Summer Eating and Alternative Baby Entertainment

Can you belive how beautiful this yellow heirloom tomator and purple basil are?

And Makili's newest favorite form of entertainment, riding on scooters and lawnmowers. Here we go! Already?

Beach Nostalgia

We've had some glorious beach days, like this one with Lucy and Amy. I met Amy when I attacked her at the caucus, excited to meet anyone in the area with a baby! We've seen each other a few times, but hopefully more in the future. This day we happened to run into eachother at the beach. And we spent some time watching charming Lucy eat sand. Makili tried to kiss her. Can you blame him?



But as I sit here writing this, I am having a serious bout of Hawaii nostalgia. The weather lately, blissful sunshine, cool breezes, quality of light that hurts, has been bringing in on. And then I turned on Jack Johnson on the Ipod tonight and I seriously got teary, missing another life. Another way of life. Water, wind, sun, kids (that could talk), independence, romance, activity. Climbing waterfalls, jumping through waves, surfing badly. Sweating with the fan in your face. Youth. I'm not complaining. I'm so happy with our life here, but sometimes I do feel the pull for what once was.

TaDa!

This is sweet corn from our garden! A miracle! Seriously. I have learned a lot about growing corn since the May day when I innocently stuck those kernals into the ground. Things like corn is wind-pollinated (who knew and thanks Debbie) and sun makes a big difference (which might explain why our corn patch looks like a commercial for a cell-phone company - you know the ascending bars). BUT, it grew, and while we won't get a lot of corn it IS delicious.
Makili saw me walk in with the shucked corn and made such a stink about eating it that I had to go and pick him an ear, which he sucked every kernal off of. The kid knows what he wants.

Kute Kane.

beach days are winding down

sam's grouchy face which made more sense when he threw up on the way home.

A Blur

The days are whipping by me lately, so full in so many way. My munchkin is officially 14 months old and both charming as hell and a little menace. Some tidbits about him.

He walks, climbs, and tries to run, regularly face plants, but never cries about it. He is suddenly very interested in rocking horses and riding vehicles. He also likes the Little Tikes slide I recently got for him at the used store.

He still nurses pretty frequently, but eats a lot as well. He'd eat anything, but LOVES watermelon, blueberries, and peaches the best. He digs carrots and potatoes too. When he is done eating he mashes his food with his hand and then throws it on the floor. Lovely. He also has a tendency to bite the tops off of avocados or cucumbers, even in the grocery store which isn't cool.

His language has made leaps and bounds lately. He signs more, milk, all done, phone, help, eat, fan, and all the parts of the "wheels on the bus." He also waves hello and goodbye and gives hugs and kisses. He tries to say balloon, blueberry, dada, dog, kitty-cat, broom, and ball. He understands A LOT! He still can sit down, lay down, go see_____, go get______, wheres?, in addition to countless random words.

He sleeps from about 8:00pm to 6:00am, and then naps for about 2 hours at some point in the day.

He loves both his grandmas a lot, but also like lots of other people. He'll pretty much go with anyone who will show him something interesting.

He loves to play jokes, or be surprised. He loves other kids and laughing at them. He also like to make huge messes. Yesterday we played 52 pick-up. He is infatuated with the vacuum and points at it with much worry, though he wants to push our broken little sweeper around a lot and is also infatuated with it.

He has just started whining a lot when he is frustrated which is a little annoying.

Winners and Losers

To start, the winner of contest #2 is Emily!  Thanks for all the comments!  Emily, since you're coming to visit anyway, I'll hold onto your winning jam selection.  It will include my latest batch which is a mix of peach, blueberry and blackberry, called Love Hurts Jam, which I made with homemade apple pectin, which I will post about separately!

And onto other contests.  We participated in our first chowda cook off at the Dumont's house last weekend.  I thought Raph should have won, because his vegetarian clam chowder was SO AMAZINGLY good!  But alas, to all the other tasters (like over 50) there wasn't enough chunks of lobster and clams to make the cut.  In any case, it was super fun.

Sam liked it as you can see!

Camille was in charge of all the administrative aspects, signing people in, handing out the testing sheets, etc.  
Bertrand had his personal accordian accompaniment in Jesse who added a few chords to every important announcement.  Jesse had bought it that day and could already play it.  We got it at a yard sale, and Evan got a Tim and Becky got a fiddle...good day for the Moore clan and instruments.

Nicky was cute as always.


Farm hands on a baby.  Good stuff.
I'm not doing the weekend justice with words, so I hope some of these images convey how awesome it was.  Rhode Island is a magical place, and I'm so glad I get a taste of magic regularly.  It is such a magical mix of stunning place, people who know how to live, and good food!

I turned 30

My day started with a table full of people I care about, scrumptious French toast, fruit salad, and mushrooms we picked wild (my French buddy actually knows which ones!)

Happy Birthday was sung to me in French, and then we spent a little time at the beach.

Makili spent some time with his buddy Sam, whose big eyes light up a room.

Evan and I went to Savers, a terrific thrift store, and then had to come home and relax.

Sam was tired too and had to be rocked to sleep by grandma.
The garden at the Moore's house was beautiful so we played with cucumbers.
Sam REALLY like the cucumbers and gummed them to death.

My birthday ended with pleasant breezes, candles, speed scrabble and friends (while the Moore's watched Makili!) So I'm officially 30. And it didn't even hurt. In fact it was very pleasant. Lovely in fact. I got gifts and what not, but mostly I just had a really great day with friends and Raph and Makili. May they all pass this easily.

In a few short months

These flowers bloomed.Makili learned to walk and build stuff.
Operate a wheel barrow.
This amazing dahila that Sarah and Eric gave us is still blooming.
In April the garden looked like this:
And now this:
In April like this:
Now this: