September Harvest

How can September be almost half over already?!

Brooklyn is now 10 months old. She has been especially cute and sweet lately. Here are a few things she has started doing lately:

• She is now crawling really well on her knees. It probably took her a little longer to get it down than Ethan because of all the dresses she wears. We didn't realize how much harder it is to crawl when wearing a dress.
• She loves to clap her hands and pull herself up to her feet holding on to anything she can find. This has caused quite a few spills and tumbles lately since not everything is as sturdy as she thinks it is. She has pulled the garbage can down on herself a time or two.
• She also loves to cuddle. She loves to lay her head on our shoulders and say, "Ahhhh."
• For a while now she has loved dancing with Mom and Dad. It is probably her favorite thing to do. It is failproof for cheering her up and making her laugh and chuckle. Even when she is sobbing one minute, within a few seconds of dancing her mood will change completely.
  

Ethan's potty training has been going really well. He has been diaper-free for over two weeks and has only had a few accidents, and only one at night. We were away from home all day yesterday and he had no trouble.

When Ethan's food is too hot, he asks us to blow on it for him. The other day when his carseat was too hot as we were getting into the car he asked us to blow on that for him too.

He has lately been obsessed with "Toy Story." When he picked out underwear a few weeks ago, we got him a pack that included an assortment featuring several Pixar movies. He hadn't seen the movie then, but has since and loves to fly his Buzz Lightyear and Woody toys (thanks Grandma Morrey) around the house saying, "To infini'ee ba'ond!"

Yesterday, Kyle's work had an open house at their office/campus. They only open their doors to non-employees once every few years because of the nature of the work they do. It was fun to see some of what he does and to actually see his desk. Ethan was excited to get to go to his work and Kyle's parents even joined us. Jen has two uncles that work there too, so it was fun surprise to bump into family while there (Uncles Dave, Jim, Randy, Russell, their families and even her Grandpa Nelson). Due to security restrictions, however, we unfortunately couldn't take our camera so we don't have any pictures.

We have been so busy harvesting from our garden lately. Over the last few weeks we've been canning like crazy and still have so much more we want to do. We've canned stewed tomatoes, a few batches of plain tomatoes, salsa, spaghetti sauce, green beans, and applesauce. We've also blanched and frozen our corn. We still plan on doing at least two more batches of salsa, apple pie filling, apple slices, and more applesauce. Maybe it will be a blessing when our garden freezes. We are grateful for all we've been able to add to our food storage.

Hurray for the premier of "The Office" this week!!