a visit from Teenie and the boys.

Teenie came for a visit while Steve was busy harvesting up north in late July.  It is always fun to have them here.  I sure wish they lived closer.

During this visit we didn't do anything exciting.  We just stayed at our house or Mom and Dad's and enjoyed each others' company.  To be honest, with three kids under three years, that may be our best option!

Here we are hanging out our place!

 Gwen kept her eye on baby Will so we Mom's could have a little break.

Apparently I got a little too close to him for Gwen's comfort.  She took her babysitting job seriously!

Here we are at Mom and Dad's.  Opa read the older babes a few books.

 Will is the cutest 7 month old I know!!!

 Look how Clara is holding this piece of food  (I don't remember what she was eating). 

 One word...HAIR!  Love it!

 As you can see, Clara and I can never get enough of that baby!

A visit from Uncle Arlen.

I'm so behind on blogging.  These pictures are from mid July when Kurtis' Great Uncle Arlen (and Clara's Great-Great!) came for a visit, as he does each summer.  We always eat well, DRINK well, and enjoy the lovely summer evenings together.

Clara really grew to love Arlen this visit.  She saw him quite a bit, because I started teaching summer school while he was here and Grandma Janet and Arlen watched her during the morning for me.  She would go up to him and reach her arms out and ask to be "bup" (picked up). 



Christianne and Clara reading some mags

Clara is good about stopping to smell the flowers...always!

kiddie pool time

Clara spotted an airplane, one of her fave things to do

this is what happens when we're all together...we all stand around watching C

Thanks for another great visit Uncle Arlen!  What fun we have when we are together!

The good thing about no milk from a bottle...

and refusing it from a sippy cup is the girl eats like a machine!!!

Bottle update.

Clara still hasn't had a single drink of milk! Not one! Ridiculous! My mom calls it a standoff between her and I! She may be right. Clara just hasn't figured out that I'm not backing down. I will keep track, though, of how many days her stubbornness persists... right now, it's been 10 days sans milk. Jeez!

The park.

Teenie, Ben, and Will came to Boise for Emmy's 20th birthday. Happy birthday Em! We went to our neighborhood park one afternoon. The kids of course loved it! In fact, they both practically fell asleep on the swings! It is so fun to watch these cousins grow together! They don't always get along perfectly, but we know as they grow that will improve! Steve and Teenie just moved to Lewiston, and though we'll miss the little town of Palouse, we all love that they live an hour closer! That means more cousin time!

Losing the bottle.

So we ditched the bottle Friday afternoon. She had her last bottle of milk at 1 pm Friday. It is 9 am Sunday. We are working on drinking milk from a cup. She drinks water from a sippy cup just fine! But she refuses milk from a cup. We've tried tons of types of cups, straws, everything we can imagine, and still she refuses milk from anything but a bottle. So I made the decision to quit using bottles cold turkey.

Since quitting bottles (one and a half days ago) Clara has been more irritable. I always offer milk in a cup when she gets like that, but she's still refusing! Her appetite, however, has increased immensely! Woohoo! She's even eating cheese, like lots of cheese, which she has refused to do for like a month or so!

I hope we can keep this up. From what I've read, at some point she'll cave and drink milk from a cup! Here's hoping that's true!

The little one is growing up! Here are a few of the latest I phone pics!

garden tour...july 2012.

The warm weather we've been having has really given the garden a good growth spurt.  These pics were taken two weeks ago (maybe more) and since then, the garden has grown a lot more!

Here are some geraniums I wintered.  They made it!  I only had a few bite the dust, and they were mostly plants I propagated late in the season last year.  I love that exotic geranium in back! 

 I'm so glad I finally have echinacea in my garden now!  I've wanted it for a while!  I started this as seeds early last spring and put it in the ground late last year.  Didn't think it would make it, but now it is blooming!  I started some more seeds this year, so hopefully next summer I'll have even more blooms!

 The Shasta Daisies are going wild!  The blooms are huge, and the plant is almost up to the kitchen window!

 Here are some blackberries.  We've already eaten a handful!

 And blueberries, which are getting close to ripe!

 And these green raspberries are no longer green.  We raid the raspberries every evening.

 We had a great crop of strawberries this year.  We are still getting some everbearing, but the June bearing are done.  Clara loves these, and so do the birds...hence the netting.  Behind the stawbs is some asparagus that we'll be able to harvest next year, and a little rhubarb.

 This box has peas (which are Clara's fave), and itty bitty tomatoes (don't worry, they'll get there, they always do!), and parsnips and carrots. 

 This box has green, red, and walla walla sweet onions.  It also had radishes (those are done now), and green beans (bush beans) and anaheim peppers and red and green bell peppers.  I also threw in zucchini, crookneck squash, and cucumber seeds around the perimeter so those vines will hang down on the ground.  Heading out tonight to pick the first zucchini!

 More geraniums that survived the winter in the garage!

 These are cuttings that I took from Teenie's succulents up in Palouse.  I plan to dip them in rooting hormone powder and plant them in boxes in the flower beds.

 This dahlia made it through the winter too!  I had three out of four survive the winter.  It is so nice to not have to buy all my flowers new each year!

 Here are some geranium cuttings I took.  Now, three out of four of them have blooms.  One didn't make it, but honestly, I need another geranium like I need a hole in my head!

 And these are what the three planters look like in front of our house.  I have a hodge-podge of stuff in them.  Calibrocha, sweet potato vine, petunias, a spike, marigolds (from seed), Magellan zinnias (from seed), and red lips salvia (from seed), verbena (from seed), and a geranium.  I hope they get huge as the summer goes on.

Hope you enjoyed the tour of how things are growing at the Brooks house this year!  We've had some success, and some failure too!  But we always love to dig in the dirt and watch things grow!