Garden Bounty

 We've had a garden for many years, but this year we are putting a little more effort into the project. Most evenings we go outside and pick the garden- right now we have yellow squash, zucchini, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, chard, shallots, scallions, raspberries, and blackberries.

 Sprout loves to eat the fresh tomatoes, but her favorites are the berries. She has started picking the berries herself and when that isn't enough she helps herself to the contents in the bowl.

A picture of the master gardener. To his credit, this is the best garden we've had.

Strolling

Since becoming a big sister, Elena has a new interest in dolls and all the paraphernalia needed in baby care. She is now the proud owner of a doll stroller which she acquired by being successful in using the potty. She likes to run around the house with her pushing her doll at top speeds, usually on two wheels.

 Now the big question- how long before she decided to take Marcus for a ride?

6 weeks

We've been a little behind with the blogging duties. This is a picture of Marcus and Papa.

 Nana sharing her dinner with Sprout.

 Marcus is past the 6 week point, but these are from then. He's smiling, cooing, and can roll over front to back, but never when the camera is handy.

He likes his bath, is sleeping better at night, and is still getting adjusted to his big sister waking him up from his naps.

Bad Girfy!!!!

 

Lately we have been establishing consequences for Sprout when she misbehaves. The process goes something like this: 1) Sprout misbehaves. 2) Sprout gets 2 minutes in her "time out" chair 3) We talk about how she made "bad choices."

Sprout had one particularly bad moment, so after step 1, Karen swatted/spanked her. This was the first time she was ever spanked. Fast forward one day. Karen watched as Sprout spanked Girfy, then told him, "Bad Choices" and put him in time out.

 Sprout never divulged what egregious act Girfy took part in, but it must have been REALLY bad.

Silver Bullet

Like most toddlers, Sprout doesn't like strangers. Strangers are defined as anyone she sees less than once/week. For example, she goes to school once a week. If Miss Jamie leaves early and someone else takes over, she meets me at the door with all of her stuff, ready to run out the door. If Miss Jamie works the entire day, I have to drag her out of the place.

Unfortunately, Uncle Kory falls into the stranger category... Until now. This evening we were watching a crop duster (Sprout loves airplanes) when UK showed up with a big tub of raspberries. Initially she gave him the stink-eye until I handed her one of the raspberries. After that, well, she had a new best friend. She managed to cram 5-6 berries in her mouth at a time until we finally had to leave to put her to bed. Well played Uncle Kory.

Uncle Kory's next trump card: the water park at the YMCA. Stay tuned for an update.

Quit Helping Me!!!

Since Karen has not been sleeping much lately, Sprout and I have been trying to help her out. Last night, I decided to wash the crusty grill basket. Stuff was really baked on it, so I used a brush to jam charred stuff through the wire mesh. Once the basket was nice and shiny, I noticed that my technique scattered a mess all over. The conversation which followed went something like this: Me: Wow, that made a mess. Karen: Are you referring to the sink, the counter, the window, or the floor?

Earlier in the day yesterday, I left to visit my parents. While I was gone, Karen heard Marcus wake up and start crying. Then Sprout said "Marcus crying" like she often does. When Karen turned around, she saw Sprout carrying Marcus into the kitchen! At 12 lbs, he is nearly half her weight! I can only imagine what the scene looked like, but I do know how Sprout "hugs" the cats (sorry for the crappy photo, I took it with my phone).

Dad's Surgery

Most of you probably know that my dad underwent a double bypass surgery last week. I didn't blog about it earlier, because Karen wouldn't let me. Turns out she takes HIPAA seriously. Anyway, he is home now, doing well, and Mom is in the market for shackles so she can tie him down and keep him from overdoing it.

One Month

 Marcus has reached the one month mark. He is in the 75th percentile for height and weight and is weighing in at almost 11 pounds. He still cat naps, likes to snuggle and is starting to like his swing. Dislikes include bath time, the hours between 7-10 in the evening, and diaper changes.

Elena is a helpful sister. Here she is reading Marcus a book. She also likes to "push" him in the swing; maybe that's why he's not to fond of it?

Kid Pictures

Certain people have been hounding me to post more baby pictures. I call her Mom. Anyway, we took the kids in for professional pictures today, so I now feel obligated to post a few. Even the pros have a hard time getting two kids to cooperate, so I had to post my favorite bad photos first.

.

We tried to get a photo of Elena giving Marcus a kiss. Most of them turned out like this:

We took almost 200 pictures. Marcus had his eyes open in ONE of them. He mostly slept the rest of the time, saving up his energy for whenever Karen wants to sleep.

Elena was not very cooperative until I pulled out the skittles-at which point she did pretty much anything we asked her to do...Then she ran laps around the studio and jumped on every single chair they had. Here are some of the other good pics.

Funny Story:  Elena used the bathroom at the studio, but almost fell in, so I we brought in the portable potty in anticipation of the next 'event.' As we were sorting through pictures at the computer, we weren't watching her very carefully. We heard a thunk and turned around to see that she had her pants off and was sitting on the potty in the lobby of the studio!

Garden Update

I have really been getting into gardening this year. My new obsession is driven by the fact that I spent the spring at home waiting for Marcus to arrive, and we like eating fresh produce, so we're focusing more on a three-season garden. Anyway, here is a view of our garden.

 I think I got a little carried away with zuccinni and yellow squash. This is two days' harvest. If any of you have recipes for these, I'm all ears because we're already getting sick of them.

 Here is my beloved garlic. I harvested 30 bulbs yesterday. This is my second year growing garlic and my first real success. I learned a bunch about garlic last fall at a "Green Team" presentation at work. Hard-stemmed garlic is totally the way to go.

 Of course with gardening, you will have failures. We planted beautiful peppers started by a doctor Karen works with. The next day we had high winds, so our pepper plants are just stems now. I'm affraid to ask Dr. Ollie for more peppers because I think he would be upset that we let his babies suffer like this.