of our group, motor boats all look the same to me but you get the idea.

Some of us went back early to #7's house.

When you have your 10th baby you simply don't have baby toys.... or any toys.... with batteries so I don't think Poppy has ever heard one. When this one started talking to her she jumped. Of course it only took about 10 seconds before she realized she could make lots of noise and enjoy it. Babies like that you know.... moms don't. And the really nice thing about toys with batteries? The batteries run dead. The really nice thing about toys with little chips in them that last forever.... they don't like the microwave.... of course that might be way our microwave died....

3 of the 4 baby cousins.

Miss Dilectability


Poppy for some reason likes to torment her baby girl cousin. Methinks she is just envious of that lovely crop of hair.


Then there was a nice little be-earlied birthday cake for Poppy.... who turns one soon.


Each time I drive out the driveway I look at this monument that I am sure Sam strategically placed by the woods. Any ideas what this may be? Of course it has been sitting there for over a month....... so who knows. I never seem to remember to ask.
You know you are materialistic when you buy this cute tiny little compact umbrella to have handy and the first time it rains you bemoan the fact that you have to get it wet........

You probably cannot really see the plague of giant dragon flies in the picture but I kid you not, we had just hundreds flying over us. Any other locals see this?

The children of course, who had come in screaming that I just had to come out and see this and don't forget the camera (dragon flies are not photogenic) were trying to catch them. One even got a tennis racket to help in the endeavor.... I guess that's the 2nd best when you don't have a butterfly net handy...
Sam took this opportunity to behead the sunflower, ever see one so big? It is 18 inches in diameter.... though we know a man who had one get to 27 inches in diameter.



I love a good storm! And it's a good thing as we've had plenty this summer. The other day we got 5 inches of rain.... in one day. That is like 5 feet of snow. I sure hope we don't get 5 feet of snow in one day, we'd probably be here til spring.

We usually wait til birthdays for any gifts the children get but come on... this is #10...

Daw-wee.

September 4, 2010

The Holy See


Cluster Maps is about to archive all the hits to my blog. I'm not a "hits" person, I'm really just curious where on the globe people come from. But my intense pride sky-rocketed when I saw this

Holy See (Vatican City State) (VA)

I am thoroughly enjoying living in the delusion that the Pope visited here. I've been waiting patiently for an email from him asking me to have "coffee"* with him in Rome. I'm sure he's just very busy right now.
*I have never actually ever had a cup of coffee so this is just a figure of speech

September 1, 2010

What Can I Say?

Pippin: Mommy, I really like you.... you are a very beautiful woman!

You know what they say "Out of the mouths of babes!"

chuckle