Adelaide

I had given her corn on the cob for the first time. She really prefers to gnaw it like a little caveman than have it cut from the cob so that she can daintily nibble like a petite & well-mannered lady.

Eric was gone for a week on a fishing trip in middle of nowhere, Montana. We had to take a trip to Ephrata and so I had the giant dog & Adelaide & all our junk piled in the Honda. If we add more children, we'll need to buy a larger vehicle. I really loathe the idea of spending $ on cars... but I suppose horse & buggy is the other option. :) Bon voyage!

Before her afternoon nap on Saturday, Bitty decided to play in the sprinkler - which is nasty irrigation water. (I hope she didn't drink too much of it, our neighbor got Giardia from eating tomatoes that had been freshly watered, YUCK!) She was gross, so I decided to give her a quick hosing off in the sink. She LOVED it.

The Great Prosser Balloon Rally.

Annually, the last weekend of September brings us the Great Prosser Balloon Rally. All the gorgeously colored balloons (about 20 or so) go up on Saturday & Sunday morning, the night glow is Saturday night, and the tiny town we live in fills up fast!

The night glow. They light up the balloons in the dark, very pretty!

We went out Sunday morning at 6:30 to watch the balloons launch and it was cold. Here's Bitty all bundled (Thanks Ma for the hat - it solicited lots of commentary).

BALLOONS!

Pears, Great Granny, Purple Potatoes, & New Friend

A menagerie of photos from our last visit to Ephrata...

Fun with Aunty Staci.

Helping Nana dig and store her purple potatoes... really the flesh of these 'taters is a gorgeous purple color and they taste good too! Imagine that.

We canned pears, lots and lots of pears.

Great Granny Hunter is here for the month of September. Nice butt pear Stace!

Smile everybody!

Payton and Adelaide share a love of rocks. Payton is Lyndsy & Ashley Roberts daughter, she is a lovely quiet and demur child... Adelaide is a barrel of monkeys next to her!

Payton, will you PLEASE play with me, pretty please?

Tea Party

By now, we all know that my political & moral values are of the conservative sort. I do not generally share them in an open forum like this, however I came across something that made me want to do so. Why is it that everyone who leans right is portrayed as one of a or a combination of the following: an overly zealous, religious wacko; a conspiratist; a hillbilly backwoods idiot; a racist; an uncaring jerk who has no interest in his fellow man... the list is long. The link here is to Max Blumenthal's portrayal of the Tea Party in Washington D.C. on September 12th. http://is.gd/3j8Ww I am not saying that these people don't exist, but they are MOST certainly not the majority of conservative peoples.

We attended our local version and everyone who chose to speak was articulate, polite but firm, and politically interested. It was an intriguing outing and I rather enjoyed it. There are a lot of 55-80 year old Americans who are very ashamed of the status quo in our country. People who sacrificed greatly in a number of wars and through various hardships, people who now find that broken homes, debt, dishonesty, materialism, apathy, and mediocrity are the rule rather than the exception.

Daddy & Baby

THE PLATFORM

Bitty stole my sunglasses!

Prosser folk letting themselves be heard!

Thoughts

Today's September 11. I hope no one's forgotten the significance of this date. Say a prayer for the families directly affected by the tragedies.

Adelaide threw her first real temper tantrum last night. In front of my visiting, 90 year-old Grandmother. It was a hideous display of unbelievable rottenness and I wanted to throw her out the window. Instead, I took a deep breath, threw her in the tub, and promptly put her to bed (at 6:15). She was literally screaming at me, she got herself so worked up her face turned near purple and she started hyperventilating. IT WAS AWFUL. I didn't know what to do with her. It is going to take a significant amount of energy and willpower to properly parent her. Dear Lord, please give me strength & patience. Amen!

My sister is awesome. Do you know how talented she is? Be sure to check out her personal (http://www.fawfamily.blogspot.com/) and professional (http://www.stacijdesignsandimages.blogspot.com/) blogspots. Staci has two speeds, dead asleep and 500 mph. She gets more done in a day than one might think is humanly possible and she has more creative talent in her pinky toe than I've got in my entire body. I adore her.

Harvest & crush has begun at the vineyard & winery. I love wine. Kestrel makes good wine, really good wine. The whole valley will begin to smell like fermenting grapes and ripening concords in about 2 or so weeks. The evenings and mornings are crisp and the days warm. This is the BEST time of year. Wine, hmmmmhmmm, wine! I think that we'll have a bottle of Kestrel's Coferment Syrah with dinner tonight. Barbequed pork tenderloin, roasted beets, baked potatoes and an herb & tomato salad.

Our neighbors are moving to Nebraska. That just plain stinks. Tara & Steve are fabulous to have next door - they are thirty something, have children Bitty's age, and have the same moral & political values that we do. They had three showings to potential buyers yesterday and you should have seen me... Mrs. Peeping Tom trying to see who was looking at the place. Once I realized what I was doing, I had a good laugh at myself.

Bitty Antics

I hate hearing no. FAKER!!!

Escaping from her carseat.

mmmm... spaghetti

You eat it and if you don't I'm going to throw it at the dog.

A find.

Eric is remodeling a house that was built in the 1930's. It is in the hands of the original owners, although the parents who built the home have passed, their 60-something-year-old children are spiffing it up for sale. The home still has tons of their parents belongings in it and the children, Jack and Sue, have come from Alaska and Michigan to clean things out.

They found these paper plates in the garage. They are from the early sixties and Sue remembered them from a birthday. The clown gives Eric the willies.

Vintage paper plates... think I could make some cash on ebay?