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. =)

First Day of School

Well, here we are at the first day of school again. The girls are in 4th and 2nd grades respectively. Wow. It is a sobering thought to realize that Morgan is only two years away from middle school. Woah. She is getting old. That must mean that I am too...nah.

Morgan's backpack. This year Morgan decided that she did not want to use her pink bag as she was worried that it might be 'too baby-ish' for 4th grade. This was a bag that Chris got a Plastic Surgery Council Conference. He was not using it and said that Morgan was welcome to it if she wanted it. She was pretty jazzed as it is a little different from the traditional style backpack she had before. It had some embroidery and a sheep patch on it that means something to all the plastic surgeons out there, but just looks kind of creepy to the rest of us. I picked out some of the embroidery with my seam ripper, and covered the sheep patch with this peace sign. It still needed something, and Morgan suggested the bling. It was just what the bag needed. Great idea Morgan!

Rachael's backpack. This is the fourth year that she will be using this bag. Yes, the fourth year. I LOVE Land's End backpacks. They are made so well that they just last. Your child will likely outgrow the bag before it falls apart. (We experienced this with Morgan.) To change it up a bit, we washed it (love the front loader), added some new butterfly patches and a little bling, and voila! New bag. Sort of.

Zoo Trip

After our trip to Arizona, we still had one whole week with Chris home before he had to head back to work. It was pure bliss. We filled it with a few day trips to favorite sites around town. It had been a long time since Chris came to the zoo with us, so we packed a lunch and made a trip of it. So fun.

Outside the manatee exhibit. This is one of our favorite exhibits. (Especially when it is hot outside...)

Kate's first carousel ride. She loved it. It was great to have Daddy there for this first.


Also outside the manatee exhibit. Morgan saw a picture of Rachael like this and could not wait to have me take one of her. Why is this so funny to them? It may have been funny to me when I was under 10.

What's that? Something behind me? You don't say... Okay, maybe it is kind of funny...

Arizona

Every summer we get together with my siblings and their children for some good ol' fashioned family bonding. The summer trip is something that we all look forward to. This is really the only time I have to spend with my sibs as we are spread all over the country. Also, getting together each year has made it possible for my girls to forge some pretty sweet bonds with their cousins; something that would not happen without the annual get-together.This year, we met up at my parents' home in Arizona. It was a BLAST!! We swam, hiked, swam, did some site seeing, swam, ate at In-N-Out, swam, roasted mallows, and we also swam. My parents have a pool (as many do in AZ) and it got used just about every day. My girls couldn't get over the sweetness of going swimming right in the backyard. Here are some of our favorite pics from the 2 weeks in Zona.