Tomatoes!

i harvested these tomatoes last week. 

i still have half of them sitting in a bowl on my counter.. 

i think it's time to figure out what to do with them.. 

Peaches, Peaches & More Peaches!!

ya... those peaches we picked.. those 40 lbs of peaches.

they were amazing.

but boy was i exhausted by the time i was done with all of these.

but it will all be worth it when we open a jar of peaches in the middle of January.

 

 

 

 

 

these were the first batch of peaches...

after putting them in hot water to peel off the skins, i sliced and diced and threw them in a bucket of lemon water.

 

first batch of delicious peaches!

and then i made some peach jam!

 

and some peach lemonade which my family slurped down the entire pitcher in two days.

 

and some ice cream.

 

 

however, i think my kitchen was too warm and my ice cream maker warmed up too quickly so my ice cream didn't get that cold, but i just threw it in the freezer to harden up.

 

 

my end loot... my two batches of canned peaches and a batch of jam.

 

after deciding that i was tired of making a bunch of stuff, i sliced up the rest and froze them for later!

 

lots of peaches... peaches for me.

Medford trip!

so we took off and went down to visit my mom in Medford.

we had a great time.. as always.

 

here's just some pics from my phone that i snapped during our 6 day vacay!

 

 

 

bub & i at a local winery that mom & mike took us to, with a beautiful view!

 

mini golf.... after bumper boats. ha.

 

after i was attacked at bumper boats.

although... rowan got pretty wet too ;)

 

movie date!

 

this was from our trip to the redwoods.

this was just so sweet to me... :)

i've always wanted a tree... and now he gave it to me.

 

more pics to come later on that trip!

 

pit stop at a peach orchard on our way home.

i loved it.

i'd never picked a peach before.

and then we ended up picking 40 lbs.

woohoo!

 

so beautiful.

it was warm and it smelled delicious.

like an orchard full of juicy ripe peaches.

 

where can i sign up to go again next year?!?

seriously.

why is she so cute?

 

 

she is obsessed with this flower in her hair. she wears it all the time.

i love watching her play like this. pretend. with her wonderful and big imagination.

and one day i will miss this.

so for now... i love it. i sit. i watch. i smile.

 

 

this goober.

it was so warm in the house and she decided to wear this. for HOURS.

crazy girl.

Adoption Photo Book... finished!!!

WHAT?!??!?!

 

 

yes. it's true.

 

we seriously finished our photo book and our birth parent letter!!!

 

the relief. the excitement.

 

for real. it's such an amazing feeling having that done. it's been looming over our heads for months!

 

we have sent it to our caseworker to review, but I think that we followed the guidelines pretty well and don't expect to have to fix much of anything!

 

we've also had some other things come up and have a new to-do list.

thankfully the biggest thing we are dealing with has to do with doctors & insurance. i know.

a total headache. but everything else is pretty simple and easy peasy.

 we shall push on and get everything done... SOON!!

 

woooohoooooo!

what.a.week.

boy this past week and a half has been busy. and tiring.

but we got through it!

 

I bought 32 pounds of strawberries! for 8 bucks... ohhh yeah.

even thought I ended up having to throw away almost a whole flat due to mold, this was an amazing deal and I was running out of ideas of what to do with all of these strawberries.

 

I tried a new jam recipe.. fieldberry.. with strawberries, some blackberries we picked from down the road and some raspberries from Costco.

I ended up doing two batches of strawberries in the dehydrator, making a bunch of jam, freezing a bunch more for smoothies later and throwing away some others.

 

rowan was sick for a week and a half... still recovering.

we ended up in the urgent care twice in 5 days.

she had a fever for 8 days. a high one.

first visit included an hour and a half wait ( way less than the 8 hours at the ER on post) and a diagnosis of a cold, cough, and the start of an ear infection in one ear.

thankfully she didn't complain of any ear pain.

