Our Harvest

Now, this is a few weeks late, but I just was slow to get the pictures uploaded from my camera. In July, right after we returned from our Family Reunion in Canada, we came home to our wonderful Harvest!! I do NOT have a green thumb.

In fact, when I had Chunky Monkey in the hospital, my sweet mother brought me flowers. They were not cut flowers, it was a potted plant. A week or two after we got home from the hospital, I cried because I had let the plant die, then tried to overwater it to bring it back. It looked sad...very, very sad. I felt such guilt I just wanted to cry. I tried for over a month to revive it, but my efforts were not good enough. My mom came over, and I showed her the mess I had made. I told her I didn't know what to do, and I'm sorry that I let her plant die. She started laughing and siad it was fine and just to throw it out. I still bad.

Anyway, back to the garden. I really was hoping for maybe one tomato, and one cucumer. Just something...anything to show that I had tried. And in June we had out first Cucumber. We also had a few cherry tomatoes.

When we got home from our trip, we had a whole bowl!!! Tomatoes, Cucumbers, and Zuchinni!!!

We now have Green Peppers and Jalapenos, too. I love eating our fresh vegetables every day! I made stir fry last night with a little of everything and a little chicken and it was WONDERFUL! I love it!. Next year, we'll be a bit more daring a plant a few more things.

The Pitter Patter

So, when I named my blog, I just liked the idea of the Pitter Patter of little feet...my children's little feet, because that's kindof the stage of life that we are in right now. Tonight I was watching the Olympics and surfing the web while Hikari is out playing Basketball ( Wednesday nights are his ball nights). And from behind, I hear the Pitter Patter of little feet. Our floors our laminate wood, and I really think that Munchkin doesn't think we can hear her. She peaks around the hallway and waits till I notice that she is there. "mommy, I have to go potty." ( BTW we are SUCCESSFULLY night potty trained for one whole week with no accidents!) Alright, go ahead and then go back to bed. She had tried my patience earlier in the evening, and she knew I was quite upset with her. A few minutes later, a few more pitter patters..."mom, I just want to give you hugs. I very love you!!"

Those are the Pitter Patters that I love. As upset as I got with her, she still comes back to tell me she loves me. What more can a I Mom ask for!

My Baby Boy-3 months old

Well, my baby boy, our Chunky Monkey is 3 1/2 Months old now! Wow time flies. He is growing so fast! I remember when we took Munchkin to get her 3 month pics. She screamed the whole time. But oh, they got some cute pics.

Family

We just got back from a Family Reunion in Canada this week. We decided a few months ago that we were going to rent a mini-van rather than drive our car for two reasons. One-we knew it was going to be extremely tight with all the stuff we needed for Chunky Monkey-Portable Crib, Stroller, Lots of diapers, pumping stuff, extra clothes-and our trunk barely fits the stroller alone. The second reason was that in order to feed my baby, I would need to sit next to him, and try as I might, I could not get in the back seat with the baby's car seat, Munckin's car seat and my hips. Anyway, we went to pick up the car, and they were out of mini vans. Now, I'm still trying to figure out how they give away all their mini vans when it was reserved in February. Any ideas?? So we ended up with a Nissan Armada. It was an SUV, which I was not excited about, because I wanted better gas mileage than SUV's typically get, but it did alright. (between 17 & 20 mph, depending on wether we were in the mountains or not)When we walked out to the car, it didn't have a license plate. It still had temporary plates. It was brand-spanking new! 2009, 117 miles on it. It also kept a log of drive time: 37 1/2 hours of driving! I honestly thought that driving that long with two children was going to be a challenge, but they were amazing! They both did so good. We're home, and a bit tired, but we had a great time.

We went up to Kicking Horse resort in Golden, BC. It was beautiful. Hikari's uncle was so generous to have the entire family up there. I think they said it was over 300 people. There were so many fun activities to do and family to meet. There are so many people in Hikari's family that I had only heard stories about and it was fun to meet them all.

They have a bear enclosure up the hill. You can see it from the gondola up to the top of the mountain, or you can take the chair lift to the enclosure and get out and look for the bear. I never saw it but Hikari did. He got really close they got lots of pictures. Then it started to downpour and the shut the lift down, so him and his Brother in Law had to walk down. Luckily a maintenance guy went and brought them down in his truck so they didn't get too soaked.
We went up in the Gondola and it was such a beautiful view. Munckin wanted to get a lot closer to the edge than I was comfortable with. The first day that we went up, the clouds were so low that you couldn't see the car behind you until you got up through the cloud cover.

Hikari had the opportunity to go see the sights from a helicopter! It was supposed to be Heli-Hiking, but the weather was questionable, and they didn't want anyone to get stuck and the helicopters not be able to get them. So the kids and I watched him take off and he had a wonderful 15 minutes in the air going in and out of canyons

And this was just in the first day! More to come...

Nine weeks and piano

Well, today Chunky Monkey is 9 weeks old! He has found is smile, and I absolutely love it!! It still takes some prodding at times, but there is nothing better then having his eyes light up and his cheeks go all squishy, just for me!!

And I finally did it. I've been teaching piano to my neices and nephews for about 3 years now (I taught them piano and they watched Munchkin while I was working). As Munchkin has gotten older, she has sat and played on the piano more and more. She loves the preset songs and the recorded primary songs I put on there. (We have a Clavinova, which is a digital piano. It feels like a piano, and it looks like a piano, but it is a keyboard with voices and recording and stuff...I love it!) She will sit at the piano and say "I'm going to pactice!" (Her r's are still not there! It's so cute!) So yesterday, I decided that it was time. I was going to try piano lessons.

She was thrilled!!! She sat there for 20 minutes and did everything I asked her to. And afterward she said, "Mom, that was so much fun!" She practiced three more times, and then when dad came home, she showed him everything she had learned and she was so proud of herself. I was really hesitant to do piano lessons with her, because I wasn't sure if she would really focus, or if it would just be play around time with mom. But for now, it's working wonderfully. I guess we'll see how long that lasts!

Chunky Monkey's Blessing

Last Sunday was Chunky Monkey's Blessing. It was so nice to be surrounded by all of our family and to share that experience with them. We also were blessed to have two of the great grandparents there as well. While we here getting CM ready, Munchkin was helping me put lotion on him, and we talked about what was going to happen. She was so excited that he was going to get a special blessing from Daddy. She got really sick over conference weekend this year with the flu, and Daddy and his friend came and gave her a blessing, so she remembered what it was like. He is six weeks old this week. I can't believe how fast time flies. He's so alert, learning what we sound like and taking in everything. And don't you just love that clean baby smell!!!

His little cousin L was born 2 1/2 weeks after him, and they are both just so cute! Thanks to my SIL Chrissy who took this darling picture of the sleeping babes!

Chunky Monkey

One day, I called Baby brother Chunky Monkey, (as he has taken very well to breastmilk and has gained weight in all the right baby places) and Munchkin thought that was the funniest thing, and has now reverted to calling her brother Chunky Monkey. So that is his blog name. She is such a good big sister and she loves him so much. She loves to hold him, but gets bored and tries to sneak out from under him without me noticing, rather than tell me that she's done. There is still a little learning to do!