Gardening

It is a known fact that Ashton loves our garden. She loves exploring and finding yummy food to eat. We've had our garden for a year and a half now and we're slowly learning the do's and don'ts of Texas gardening. This summer, we planted okra, squash, cantaloupe, tomatoes, and pumpkin. So far, we've harvested about 15 squash, lots of okra, and lots of tomatoes. We have 15 cantaloupes growing and they should be ready to eat in the next few weeks. We thought we lost the pumpkin but it has made a wonderful comeback and will hopefully be ready to harvest in October.

Here are some pictures.

Bonus picture- Ashton's ant slaying pose

Always with Daddy's shoe. Smart girl

A few lovely cantaloupe. I love cantaloupe from the store but homegrown ones are so much better!

Our bed of cantaloupe and squash.

Ashton taking care of her pumpkin plant.

I'm always surprised with how thick the okra plants become. They look like mini trees.

We don't know what these are. They are on our blackberry bushes. Ashton likes to pick them and when she opens them, they're just a little green ball. Typically, they have a small green worm in them. They don't become the berries as they eventually fall off. Any ideas?

"Cheese" She is so proud of her garden.

And of course, she has to carry dirt all over.

Reptiles!

I took Ashton to the library yesterday for a special show. The library brought in a naturalist group to show kids alligators, snakes, and turtles. Since Ashton loves the turtle in one of her Eric Carle books, I thought she would love to pet them. I anticipated a short, 45 minute presentation with lots of touching of the animals. Well, 30 minutes in and no animals. Ashton did pretty well with her attention span and fortunately, it wasn't that crowded so she could wander around the room. Once the animals came out, she loved it. She has no fear of them, which I guess is good. She touched all the animals and loved seeing them move. I did have to keep reminding her to only touch their backs because she successfully poked most of the small alligators in the eyes. Silly girl. Here are some pictures.

This was her drawing while we waited for animals. It is a house, some clouds (the small green dots), a tree, and a swing. Oh and she drew, "Mommy" in red.

She wanted to be center of attention next to the speaker.

 

Another break involved playing with the animal puppets.

 

Ashton kept yelling at the turtles to move. She became very attached to the turtles and made sure to say "Bye-bye turtles" to each one, several times.

 

Ashton would pet the animal for about 0.004 seconds. So pictures were tricky.

July Adventures

We're already halfway through July, which means the hot summer is halfway over too! And since we'll be spending the last month of it out of state, I'm excited to only have a few more weeks to endure of 95+ degree temps and high humidity. Ashton really likes to play outside but gets all hot and sweaty. Then she stinks the rest of the day so we try to wait to go the park until after dinner.

We celebrated the Fourth of July with a yummy pancake breakfast at church. Then we had some friends over for a BBQ that night. Ashton loves having friends over and I love it too. She barely bothers me as she is so busy playing. We ditched the fireworks again this year as they are just too late at night for Ashton. Maybe next year.

The festive shirt I bought at Old Navy for two dollars the day before.

I saw this promo on a blog I read and decided to give it a try. Lo and behold, we got some chips with our picture on it. It was cool to get it in the mail.

Ashton ended up in the ER last Sunday night. We went to a neighbor's house to visit after dinner and we were walking home. A few feet outside our front door, she refused to come inside as she often does. Joseph pulled on her arm to encourage her to come in and heard a pop. She screamed for the next 45 minutes while we tried to determine if she was being a wimp about it or if she did hurt something. After a call to my mom and the doctor, we were advised to come in. Fortunately, our local hospital could handle it so we didn't have to drive to Houston at 9pm at night. They did several rounds of X-rays, which involved Ashton screaming the entire time. I felt like a terrible parent. Only after the X-rays did the doctor come in and say, "I think I know what it is." I thought he had looked at the X-rays and could see something. Nope. A tendon got displaced and needed to be snapped back in. Apparently, it is the most common injury for children under five. Who knew? Had they checked that in the first place, we could have saved the tears and the money on X-rays. Oh well. Better safe than sorry. Ashton was pretty calm unless someone touched her arm. As soon as they snapped it back, she was up and at it, running around again.

This is after the doctor fixed her arm. Before that, she couldn't hold anything or barely move it.

Glad to have my happy girl back.

 Ashton loves to wear her "Papa" and "Nana" shirt all the time. She can't wait to see them next month!

Day in Houston

Last weekend, we spent Saturday in Houston. We went to the temple and Ashton enjoyed playing around the water fountain. After the temple, we stopped at a book store, which Ashton loved as well. The main reason we went to Houston was to go to a wedding reception of one of the missionaries who taught me several years ago. It was fun to see him and meet his wife. The house was very fancy and I was nervous Ashton would knock something over. Thankfully, they had a big yard with a trampoline and a friendly cat so she behaved. And they served blueberries. If there is one food that Ashton could consume by the pound, it would be blueberries. Someone took a picture of the newlyweds and us but we forgot to take one on our phone. So just imagine me standing next to three really tall people.

Here are some nice pictures Joseph got of Ashton saying, "Cheese" at the temple though!

 Ashton has also become very sweet in giving kisses. Here's her best example.