Jake Really is Amazing

We met up with Marsha and family at a place called Amazing Jakes.  This place is a huge indoor {small-scale} amusement park.  It's basically Chuck E Cheese on speed.  There are tons of arcade games, a bowling alley, bumper cars, go-carts, a carousel and roller coaster rides.  It was definitely a lot of fun!

Train ride

Olivia rocked this roller coaster twice.  It flew around really fast and then went backwards too.

She rode this one about a half dozen times and LOVED it.

Oh my word.  Sydney had so much fun in this little baby area.  She laughed the whole time!

We will definitely be back.

My Little Duck

Olivia has moved up another level in her swim class!  I am so proud of her.  She loves swimming and does such a great job swimming under the water and diving for her toys.  She could probably swim the length of our pool, but so far has only gone about halfway - to where we can't touch anymore.  It blows my mind!

David is usually the one to take her to swim lessons, but they have both been bugging me to go with them.  It is at the cutest little water park and they like to go early and splash around a bit before practice begins.  I stayed dry and took some pictures on Friday.  {This was the make-up class.}

David says he never has an opportunity to do the slides when he goes with Olivia because she's not big enough to ride on them, so while I sat and watched her, he went down a few times.  I got some great pictures of him landing in the water.  He's such a kid!

Post-goggle eyes and a super fake smile.

Floating down the Lazy River

I'm so glad she loves to swim.  There is no place better to be than the pool when the temperature is in the triple digits for months at a time.  We spent a few hours in our pool yesterday afternoon and it was lovely.

A Pyramid of Pachyderms

   As you well know by now, Olivia is absolutely, positively in love with elephants.  And, since a pet pachyderm is out of the question, we do our best to expose her to as many elephants as we possibly can.  And, although PETA says we shouldn't, we just had to take her to the circus when it came to town.

David got us amazing seats - front row, center.  And, with that, we were able to go down on the floor to see part of the show.  We were all blown away by the performances.  Ringling Bros. and Barnum Bailey Circus really outdid themselves with the Dragon show.  Olivia loved it and I was so surprised at how excited Sydney was...although she only made it through the first half of the show.  Before the show started, there was an all-access show where you could watch and interact with some of the performers.  We were most excited to watch the elephant paint a picture.

I snuck this picture of Olivia on the baby elephant prop.  The actual picture would have cost $24!

Great spot for me to take her picture - right by the women's rest room.

Kelly Ann coming out to paint us a picture!

My little circus baby!

David got the girls coordinating outfits to wear.  Sydney has some more growing to do to fit into hers a little better.  And, I love that her hair ribbon goes perfectly with it.  It was a "free" gift from an Etsy seller with some other barrettes I had ordered for her.  I sure wish it was easier to get a picture of the two of them together.

We were amazed at the fluidity of the show.  When one act was finished on the ground and they were setting up for another, there were acrobatic performers in the air for us to focus our attention on.  One of my favorite acts were the horses that ran around in a circle while people did tricks on them {the steeez [steeds] as Olivia calls them}.  Olivia's favorite was definitely the elephants.  I think David and my dad loved the eight motorcycles that flew around in the cage.  The lions and tigers were pretty amazing as well.  We were definitely not disappointed!

You couldn't pay me to pose with a clown.  Definitely my least favorite part of the circus.

This about gave me a heart attack.

It was definitely a wonderful morning at the circus!  I hope we can go back again next year!

It's the Age of Aquarium

When Uncle Rhino was in town, he treated us all to a trip to the aquarium.  It's the same one that Liz and I tried to take the girls to once before, only to discover that a zillion and one kids were there on a field trip.  It really is an amazing aquarium, especially when you realize it is inside an outlet mall.  {Crazy, right?}  Here are a few pictures from our time there.

They had these little bubbles built in so you could stick your head up and pretend like you were swimming with the fish.

I spy NEMO!

If you know me at all, you know I love to dress my girls with a theme in mind.  You can't tell it, but they are both wearing the same shirt.  {They are each wearing one that's a little big for them, but what can you do?!}  Of course, you can't see the little fish detailing on the bottom of the shirt, but I know it's there.

And, in sticking with the aquarium theme, I had to make my biggest girl some aquarium pancakes.  Not too bad, if you ask me!

Rockin' the side pony.

See those fish??

Up To Our Ears in Corn

This is going to sound very naive of me to admit, but I was in high school before I realized that people bought their vegetables in cans from the grocery store.  Okay, maybe it was junior high.  But, still.  My pappaw had a huge garden that produced enough food for my grandparents and our family as well.  We would go out to our big freezer in the garage and get applesauce and corn or go to our pantry and get a jar of jelly or a jar of green beans {the best green beans you ever tasted.  ever.}.  I still remember being saddened when we ate the last jar of those green beans.  Mmm.