 

the second visit was after she had been on antibiotics for 3-4 days and her fever wasn't going away and she wasn't feeling any better.

our total wait was about an hour, on a Saturday late afternoon, and the diagnosis was that the antibiotics weren't working and full blown ear infections in both ears.

poor rowan.

she had lost weight from her visit just 5 days before because her appetite had vanished.

new antibiotics prescribed!

 

she was in pretty good spirits even though she was very tired much of the time.

 

doctor ordered: milkshakes!

pretty much anything that we could get her to eat.

she is doing much better now.

saw the doctor today, ear infections are still there, but are getting much better!

and her fever is gone and she is back to eating!

 

 

side note: I got my first red tomatoes!!! yippeeeee!

hoping to have a few to bring down to my mom's!

 

today I had to take rowan into the doc's to get a sports physical.

she said "I was worried I might get cold"

she's a smart cookie I tell ya.

she wore that fuzzy warm hat the whole time.

in 80 degree weather.

 

my man. got a mohawk.

 

block leave!!! 26 days off to spend with us!!

 

so do you think he's getting ready for civilian life??

where no one tells him how he has to cut his hair?? ..

short timers, i'd say.

 

Busy!

these past couple of days have been busy!!

 

we've had some last minute assignments to do for our home study.

a few updates on things that we have already done: like car insurance cards, informing our case worker of some issues brought up to see if we have completed them to foster home licensing code.

 

good news! we are almost done with our photo book!! we are about half way done with our birthparent letter which is going to be put into our photo book and then we can get them printed! as soon as the letter is done.

 

we also have some last minute paperwork to do that we forgot about. some for the foster home licensing packet: acknowledging rules & regulations, issues to consider in child placement part 2, etc.

 

and some last minute things to buy and get ready around the house: fire extinguisher, diaper changing "station", lock up medicines, finishing touches on the baby's room.

 

bubba is officially on block leave! so he will have the next 26 days off... yay!

 

we have a lot to get done in this time.. he has to finish his college course, and he has already started another one.

he has a treehouse to build. one he has promised to rowan.

finish everything for the home inspection!

get ready for kindergarten!

and I start school again in the next couple of weeks.

plus we are making a trip to Medford to my mom's!

 

we are so excited to be in this place.

 

I was really hoping for an earlier date, but with everything going on I think that this is best.

 

these last few weeks of summer are going to fly by!

Writing a Birthparent Letter

is tough.

 

we sat down tonight to work on our letter.

the letter to our future child's biological parents.

whoa!

 

finding the balance.

what to include.

we do have a list from our agency of what we should include in our letter.

we've searched online for some examples.

searched inside of us for answers.

 

balance.

 

making sure it sounds like us.

includes things that we want them to know.

 

not to exceed our page limit in our book.

 

uffda.

we can do this.

 

We've got a date.

September 5th!!

 

that's the date. the date of our home inspection. the last big step left for our home study!

 

yahoooo!!!

Finally!

some news!!

 

i emailed our case worker on Tuesday night and expressed my concern for still not hearing back about our background clearances.

and wondering why it was taking sooo long.

and if there was a phone number or person i could contact regarding them, to find out why in the world it was taking so long.

 

she's awesome and called me the next morning!

 

GOOD NEWS!!

 

she explained to me that bubba's clearances had come in last week!! eekkk!!! exciting!

BUT.. that mine had also come in from Colorado and Washington, but NOT Oregon. bummmmmer.

 

but she made a phone call for me and talked to a lady who she will keep in contact with if my Oregon clearance doesn't come back in the next 2 weeks.

and our case worker also said that being as we have almost all of them in, that she feels comfortable scheduling our home inspection!

 

can you believe it? because i can't!!

we are actually moving forward.

 

at this rate we hope to have everything done and be in our "waiting & matching" period by the end of September!

 

fingers crossed!

Beets!

rowan has been sick for 5 days now. poor girl. 104 fever, throwing up, ear infection and a trip to the urgent care.

hoping soon that her fever will break.

in the meantime.. it's been hot and miserable. too much for this PACNW girl.

and with roe being sick, she gets needy. and wants to lay on me. like on top of me. like a blanket.

can't wait for this heat to coooooool down.

