Saturday: DeSoto State Park

We love visiting De Soto State Park. It's fun now that the kids are young and we're hoping it will be even more fun when they are older and better able to hike. Right now we just stick to swimming, fishing, splashing and climbing.

Don't be fooled by Daughter's independence right here. She spent most of her water time clinging to me and my bathing suit for dear life. (while telling me that she was having fun)

Son is using a different life jacket than Daughter used last year. It fits him better than hers fit her and I think that added to his like of the water. Last summer she screamed and cried in her life jacket. He liked kicking and splashing around.

I always seem to take a picture of this boat house. every trip.

At the bottom of the boat launch. This was Son's favorite spot to crawl around and splash.

Daughter and I trekked to the falls.

Notice, that's her THIRD pair of Doggers this season.

Son discovers.

Daughter climbing back up to the boat launch.

"ta-da"

she climbed the rocks and announced this to a motorcycle gang (not pictured). They thought she was pretty cute.

Husband doing a little casting. Because of Daughter's attention span, no one got to fish for any length of time.

Daughter showing me her casting skills that Husband taught her earlier in the day. (notice the murky mud ... that's important later)

Later.

I was still snapping away and Daughter was still inching closer to the water. She got stuck in the mud and had a momentary intense freak out. We went back to the boat launch to clean off. She got stuck in the mud almost up to her waist.

Still a little mud on her face. But happy. As I was washing her off she told me, "I not scared of mud anymore, Mommy."

Back in the water. I was proud she wasn't interested in getting in the water without her "shark"

Son was getting tired and was completely satisfied to just sit with Husband.

Back down to the bottom of the boat launch. We did a lot of rock climbing up and down.

Daughter and Husband at the bottom of the boat launch.

The little Dutch boy?

dry, changed and running at the play ground.

He just stopped on the stairs to take a break. Son is a silly pickle.

Daughter climbing.

garden update: musk melons, etc.

this is the garden from Friday evening.

First, my helper. My tomato picker. (mostly red tomatoes) She gets confused about the "babies" sometimes and picks big green ones, because surely if they are big they aren't babies -- regardless of color.

Second, the musk melon. It's a Livingston. And we have 3 of them growing. I'm excited about the prospect of more in the near future. We thought this was the only one, but found 2 more under the vines leaves about an hour later.

The tomato plants are heavy with unripe Juliets. On Sunday I actually made and froze my first batch of tomato sauce from what we have picked over the week. (more on that later)

butternut squash ... I'll stop calling it the "mystery vegetable"

two of the Japanese eggplants. I wish the 4 eggplant plants got more sun ... they are mostly overshadowed by the tomatoes. I'll have to work on better plant placement next year.

The onions. because I don't really talk about them much. We've already been cutting some scallions off, most recently for shrimp and grits and egg rolls.

food day friday: "sun dried" (oven actually) tomatoes

There's a sun dried tomato pesto recipe in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle that I've been interested in trying since I first read the book. I just haven't wanted to buy sun dried tomatoes. But now I can make them.

These are the Juliets. They very closely resemble the Roma (which is the most common tomato used for pastes and sun drying ... I did not know this until I started googling how to sun dry tomatoes)

I only did 3 because this was my first attempt and I didn't want to mess up a dozen or so tomatoes.

preheat the oven to 200 degrees.

slice tomatoes length wise

place on a elevated cookie sheet (I used the grate thing on top so the tomatoes wouldn't be touching the cookie sheet (better air flow)

sprinkle with salt

at about hour 3 I had to turn the tomatoes so they wouldn't fall through the cracks. (no, I didn't think of that ahead of time).

total cooking time: 6 hours.

It might have been less if I wasn't opening the oven every hour to check on them.

they were pretty fabulous. This was definitely NOT enough to make the dried tomato pesto, but it was enough for me to want to eat about a dozen more.

