MMMMMMMMMM steak!

Recently I have been trying to get a little more protein into Jonathan, which is a little tricky, because he only has two teeth (although he has four coming in on the top). I boiled a chicken breast and have been giving him bits at meals. Mostly he puts them in his mouth and lets them sit there (for like 30 mins) he does not try to chew the chicken much.
However, the other day we were at Everette's parents house having steak, so I cut a little slice up and gave it to him. He proceeded to shove all of the chunks into his mouth and he began to make all kinds of happy noises. He was squirting the juices out of his mouth and squealing with delight. So of course we had to film him. It was hilarious... apparently he prefers red meat!

For those of you who live farther away... here is what Jonathan is up to nowadays, he can also pull himself up really well!! He's turning one so soon!!!

Taste and See..

...that the Lord is good!!
This weekend was Trinity Mission's Taste and See festival. It is a pretty fun event put on for the downtown Lafayette Community.
Trinity invites local churches to come set up a table and pass out something fun and free. A lot of people pass out food and candy, ECC makes mini elephant ears (they are delicious). They have games and other fun activities. One church even had a blood pressure cuff and they were offering BP readings. There is a big tent with different bands playing all day. Our church for the second year in a row, rented a Big Bounce and gave away popcorn. It is so fun. One of the things that I love about this festival it to me it is a great picture of the Body of Christ. All of these churches come together to minister in a small way with no agenda. There are of course churches who set brochures out, but the main purpose is just to love the people who come.
Trinity Mission Outlet Store is pretty much in the heart of the poor community of Lafayette, kids and whole families came out in large numbers to "taste and see". Anyway, we were there for most of the afternoon. Needless to say, the big bounce in one of the main attractions. The crowd is small enough that most of the kids could jump over and over and over without having to wait in line too much. Everette was a popcorn making machine in the beginning and later transferred to Big Bounce Bodyguard. Here are some pictures...
Also, since it is like the fourth of fifth time we have used The Big Bounce Company I thought I would give it a plug. If anyone in the area is ever interested in a big bounce, I highly recommend them. It only costs $170.00 to rent, for 24 hours (yes you can have it overnight). no deposit no delivery fee. I am not saying you can have it for every birthday party, but it is pretty reasonable. Great for block parties.



So technically flips are not allowed, but this was not staged. We told him not to after I snapped the photo. But it turned out pretty cool so I posted it.

Everette (all smiles as usual) with our pastor, Dan Teefey and his baby girl Miriam, you can see the popcorn machine to the left.

Dana Teefey and Adelaide under the easy up (thanks Dad) with Jonathan and Colleen


These are two of my favorite pictures. Everette, who can often present a gruff and harsh exterior, inside I think he is really just a big kid. And he loves kids, he was chatting it up with the kids in line, shaking their hands, talking to them about school. The little girl in the pink just plopped right down in his lap. Didn't ask, just made herself at home. Just an FYI Everette was checking his watch to time the kids in the big bounce, not because he was bored or ready to go.

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Totally unrelated, a few days ago Jonathan was eating puffs in his high chair and I looked over and saw this. THe camera was handy so I just snapped a picture.

The Puff Beard

Addict

So I thought that I should update the "Blogs I Read" to more accurately reflect the number of blogs I read.
It is pretty riduculous(ly sad).

However, most of them are pretty good.

Finally

For those of you in the Greene Family, the long awaited vacation photo shoot is finished, you can see them here. Unfortunately in an effort to be quick... I didn't get the lighting just perfect and those people in the back are a little dark. We'll have to try again next year. The perfect family photo eludes us once again. There are however some darn good ones of other family members.

It's a Christmas Miracle

...ok so not really.

Right after Jonathan was born we bought a new vacuum. I was so proud of myself because I did a little research and scouted for sales. I bought a bissel from Kohl's. The first few times I used it it worked great. However about the third or fourth time it seemed to have lost it's uumph. Disappointed but too proud to take it back I kept using it. It did a pretty good job on the hardwood downstairs so I figured it wasn't a total loss.
I also noticed that the brush didn't spin by on its own. It only turned when you pushed it across the carpet. Everette and I both stated out loud that this was a stupid design for a vacuum.
Cut to last week... I was vacuuming the stairs and decided to get really down and dirty and use the attachment for stairs and upholstery, this is when I noticed that this brush spun on its own. I am sure you all have figured out where this is going, but I will admit that my first thoughts went like this..."how idiotic is this, why would they make the upholstery brush spin but not the vacuum. This vacuum sucks....I HATE vacuuming the stairs."
Then it dawned on me that perhaps the vacuum brush is supposed to spin on its own.
So I sat down on the stairs, flipped over the vacuum and took the bottom off. To my great surprise and fabulous delight- I discovered that the belt was broken.
Before you accuse me of being a dumb blond, I would like to point out that the plate over the brush is clear plastic except for the very subtle one inch strip where the belt goes around the brush. Thus leading me to believe that there was in fact no belt to be had. I would also like to point out that my husband... didn't even think about the belt.
So cut me a little slack.
Needless to say once I bought a replacement belt my vacuum is back up to full sucking speed ( I realize that the word "suction" may have been a better fit, but I really wanted to say "sucking".
I am overjoyed.

We Interrupt this blog for a SPECIAL BULLETIN!!!!!!!!!

We (and by we- I mean Jonathan) are officially drinking out of a sippy cup. The bottle is still preferred, but we are no longer repulsed by the thought of a sippy cup. There are pictures and video to prove it.