 

so i popped out into the garden real quick earlier.

and picked my first beets!! woo hooo!!

so i cooked them up for dinner.

still haven't changed my mind.. don't like them.

and neither do the hubs or roe.

 

so i suppose the rest of them will be canned up into pickled beets for everyone else to enjoy!

 

 

they are soooo pretty though aren't they. such a deep red color. i am amazed when i cut into them and so that rich color through and through.

 

i finally have my first tomato turning red!

 

a rose.. too ripe to cut, but a pretty sight.

 

and this is what happens when you don't harvest your lettuce.

because the spiders and grasshoppers are all in it.

and then you neglect the side of the garden. and you get a 4 foot tall lettuce tower.

awesome.

 

please ignore the asparagus that has gone to seed, the blackberry bush growing in from the neighbors yard and all the weeds. :)

 

Yard Sale - Adoption Fundraiser:: Results!

 

we did it! we successfully has our very first yard sale!

and while some of our semi-big stuff was still leftover and we didn't get the kind of crowd we had hoped for... we still ended up raising:

 

$199.25!

 

 

we were thrilled with the results! our first goal was $250 and we thought that would be fantastic, but a realistic goal was $200.

after the crowd and day we had -- i thought if we made $125 we would be doing good.

but we did make our goal!!! well 0.75 short, but we were so thrilled we were high-fiving like crazy.

yay!!

  

 

and of course... who could resist this cute face/!?

 

bub and i were so shocked when we helped her count her total:

a whopping::

 

$20.52!!

 

bub said that he kind of hoped she had a lemonade stand before this one where she only made a couple of bucks, so that she would know how awesome earning $20 was!

 

although she did frequently try to "give change" to people who paid in exact.

some were confused, but others understood.

and one man said we needed to keep an eye on her because she's trying to give her money away.

ha!

and even with a high fever, she was out there like a trooper selling her lemonade and goodies.

 

did i mention she has been waiting her whole life to have a lemonade stand??

Garden Update!

here's the latest on my garden adventures!

 

 

this celery is nuts.

i planted it last year from the end of a bunch of celery that i bought from the store.

 

 

my tomatoes and carrots.

the carrots always like to be so sow to germinate. and then only half like to pop up.

 

 

the other tomatoes.

 

 

still waiting for these beauties to ripen.

i've been checkin to find a red one!

 

 

where the broccoli used to be.

can you see my little beet sprouts?!?

a few leftover tomato plants that i put there are slowing growing and surprisingly even have a few tomatoes.

 

 

I've decided that i wont' be growing broccoli or cauliflower ever again.

i'm so grossed out every time i see this nasty little eggs.

they were on every single one of my broccoli plants (just on the leaves)

and now with my few cauliflower plants i left behind they have gotten worse.

i'll be ripping those out soon.

gross!

 

 

I've left the asparagus go to seed again.

for the third time.

i find that each time they seem to grow a little faster!?

either way, i'm hoping that this is encouraging more growth and i will have enough to harvest next year.

 

 

can you see those sunflowers poking out behind the zucchini??

to the right in the picture?  yay!!

 

 

 

lots of flowers!!!

hoping for lots of zucchini to start appearing in the next couple of weeks

 

 

sunflower!

 

 

it's blurry!

this is a good looking beet.

still going to wait a little bit longer.

hopeful for them to get a bit bigger, but again, doubtful because they are all planted so close together.

 

and plus.. i need the hubby to help with it.

because the daddy long legs and grasshoppers love these beet leaves!

In the kitchen

 

rowan and i worked in the kitchen today

working on all those blackberries we picked!

 

 

she loves mashing up those blackberries for some yummy freezer jam!

 

 

she was pretty intense and methodical about it all

 

after we made about 8 jars of jam we had some leftover and i decided to throw it on the dehydrator.

it's still drying and next time i think i will blend it instead of just mashing.

 

i picked up a big bunch of bananas marked down to 0.79 so decided to fill the rest of the trays with those.

my house smells glorious!

 

{iphone pics}