I have such fond memories of that garden and those fresh vegetables.  I can remember going out with my pappaw to dig up potatoes.  I remember sitting on the back deck with him and shelling lima beans.  I can remember going down to my grandparents' basement where they kept all of their food and their canning equipment.  It was way better than any grocery store.  It sounds so cliche to say it, but, Man, those were the good ol' days.

My mom might not have gotten her gardening skills from my pappaw, but she most certainly can cook like my mammaw.  {And, if I have never said it before, let me say it now.  She can throw a delicious meal together when you think there is nothing in your fridge or pantry to eat.}  The two things that my mom has frozen for us to enjoy year-round are freezer jams and sweet corn.  You may remember me making some strawberry freezer jam last year.  Oh how I miss those sweet California strawberries.  Our family has enjoyed the fruits {err, veggies} of my mom's labor this year with the freezer corn she put up last year and we knew that we would want to do it again this summer.

So, while my brother was in town, we made a family affair out of it and put up 27 bags of corn.  {My mom did 17 bags a couple weeks before, so there are 44 bags for us to scarf down over the course of the year.}

According to my mom, here are step by step directions for freezing corn.

1) Find sweet corn worthy of taking the time to freeze.

2) Shuck and silk the corn.

3) Boil corn for 3 minutes.

4) Place boiled corn in ice water (this is to stop the cooking and get the corn cool enough to cut off cob).

5) Cut corn off cob(s).

6) Fill freezer bags with corn and freeze.  I put two cups in each bag and flatten bags for easy storing.

When I am ready to fix the frozen corn, I put a small amount of milk and butter in a sauce pan and add the bag of frozen corn.  Cook and season with salt and pepper to taste.

My dad was the shucker.  He shucked and silked about 10 dozen ears.

My brother was in charge of boiling the corn and putting it in the ice bath.

Then he laid the corn out on the table for us to scrape.

My mom and I were in charge of cutting the corn off of the cob.  A couple of years ago, I got my mom this fancy tool from Pampered Chef.  And, she saw this trick on Pinterest to use the bundt pan to hold the cob in place and catch the kernels.

Mom was the scooper.

27 bags ready to put in the freezer!

I am so glad that we continued this tradition and hope that we do it for years to come.  It tastes so much better than any corn I've ever had from a bag or can.  I love that we utilized some of the tricks that my grandparents used as well -- my mom filled a milk jug up with water and froze it and kept that in the cooler with water to cool the cobs of corn.

Anybody else freeze anything?  A friend of mine who also has a big garden was telling me about freezing stuffed bell peppers.  I might have to try that.

An Update on Sydney

I am really behind on my blogging lately and realized that I hadn't updated everyone on Sydney's bump.  

On the 27th of June, we went in and met with a pediatric surgeon to discuss all of the results from Sydney's ultrasound, MRI scan and x-ray.  The doctor was very nice and reassuring.  While she wants to send the scans to a pediatric radiologist for another opinion, she does not want to operate.  Her educated guess is that Sydney had some sort of trauma there, where she possibly bruised the muscle, and her body sort of over-healed itself.  

For now she wants to just monitor the bump to see if it changes in size {hopefully it gets smaller}.  We will go in and meet with her about once a month.  We are grateful for your prayers and are so thankful that it is nothing worse.

I have two more prayer requests for you.  A friend of mine from high school {and sneaky blog reader}, Natalie, and her family just moved into a new home in Indianapolis.  A few days after moving in, a giant tree limb came crashing down out of nowhere while they were working in their yard.  She has a large cut and a broken leg, her husband has a sprained ankle and her dad has broken ribs, a broken vertebrae, and a crushed heel.  Her sweet daughter, Hazel, has a fractured skull and is sportin' the purplest black-eye I've ever seen.  Please pray for a speedy recovery for all of them.

And, I just found out last night that Olivia's friend from SLO, Tessa,  is undergoing numerous tests to confirm {or we hope rule out} the doctor's suspicions that she has leukemia.  We are so saddened to hear about this and have been praying for strength for her family while they await the test results.  I know they would appreciate your prayers as well.  You can read more about her story here.

Hug your babies extra tight tonight.

Tiny Dancer

We have packed Olivia's summer schedule full of lots of classes.  David takes her to some on Saturdays and to swim lessons every Monday thru Thursday!  I do a Mommy & Me Pottery class, an art class and now a dance class too.  Well, at least I thought I was doing a dance class with Olivia.  As soon as we got to our first class this morning, the teacher told all of the moms to wait outside of the room while the kiddos danced.  I was a little nervous at first, but Olivia did great!  I watched her through the doorway as she danced her little tutu off!

I bought a ballet camp through Living Social for next week.  It's two hours a day for four days.  I'm comforted by today to know that she will do well listening to the teacher and will also have fun dancing with a new group of kiddos!  It's just the cutest thing watching her dance.  Love this girl.