Son doesn't hate hats anymore, but he really doesn't like them yet

Neither one of my children liked wearing hats as babies.

They made me "that mom" that was approached my complete strangers inquiring why my children weren't wearing hats. "They'll catch cold ya know. blah blah blah. other things that aren't my business" (I'd like to announce neither of my children have ever had a cold or ear infection or strep throat or flu or other lack-of-hat related illness. thank you very much)

I was/AM much more concerned about them wearing hats in the summer to keep the sun out of their eyes and just give them an extra added layer of protection against the sun.

I wish bald headed SON would wear a hat outside. Even covered in spf 50 from the tips of his ears to the tips of his toes, I would about sun exposure.

We practice in the house. And by that I mean, I give him hats to play with. I wear hats. Daughter wears hats (sometimes). I make up silly songs about how fun and cool hats are. He's coming around, but still not in love with the idea.

"Hi, Muma"

"Sure, Fine. I'll let you put a hat on me. For just a second."

"You better be faster than that if you want a good picture of me wearing a hat."

"Thanks, but I'm finished with this hat for now. Try again later."

The incredible shrinking Dogger

I think the Dogger (purchased at CVS) is a fabulous alternative to Crocs. Plus, I got ours when they were buy one get one half off (regular price $7.99) They are soft and flexible and Daughter can put them on "all by self" perfect.

Now, I would not believe this unless it happened in my own car. Last night we we shopping for a Puddle Jumper for Daughter (we're going fishing and swimming Saturday) and while we were getting the kids out of their car seats, I notice, sitting on the back dash, a Dogger.

A curiously small Dogger.

A weirdly small Dogger.

A Dogger smaller than Son's (size 3/4).

It's navy, like Daughter's pair. And then I remember that hers have been in the car for a few days. What I don't remember is how one of them got on the back dash ... with the sun blazing down on it for days.

The mate was in the floor board right under Daughter's car seat .. non shrunk.

So, without further ado ... the shrunken Dogger alongside the regular Dogger.

observe the weirdness.

side by side

the soles, to prove they were in fact the same size.

craziness.

Wordless Wednesday: heavy reading

the garden: beer and broken babies

It seems like every day this week I've come back from the garden check with tomatoes in my pocket and squash in my hands. very exciting.

this was Friday's haul.

Daughter spent about 20 minutes counting and recounting and triple checking her count.

she was sure the final count was 14.

Saturday, Husband cut the grass and I had the bright idea of instead of just cutting the grass around the mystery vegetable vines (aka butternut squash) that I would hold the vines up off the ground so he could weed eat under them. It was a horrible idea. Two babies broke off the vines. Daughter has been calling the larger one a "ka-wash" and the little one a "baby watermelon" I call them both "broken babies" and vow to never suggest Husband weed eat that close to the garden again!

ALSO, last weekend I noticed the snails ate our first few strawberries and at least two squash! ugh. I'm talking to my mother about it and she suggests I use beer to get rid of them.

Sure, whatever, mom.

Then I start googling and she was right. short of spearing them or picking them myself the safest thing for the garden was to put bowls of beer out in the garden and the snails crawl in and drown. cruel? maybe. less cruel than salt, I think.

So I sacrificed two bottles of red stripe in two pie tins and in the morning ... 8 snails. That means there are 8 fewer snails out in my garden eating my produce.

My friend, Jamie, suggested I just get ducks to eat the snails ... bc the kids would love them. I just laughed and laughed when I read that. I could imagine Son and Daughter running around the yard chasing ducks so they could pet them.

(right now I'm making 18 "sun dried" tomatoes in the oven. Food Day Friday post upcoming on that)

food day friday: blueberry ice cubes

Man, I've gotten a lot more use out of these baby food freezer containers (post baby food) than I ever thought I would!

Put two, three, four (depending on size) blueberries in ice cube trays.

fill with water. freeze.

blueberry ice cubes served with lemonade.

Just in time for July 4th.