Mitch Daniels and BLT's

... two unrelated topics.
First the important stuff.
When my tomato plants grew to enormous and mutant sizes, I began to think about what I could do with all of these tomatoes. One of my first thoughts... Bacon Lettuce and Tomato sandwiches (I am not sure why there is no M for mayo as this is an equally essential part of the BLT). As I waited for my tomatoes to ripen my craving for a BLT began to grow and I was tempted to buy a tomato to appease my craving. But I resisted. But I began to prepare. I bought some bacon-good bacon--thick cut. I made sure we had mayonnaise and I even splurged on good bread. And I waited. This was hard because as you know it takes a few days for large tomatoes to really ripen so they are sweet and juicy. I watched them out of my kitchen window in anticipation. I resisted the urge to pick the "almost ripe" ones. Finally this weekend they were ready. I picked them on Thursday and waited until Friday just to be sure. Friday evening we made BLT's, I toasted the bread, spread the mayo (on both sides) used lettuce from our garden too, and they were mouth-watering delicious!! I am so glad I waited. They were so unbelievably fabulous. I am so glad I only made enough bacon for two sandwiches, as I am sure I would have eaten BLT's until I was quite sick. Yumm!!!! I have more tomatoes if anybody wants some!

Now for the other stuff. This Saturday was the town of Battle Ground's 150th anniversary. So they of course had a celebration. There was pancakes and biscuits and gravy, and carriage rides, and garden tours and a parade and... the governor. Yeah.. We can't quite figure it out either. THere were maybe 300 people (and I am being generous) at the celebration but there was Our Man Mitch riding his motorcycle in the parade. See pictures below. We figured it was a great excuse for him to ride his bike on a glorious (and I do mean "glorious" day) up from Indy.
At any rate, I must admit it was pretty cool to see the Governor in the little town you grew up in. He was of course, totally celebrity style waving! which was funny because the crowd was so small that you could really make eye contact with him. Which I did.... awkward!

Brian, Elijah, Mary, and Me on the carriage ride.


Jonathan crawling around on the sidewalk...yeah, he does that now!

It's the Governor!!!

Too good to be true and the advantages of a made bed

So I knew it probably would last...
My perfectly awesome amazingly wonderful sleeper has disappeared. My son, who slept almost whenever I laid him down, sleeps no longer. I am hoping/praying that this is only a short phase.
His naps are barely an hour sometimes only 20 mins. And for the past few smattering of nights he has woken up multiple times. Thankfully he never really gets "up" he just cries out until someone comes in and lays him back down and sticks his pacifier back in. I can't complain (even though I am), he has been such a good sleeper and even now it isn't too bad. The problem is when you get accustomed to a certain standard it is hard to adjust whatever it is.

Ok... the advantages of making your bed...
I have been trying to make our bed every morning for the past few weeks. Historically, it has not been my top priority and it gets made maybe before we get it in for the night or not at all.
I am making this list primarily to encourage myself to keep it up.

1. Your bed looks so inviting.
2. Your bedroom suddenly looks WAAAAAAAAAAAY cleaner.
3. you have a large surface area to fold and sort laundry on (another task I am trying to do daily).
4. Your bed looks SO inviting (inviting enough to take a nap on it later in the afternoon.
5. It makes a great place to play with your baby.
6. It only takes five seconds and everyone is a whole lot happier.

See imaginary video clip

Everette and I went swimming with Jonathan yesterday. We had a fantastic time. Everette was swimming with Jonathan at one point and I had the goggles and was watching under water. This was amazing. The sun was slicing through the clear blue pool water, and it was completely silent below. I felt like I was in a completely different world, it was like watching an old silent home movie. I could see Jonathan's legs kicking under the water, and I could see his little face when Everette dunked him under water. There has never been another time in my life when I so longingly ached to have a camera (specifically an underwater video camera). The camera we have has an underwater case, but it is $80-$90. Not sure if it is really a wise choice. We'll see. But for now, you will just have to visualize this amazing scene.

Where did July go?!

I realize I have been slacking on my blog posting.. so I will try to catch up with a series of posts.
I will start with the most recent and work my way backward. We just got back from Branson Missouri. We took this trip to meet Everette's brother's (Brad) girlfriend's parents. (wow that is a lot of " 's". We had a fantastic time!
Here are a few highlights.
First of all We made the trip down in record time. Our first stop was 6 1/2 hours into an 8 hour trip and we only stopped because our gas tank was nearly empty. It wasn't neccessarily our goal to do this but Jonathan and our bladders held up remarkably and we just didn't have a reason to stop.

Sunday we went out on Table Rock Lake in a pontoon boat. It was a lot of fun and we got out to go swimming. The lake was quite warm actually.





Then Monday we went to Lambert's for dinner and gramps and grammy watched JOnathan while we went with Brad and Meghan to see "The Dark Night". Which was pretty good and my first official batman movie.


Tuesday we went bike riding at this place called Dogwood Canyon. It was beautiful trail with waterfalls and caves. That evening we joined Meghan's family at a delicious Mexican Restaurant.


Wednesday we went kayaking down a lake/river that runs behind Meghan's family's house. The temperature all week was in the upper 90's but the water in this lake was 45-50 degrees because it came through a dam from the bottom of table rock lake. This was also a lot of fun.

This is Meghan's younger brother Jared-he LOVED Jonathan and was really helpful!!
To see more pictures click here.
Our trip home was uneventful and pretty easy (well at least for me-Everette drove the whole way).
But even little babies get bored... see below.