Moira's thumb & Brayden's fall

Tomorrow Moira is going to Primary Children's Medical Center in SLC to have her thumb fixed. She is very excited! She has a congenital trigger thumb. In English it means she has a burr or bump on the tendon that keeps getting stuck making it difficult and painful for her to extend her thumb fully. As a result she won't use her right hand for anything--coloring, eating, opening doors, etc. She has learned to compensate slightly but it's obvious that she's not left-handed. The procedure should be fairly quick and simple. I hope to not spend the whole day in the hospital!

Quick follow up on Brayden standing. Monday morning Adam and I were awoken by the sound of a loud "thump" followed by Brayden screaming. Adam went and picked him up off his bedroom floor where he had apparently launched himself after standing up in his crib. Since all of our kids have done this we weren't terribly concerned. But we did lower the crib that morning since Brayden can obviously stand on his own now. They grow up so fast!

Standing for the first time

Brayden started his army crawl on 4 September 2008 and on 27 September 2008 he stood up in his crib for the first time. We were fortunate enough to be taking a video of him crawling when he stood for the first time.

Today, we went outside for just about a minute to find Sabrina and when we had returned we found Brayden half-way down the stairs clinging on for dear life. That little boy has gone from bump on a log to fully mobile in about a month. He is adding to his "battle scars" daily.

We finding out that we need to baby proof our house more with Brayden than we ever had to with his sisters. The other day we found him munching on the leaves of a house plant. Not that he was hungry, it was just there so he started munching. This might be an example of what is meant when they say, "Boys will be boys."

Brayden

Brayden has broken his first tooth. Yeah! (or not, depending on which perspective you take). I'm still a yeah since it hasn't occurred to him to use me as a human teething ring. It is just barely through on the bottom front. I love this age because all their pictures look so cute/goofy. He has no idea the delights that await him with functioning teeth. Corn on the cob, a juicy steak, chocolate bars, etc. Wow, I'm making myself hungry!

This last weekend we bought a second booster seat for Moira and moved Brayden into her seat--a convertible carseat. He is now sandwiched in between his two sisters facing the back window. He loves it currently but give him 10 years and he will cringe at the mere thought of such a seating arrangement. Good thing those teeth are sheathed, huh!

Millions of Peaches, Peaches for me. . .

Speaking of canning, Sunday evening after dinner the girls wanted to go for a walk over to a friends house so we pulled out the double stroller and set off. On our way we passed by a home with a peach tree out front just loaded with peaches. Some had already fallen to the ground and had been mowed over. When we arrived at our friends I asked her about the neighbor's tree and she came with me to ask if I could have them. He readily offered them to whoever would take them and so we cleaned the tree off, only leaving the small and bird eaten ones. Once the kids were in bed we set to work bottling them. After two days of working on peaches we had 35 quarts! So excited about it I could barely sleep. I had wanted to do more peaches but couldn't afford the price to can them myself. However, free is always affordable! It is such a testimony builder to see that when we are committed to following the commandments the way is opened up for us to accomplish them. We are contributing to our food storage in earnest now. But even more important than that is that Adam and I are being good stewards of the abundance we've been blessed with. It always bugged me to see some of the stuff in our garden go to waste, but now I can say that we are preserving as much as possible.

Monday, just as I finished cleaning up my kitchen from the peaches, my neighbor called and offered a sackful of peppers to use to do salsa. Wow more food! I already have the tomatoes and onions in my garden, now I just need to add garlic, cilantro, and jalapenos. I love this time of year! Food everywhere. I do love food. If only there was a way to hurry up the tomato ripening process, but no. Fortunately, the weather is optimal for ripening, a blissful 84 degrees. Perfect.

I also need to harvest all my basil and make pesto sauce. Mom said that you can freeze pesto. Great! Now I can have pesto all winter long.

Green Beans, Peaches, Tomatoes, and Rhubarb

It has been a busy past couple weeks as we have been trying to cram as much fresh produce into canning bottles as we have time for. Today we processed a few jars of green beans (4 pints), stewed tomatoes (5 pints), spaghetti sauce (12 pints), and rhubarb (17 quarts); all from our own garden. We didn't set out to do so much today. We got started and thought, "While we are doing this, let's see if we can do that." And the result was a warm house, hungry kids, and two worn out 30-somethings.

A couple weeks ago a neighbor friend of ours called up and said, "My peaches are falling off the tree. Come get as many as you want." We loaded up the kids, as many grocery bags as we had, a box or two and headed over to glean. We took every last peach off of her tree. They had not been thinned this year because of various reasons and as such the fruit looked more like large apricots than peaches. We didn't mind, the last price we saw for fresh peaches was $21/half bushel. Talk about your price increases! Four years ago you could get the same peaches for $8/half bushel.

We brought home about the peaches and set right to work on canning the first batch. After it was all done we ended up with about 20 pints of yummy peaches. Now, you might be thinking, "I can go buy these things for less effort than what it takes to can them myself." You are probably right. However, there is a sense of pride in knowing you have accomplished something most won't even attempt anymore, no matter how small the deed.

Adam