T.P.

So, Kate is not my first baby to discover the toilet paper roll. She is, however, my first baby to rip to shreds all of the paper that she has pulled off of the roll. She has done this twice now. Fortunately, both times the roll was about gone so there was not much material to rip...

The first offense. While there was not much on the roll, she literally ripped everything that she pulled off the roll. It is noteworthy to mention that she did this in less than 2 minutes, and that I was right in the next room putting away laundry. Go Kate.

The second offense. You will notice that there is more paper off of the roll this time, though not as many tiny pieces for Mommy to sweep up. Thanks Kate.

*In looking trough our picture archives, I found this one of Rachael and her discovery of the toilet paper roll. Notice that she is more of an unroller, and less of a ripper.

PB & J

Is there anything as yummy as a peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwich? Oh, I don't know, maybe peanut butter and honey or peanut butter and apple butter. How about good old peanut butter and grape jelly? All of these options have been consumed by yours truly lately, and I say they are all simply delicious.

What's so great about a PB&J you say? Well, as a kid I thought it was fine. In high school, I started to notice a sensitivity to peanut butter that got so bad I found I had to avoid it completely. They say once you get your major *food allergies/sensitivities in check you can eat things that you couldn't eat before. Turns out they were right. Isn't that fun? Of course, since I can eat peanut butter, that also means that I can eat various and sundry candies containing peanut butter if they also happen to be gluten free. For the record, Reese's Peanut Butter cups and Snickers bars fit into this category. How I survived 15 years without eating these delectable morsels is beyond me.

*For those of you that don't know, I had to go gluten free three years ago. We discovered my girls did too. Poor Chris is the lone gluten consuming person in the house. He is hoping Kate will be normal like him. Of course, normal in our house is gluten free, so I guess he is hoping she will be abnormal like him.* :)

Canning

I love canning. This week I had the opportunity to can some 54 jars of scrum-didilly-umptious peaches. Home canned fruit is far and away better than the store bought variety. A good friend taught me how to can when she and her husband were living here for medical school. That was seven years ago, and with the exception of one off-year due to moving and pregnancy, I have canned every year since. (Ironically, the friend that taught me how to can had just moved across the country and she was just as pregnant as I was in the off-year previously mentioned. However, I am just not as turbo as she is. Plus, at the time she was like 22 and I was 30 in the off year. BIG difference.) On behalf of my family and my pocketbook, I thank you Kim for teaching me such a useful skill. I think of you and Grandma Blackham every time I can peaches. Or pears. Or anything else I am canning. Except for when I am canning apple butter. Then I think of my mom.

Visit with Dad

On one of his recent call nights things were kind of slow, affording Chris time for a visit from his 4 favorite girls. We took him some dinner and got to eat and visit for a little while. This was really nice and helped break up the time apart. It also got the girls a soda as a special treat from Daddy. Rachael thought it might be fun to snap some shots in Chris's white coat. *Kate was too busy crawling all over the lobby to stop for a picture. =)