A Pleasant Surprise

Today, Tate decided that it would be fun to play with my blanket on the couch. We spent a long time playing. He would hide under the blanket and I would have to find him. Then I had to head to the kitchen periodically to tend to freezing the corn. After I had spent a few minutes in the kitchen, Tate was being very quiet. Of course, when he's quiet, he's usually into something bad. But then I found this...

Tate loves to look at his books and pretend to read. It probably helped that I read the book, "There's a Wocket in my Pocket", earlier in the day.

The Harvest

For the past few weeks, I've been able to harvest my veggies from my little garden. Here's a sample of what I've been able to pick...

Just today, I was able to pick Roma tomatoes, Cherokee Purple tomatoes, jalapenos, mini-peppers, zucchini, and watermelon. I love that I'm able to get fresh veggies from my garden. It's so exciting! Not only have I been busy picking veggies from my garden, I have also been able to go fruit picking during the summer. This past Thursday, my mother and I went peach picking. We picked 78 peaches!

Currently, I'm waiting for them to ripen so that I can make peach kuchen. I also want to freeze a lot of my peaches so that we can have peach kuchen during the winter. Not only did my mother and I pick peaches, we even picked up some Rambo apples so that we could make applesauce. Using my mother's idea, Ed and I spent the better part of Saturday coring, peeling, and slicing apples to make applesauce. Yummy!

Earlier during the week, I purchased corn at one of the local farmer's markets so that I could make corn for the winter. Tate decided that he wanted to help...

A First and A Possible Second

Sunday, Tate had his first haircut. Lately, his little curls have been itching his ears, which has caused him to scratch them a lot. I decided that it would be best for him to go to a Barber instead of having me attempt to cut his hair and then we end up at the Barber anyway.

At first he didn't like it at all...

Finally he succumbed to his fate...

In the end he looked pretty handsome (or so I think).

As for the "possible second"...that's right! Ed and I are expecting our second little one. I'm in my 12th week and have been doing okay. The nausea seems to be easing (finally) -- I hope that I haven't spoken too soon -- and I've been able to eat a real dinner and not cereal late at night.

No Walking, But Climbing

Okay. Since Tate had his break-through with walking, he has decided to regress a little and only crawl. Fortunately (or at times unfortunately), he enjoys crawling up on the couch. I can't tell you how many times he does this in a day. He especially likes to crawl up on the couch when I have food or something he's not supposed to have. I guess that those are the times that I wish he hadn't learned how to crawl up on the couch. Because he has crawled up on the couch so much, we were able to get a video of that....

News, News, and More News

Sorry no pictures for this blog posting, but I have exciting news (or I think that it's exciting). Today, Tate figured out how to crawl up on the couch. Now, nothing is safe! I usually keep various things on the couch and I won't be able to do that now -- Boo!

So, here's the more exciting news. Tate took his first steps today! He even took more steps when Ed came home. We were so excited to watch him!

Okay, that's all for my new news. If I have more news, I'll write later.

A Haunting

Yep, that's right! Ed and I decided to pay a visit to one of our old haunts. The place where we were married, Glen Burnie Plantation (now, it's known as the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley). This time we brought our little addition and showed him around the place. He seemed to like it.

Tate watching the fountain and fish in the water.



Tate and I watching the geese and ducks.



Smelling the roses in the Rose Garden where we were married.


Tate and I posing at the Chinese Water Garden where Ed and I held our reception.

After walking around the place (Not only did I carry him a little, but Ed and I held his hand and he walked throughout the gardens with us.)...

He was tuckered out...

This is only the second time that he's fallen asleep on someone's shoulder. He was so tired that we were able to put him into the stroller AND we had a quiet lunch. It was a little strange not having a little one demand food every other second during lunch. He eventually woke up at the end of lunch and demanded to be fed. Fortunately, we had food waiting for him.

The day ended with us browsing a few baby stores in Winchester. It was a nice and relaxing day.