Bowling and Baseball

These are Jackson's two favorite sports right now. He absolutely loves bowling and is just as passionate about hitting things with a bat. Here are some pics from a recent night at the bowling alley:

That's a six-pound ball...

Aren't those shoes adorable?

Check out this look he gave Dad... obviously not into having his picture taken!


Here he is waiting very patiently for his ball to make its way down the alley...

And here he's discovered that it's almost more fun to hit Legos off of the tee than his baseball. I promise he's not always running around in a diaper. He had just come out of the pool and it was almost bath time. :)

Boise and Back Home

Just sharing some pictures from our last week in Boise (until the end of August). We hung out at the mall a few times, and as you'll notice from the pictures we have another baby who does not enjoy sitting still in the stroller. We always have to wear Emmett in the baby carrier when we go places like this. It works out okay, though - since my purse is usually so huge it can ride in Emmett's seat.

On yet another scorching day we went to the local reservoir to play in the *freezing* water. Lucky for me, Phil sat in the freezing water with Jackson while I sat under a shady tree enjoying the breeze with Emmett. Those Canadian geese were everywhere around the lake and very tame.

Jackson has started attempting to make a "cheese" face. We've been trying everything to get him to smile at the camera - with little success. Sometimes he will say cheese and scrunch up his face like this, though. And for the record, he did have a swimsuit on... I took this picture right before we left to go home. He was in the process of being changed into dry clothes. :)

Right before we left Boise we went out to eat with some friends at Red Robin. YUM! They have great burgers, and since it's such a kid-friendly restaurant it makes for a very relaxed dining experience for Mom and Dad. You can barely hear our kids when/if they start to fuss because it's already noisy in there. Jackson had mac and cheese with broccoli and wolfed it down. I love how the bib is clearly doing its job in these pictures.

Another "cheese" face...

And back home, after a painful 8-hour drive through the middle of nowhere, Emmett got to enjoy some time in his jumpy seat. He is so smiley all the time! That's quite the double chin, don't you think?

And finally, here's Jackson enjoying his pool in the backyard. All the water we experienced over in Boise has made him love pools and water of any kind, or any temperature. Our water out of the hose is really cold, but he sure loved soaking himself with it! I took way too many pictures of this, but he was so cute that I couldn't resist. You can click on any of the pictures to see them bigger - his facial expressions in some of them are priceless!

Oh, and just for the record - Phil and I did absolutely nothing to make our garden grow like it did. We basically haven't touched it (aside from weeding a tiny bit) since we planted the veggies back in May. We must have really good soil. I didn't want anyone thinking that it was our gardening skill that caused the plants to explode like that. :)

Organic Overload

Remember the garden that we so lovingly planned out and planted back in May?

Oh, how I had such a wonderful vision in my head of my perfect little garden! I pictured the precious little plants growing at a nice, steady rate and taking up just as much room as I had planned for them. Obviously, we are total amateur gardeners and I am quite a dreamer, because when we got back from Boise yesterday this is what we saw:

AAGGHH!! Those are herbs in the front (one big overlapping bush of mintparsleybasilcilantro. The poor rosemary and thyme are completely covered up, but still alive and doing quite well, surprisingly). Raspberries are right next to the herbs against the house and are okay. Shallots and cucumbers are totally smushed in between the herbs and the lettuce that has bolted, which is next to the bare spot where the spinach used to be. It bolted earlier in the season and I ripped it all out before we left for Boise. The little onions in the middle got a lucky spot in the garden and avoided being overrun by herbs and this mess below:
That's crazy, ginormous rhubarb, zucchini, butternut squash, and yellow squash. Sugar snap peas are growing up on the fence and out into the grass. The squash leaves are completely covering up four pepper plants, but somehow we still have peppers growing on them. I didn't even bother to take a picture of the tomatoes, but you can just imagine how crazy they are. I am going to enlist the help of a friend who grew up here (and has a nice, organized garden at her house) to help me get this jungle under control and plan for next year. Do you think we might need a bigger space and a better plan? Whew!

On the plus side, even though it looks pretty crazy, at least everything is thriving! We have lots of healthy veggies out there. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to enjoy them like we thought because we've been (and will be) gone so much this summer. I guess it's good that we planted this "test" garden this year so that next year when we're home all summer we can enjoy a better one.

Here's a look at a squash that we harvested today. He looks kind of wart-y and may not be edible, but we'll see.

Sweetness

I was doing laundry in the hallway yesterday and I heard Jackson out in the living room say, "Hi!" to someone. I went out there to investigate and he was leaning over the bouncy seat kissing Emmett. So sweet!

Later, we were all on the air mattress bed together and Jackson put his stuffed George's face on Emmett and made kissing noises. So cute!

Today while we were on a run, Emmett started to fuss and Jackson reached over to the other side of the stroller and held his hand. So wonderful!

And speaking of sweetness...


... I could seriously just eat them up. :)

Practicing Names

For the grandparents' viewing pleasure...