Jocey Ana

I've realized it's a very good thing I'm not a single mom.  For a mulitude of reasons, but the one I realized the other day is that both Calvin and I teach Jocelyn different things.  Some things I wouldn't think of to teach her yet, he does.  He taught her the other day to say her last name!  However, she just thinks it's her last name - no one else's.  He's trying to teach her my name and his name too, but that's not going as well.  We're simply Mama and Daddy!  So, here she is saying her full name.  It's pretty cute. And sorry that most of the videos are in her high chair with food everywhere, but it's the only place I can get her to sit still long enough! 

Eating 'pop' with Daddy

Playing with blocks this morning - she did NOT want her picture taken!

Hammock

I got Calvin a hammock for Father's Day, but it's really turned into more of a family present!  The girls love to play in it, and I love to lay in it and relax...oh wait, I just think I'd like to do that. :)  Jocelyn also loves to play hide and seek - it's her very favorite game.  She'll be silent when she's hiding - one time Calvin even dripped water on her and she didn't make a peep!  However, for some reason when she hides in the hammock she tells us where she is.  Here's a video of her hiding in the hammock.  If you listen closely, she says 'hammock' after I ask where she is (it's a little hard to hear over Ellie's panting).  At the end she says it loud. 

State Fair

Labor Day weekend we made our annual trip over to MN for the State Fair.  Calvin and I started going in 2003 with his sister, Angie, and the crowd has grown ever since!  It was a beautiful weekend, and Sunday was a perfect fair day.  A little cool in the morning, and not too sunny or hot in the afternoon.  Probably why it was so crowded!  We got there around 9:00 and didn't get home until 5:30!  Jocelyn slept in her stroller for a bit so we were able to make it the whole day.  I started out with a headache/stomach ache in the morning (which was probably good - didn't eat too much crap that way) but I felt better as the day went on.  Both girls love the rides, so we spent time there as well as looking at the animals.  I could have used a whole other day to see more stuff, but there's always next year.  We love the fair!   

First meal of the day - scones!  Followed by a gyro!

Jocey went on the giant slide with Grandma and then the merry go round.  She of course thought it was junky that you only got to go once!  What kind of slide can you only go down once?!

Kailee, Angie and Jocelyn on the ferris wheel.  Good thing for aunts, uncles and dads - I HATE fair rides!  In the little kid area they were working on a roller coaster that the track had fallen apart.  The guys are up there pounding it back together.  There were people waiting in line for the ride who watched this, and then got on the ride!  There's no way I'd let my kid (or myself) get on after witnessing that!

She loves donuts!

They have a cute little farm hands area where you go and pretend to feed the chickens, plant crops, etc.  She was a bit young for it - I think in a few years it'll be neat.  She did like wearing the hat and carrying the bucket though.

Calvin and Angie with their corn hats

Kailee, Angie and Adam

Giving the cow a hug.  She talked about this for two days after!

What is a bear doing at the fair?!

She really liked the chickens and geese this year.  Could have stayed in that barn for the whole day!

Calvin, Jocey and Kailee with the huge pig.  Angie actually saw it stand up!  By the time I got over there (mabye 30 seconds) it had already laid back down.  Guess it used up all it's energy!

We came over to Mom and Dad's on Saturday afternoon and when Jocelyn woke up from her nap we went to a park by their house that's huge!  It's all wooden and has lots of tunnels and slides and places to climb. 

Both girls LOVE to spin around.  I got great video of both of them on the tire swing, but it's too long to post.  Now that Kailee's big, Calvin and Dad showed no mercy spinning her around and around!  She held on really good though, and didn't fall out for a good 3 minutes.  Ick - how can a person spin for that long?!  Jocey got on next, and just spun and spun in a tiny circle, but held on by herself and wanted to get back on when she finally fell off too.

First Day of School

Well, Kailee has offically started her last year of elementary school!  She started the Wednesday before Labor Day, and so far seems to like it.  She has 27 kids in her class, 17 of which are girls.  I'm glad I'm not her teacher!  Her teacher seems great - she's really pushing them to be a lot more independent this year, which is great!  This will take Kailee a bit to get used to - responsibility is one of her opportunity areas.  It's amazing to me how much she forgot over the summer - I can understand why year round school would probably be a good thing!  She's doing safety patrol this year in the mornings (I think because they get to go to Valleyfair at the end of the year) and is playing fall softball starting this month.  She continues to be such a wonderful young lady and we enjoy all the time we get to spend with her.  She's a great big sister, and Jocey absolutely adores her.  We are so blessed to have such great kids!

I know these pictures aren't the best, but it was awful enough to get two pictures.  How embarrassing to have your parents take your picture on the first day of school!

Betty/Martha

Since we planted 8 tomato plants this year, we have an abundance of tomatoes.  I like fresh tomatoes, but I don't love them.  So, I tried my hand at canning!  It actually wasn't too hard, just got really hot in the house.  I would never buy produce to can - way easier to buy them - but since we had them, it was fine.  I have more to do tonight - I think I'm going to get smaller jars so it's not so much to use all at once.

The finished product!

The second batch I didn't have time to can, so I decided to freeze them.  Much faster, but I now have no room in my freezer - between these and the zucchini.

And the third thing I did was make jam!  We have quite a few raspberries now, and we got a bunch at one time when we were gone for a weekend.  So I saved some up and made jam last night.  It was way easier than I thought it would be, and we got 7 1/2 jars out of one batch!  I won't have to buy jam for a long time now.

End of summer

I know, I know, it's been quite a while since my last post.  We had such a busy end of the summer that I just didn't have time!  Things have thankfully slowed down now, and we're all able to get a little more time in our day to do things! 

Our garden is almost done now, we're still getting tomatoes and there may be a few more zucchini, but that's about it.  We'll have to figure out what to do with the sunflower seeds as well - there's a lot of them!  I had so much fun with the garden, and am excited to do it again next year - Calvin already has it all planned out for what we'll do differently.  I'd like to add some things and we'll probably not do some things also.  Here's a sampling of our crop!

The sunflowers got way bigger than I thought they would - I was hoping for cute smallish ones.  We'll have to try a different variety next year.

I thought the broccoli was gross (we won't be doing that one again) but Jocelyn liked to eat it raw!

Jocelyn loves raspberries - she's getting better at knowing which ones are ripe and which ones still need some time - they're a little tart!

Here are some random pictures of her playing at the mall's play area.  We didn't go at all this summer, but I'm sure we'll be hitting it up a lot this winter!

Jocelyn continues to be the joy of our lives!  She's really getting big and is putting two words together when she talks - she's even said three words - 'Katie's tiny baby' (my sister's baby is due the end of the month).  She talks pretty much non stop, and totally wears me out!  Everything is 'Mama - what's this?'  or 'Mama!'  which she'll yell louder and louder until I respond.  She's really into reading books lately and will sit by herself for quite a while looking thru them.  She'll finally watch TV now - Elmo is her favorite, but she has a few Baby Einstein videos that she's liked recently too.  That sure makes supper preparation a lot easier for me!  She continues to love her baby dolls, and when I put her down last night she had a baby on one side and her girl on the other, and she was rubbing their backs like I rub hers.  How cute!  She'll drink out of a regular cup now when she's in her high chair, and thinks she's pretty hot stuff that she can do that!  I need to find a gymnastics class for her - she loves to do summersaults and jump and climb on everything!  She's getting a good sense of humor and knows how to tease (she can thank her Daddy for that!).