How to Make a Freezer Tomato Pot

I read this article that caught my eye while I was looking at tomato sauce recipes.

It's a good idea!

Thomas Eats a Tomato

So, here is Thomas eating his first tomato from our garden. He liked it despite the funny face. He was interested in holding it and feeling the texture and tasting it. He bit small bites off at a time and ate a good few bites before he started demolishing the tomato into a mess. I rescued the tomato, chopped off part of it, and threw it in with the rest of the tomatoes that were becoming marinara for our dinner!

This picture was taken last Sunday after a short nap.

Kadie's 3rd Birthday Party

Kadie's 3rd Birthday Party: Scooby Dooby Doo!
Joanna and Thomas and I attended Kadie's 3rd birthday party last Saturday.

Joanna carried in Kadie's gift bag and (prompted) said "Happy Birthday" and gave her the bag. Kadie said (prompted) "Thank You" and (unprompted) gave Joanna a big hug.

The kids had a lot of fun playing with the balloons and chasing each other. Everyone enjoyed the cake. Joanna utilized the Scooby-doo cupcake pick as a utensil to scrape off and eat the icing from her cupcake. I guess it's obvious it can serve a purpose other than decoration...How cute!

Thomas will have to wait one more month before he gets to have cake. Carrot cake, that is! He ate a teething biscuit and had some cherrios and took in all the sights and sounds.

I enjoyed spending time and talking with friends from my church and watching Kadie open some presents. I liked seeing how the kids interacted with each other and they understood the concept the party. The kids all were basically happy to watch Kadie open the presents. Kadie didn't mind to let the other kids hold a toy. (Joanna got interested in a white dog with pink bows and was slightly reluctant to give it back. But she did once she lost interest.)

Remembering Ed

Today, Joanna woke up and said Jesus is happy to see Pappy and Chris and Tracy. She is so loving and thinks of people all the time. She talks about people she hasn't seen in a while, brings them up on all sorts of contexts. But, it was weird being the first thing she said when she woke up.

Earlier this week, Joanna said to Nana: "Pappy sees me taking a nap on Nana's bed." Aww!

Tonight, I was showing Joanna photos on Facebook and someone had added my name to a photo of the Letcher family and friends but I wasn't in it. I was so glad to see the picture, though. A heavenly "mistake", I'm sure. Joanna saw the picture and her face lit up. She said "Hey! That's Pappy! That's my Pappy. I'm going to grow up just like Pappy and just like Mommy."

I can't help but be a little sad today. I miss Pappy, too. I sure love his family. What a wonderful blessing. It makes me really grateful to God for putting our families together. It is truly a gift. I can't even put words on it.

Pickled Okra

Sweet, sour, and spicy pickled okra. Here is a photo of our okra in the process of being stuffed into this jar of spicey goodness. Jason did all the work. Recipe courtesy of my cousin and her husband. They made this recipe last year and we thought it was the best we'd ever had. Jason recreated it and we weren't disappointed.

Feeding the Hotdog to "this mouth"

This is just the kind of cute stuff I get to take part in on a daily basis. The memorable moment happened a few minutes before the took this snapshot: Joanna said she wanted to feed the hotdog to "this mouth" referring to the Rolling Stones logo on Jason's shirt. This got a few chuckles out of all of us. Thomas laughs because we are all laughing. He's laughing at us, I guess. We are a corny crew.

Here is the video I took right after this picture:
http://picasaweb.google.com/amyjokidd/July2010#5502892912633380834

Smiling at Me!

I was just looking at the Picasa Photo Album software thumbnails. (It uses face recognition to match faces in an album together.) I was looking at these pictures of just Joanna's face. She had several where she was super excited and had the biggest smile. I am honored to be the one she is smiling at or the one holding her while she felt so happy that she smiled that big. I love my daughter. I'm so proud to be her mom. She is such a beautiful and sweet person and I'm lucky to get to wake up and see her smile every day.