Grapes

Our grape vines (Thompson Seedless and Red Flame) have produced nicely this year. Here they are in March:

In May, looking good but still hard and not yet rounded out with juiciness:

And today (June 6th) we enjoyed a bowl of the red grapes--they were crisp and lovely, mostly sweet, with a few still on the tart side:

And the Thompson seedless still on the vine (not quite ready):

My sister Elisabeth caught Lydia sneaking some of the sour green grapes the other day. She and Abby love them whether they're ripe or not! Clara and Josiah gobble down the ripe ones once we pick them, but they don't love the sour ones. Everyone agrees they're a "sweet treat," to quote Abby's new favorite tee-shirt.

Aunt Barb's Butterfly Sandwiches

I grew up eating Aunt Barb's lunch specialty of butterfly sandwiches on summer afternoons in Michigan. She made them for our kids during the Baynes' visit here a few weeks ago, and they were a hit! We didn't have any marshmallows or homemade strawberry jam, so my kids missed out on that--but Aunt Barb is creative and came up with lovely edible butterflies with what we had on hand. The girls were so enamored with them; they requested them for lunch again and again.

 Lydia left, Abby right

 

Peach Progress 2017

Our little orchard now contains five peach trees: a Bonanza (dwarf), Babcock (white peach), Mid-pride, Desert Gold, and Eva's Pride. We've enjoyed watching them bud, bloom, and fruit this season, and we're eagerly anticipating the harvest.

Here are some of the trees in early February:

 Mid-pride--our oldest and largest peach tree

Desert Gold  (just over a year old--it booms the earliest)

Cute baby with bare, pruned branch of Mid-pride

We had such a mild winter that the Bonanza and Babcock bloomed late. Jeremy thinks our peach crop will be less because the trees didn't get enough chill hours.

Here's the big Mid-pride tree in full bloom around my birthday (third week of February):

At the same time, the Babcock was just starting to push out little leaves (last year they bloomed at the same time):

Here's the Bonanza in full bloom on March 8th:

And the Babcock is finally blooming:

The Mid-pride is just about done with blooms on March 8th and making good progress leafing out:

By March 21st, we had lots of baby peaches on the Mid-pride!

And the Babcock was in its flowering glory:

Here's our most recent picture--the Mid-pride peaches at the very beginning of May:

I'll have to get some more pictures of the Babcock, Bonanza, and Desert Gold. Jeremy paper-bagged the three Desert Gold peaches a week ago, since they were turning color and we didn't want to risk attracting birds. He picked two of them today--they're semi-cling and came easily away from the pit, were a lovely orangey-red inside, and tasted pretty good except for the fact that he sprayed them with Neem oil only yesterday, and that definitely didn't taste good. We're glad the Desert Gold ripens about a month or more before the Mid-pride--having it extends our peach season.

The Mid-pride won't be ready to pick til June--probably mid-June. Perhaps the Bonanza and Babcock will wait till late June or July this year. Last year I think we picked peaches from the Bonanza before the Mid-pride.

I don't have any pictures of the front yard peach tree--the Eva's Pride. Whoops! I don't believe it has any fruit on it, though. It's just had one full year in our yard, and Jeremy thinks the one peach it produced dropped. Ah well.

Abby on a Roll

She's got some crazy eyes sometimes

Abby often settles on a stock phrase or train of thought or topic for several days or weeks on end. For instance, she'll often say, "Mama, I just want to be with you" or "I'm thinkin' about all people." At one point last year, she was apparently on a religious-answers kick:

Abby: "Why does this [toy] train have a bad face?"
Me: "I don't know."
Abby, sagely: "God knows."

Abby, comparing her plastic bowl to her brother's Corelle bowl: "Siah, why you have a glass bowl?"
Josiah: "I don't know."
Abby: "God knows."

Abby, observing me concentrating on something: "Why you makin' that funny face, Mama?"
Me: "Oh, I don't know."
Abby: "God knows."

Abby: "When will you die, Mama?"
Me: "I don't know, Ab."
Abby: "God knows."

Abby: "Why did God make me like you, Mama?"
God knows, Abby love.

Another of Abby's stock phrases has to do with getting out of undesirable tasks. She's either "too tired" or her "belly hurts." It usually goes something like this:

Abby, objecting to nap time: "But I'm too tired of going to sleep!"

Me: "Abby, it's time to do chores--please go fix up the shoes."
Abby: "My belly hurts from doing that. My belly don't want to."

Me: "Abby, you need to help pick up the toys."
Abby: "But my belly won't let me clean up!"

Apparently over the course of the election last year, Abby picked up enough to form a political opinion. She vehemently informed us, "We don't vote for Frump!" Another day she was experimenting with the phrase "drive me nuts," and then in the evening suddenly proclaimed, "Trump drives us nuts!"

Recently Abby likes to draw attention to the fact that she's the "good" child when someone else is misbehaving. Perhaps thinking along those lines--and reflecting on the story of Cain and Abel with an echo of a nursery rhyme ("Friday's child is loving and giving")--she said one day, "Are you loving and giving, Mama? I'm loving and giving. I'm giving the best to God." Then she added, graciously, "I'll give you the leftovers, Mama."

6th Birthday

"Are you old, Mom?" the kids asked the other day. I guess now that I have a bona fide six-year-old, I probably am!

We did a bit of a family celebration in Flagstaff the weekend before his birthday. I took up a cake, the cousins and aunts and uncles came over (though we missed Uncle Justin, who had to work) to Grandma and Pa's house. Josiah was over the moon with the Lego presents.

Down here in Phoenix we had the Baynes visiting on Josiah's actual birthday. Unfortunately he was sick--not totally laid out, but running a fever and feeling under the weather. He still ate his Dutch Baby pancake for breakfast, burrito for lunch, and homemade pizza with spicy sausage for dinner. And he did want seconds of his strawberry-vanilla-chocolate ice cream cake! But he clearly wasn't quite himself.

Clara was also sick but very interested in the goings-on when Josiah started opening presents:

Six years since this boy made me a mother--how can it be? He's a third of the way to 18.

Josiah continues to be an active, imaginative, thoughtful boy. He's the ringleader in the big kids' games, expertly working to coax, coerce, or in some way contrive to direct the pretend play in a way that suits him--so he can be Obi Wan, or Robin Hood, or King Arthur, or Picket. He's starting to enjoy more games like tag (though he still likes changing the rules or base on us or calling "time out" when about to be caught) and indoor games like checkers, war, or go-fish. He loves to wrestle with Daddy.

While he's energetic and physical, he can concentrate well when engrossed in Lego or drawing. His artistic skills have blossomed this year, and he loves to draw all manner of things--though mostly they involve weapons and fighting. Sometimes he and his sisters collaborate in drawings and narrate as they go. It's fun to see them craft a plot and an illustration together.

Josiah asks good questions that range into philosophy and theology, and he often thinks long about what we've read, discussed, or memorized. I hear "Mama, can I tell you sumthin'?" all day long--by which he usually means he wants to ask me something. While it's easy to weary of the incessant questions (and thus I treasure the afternoon quiet time!), I'm glad he's so inquisitive and interested in life, nature, God, history, and everything in between.

Our boy loves stories, especially if they involve sword-fights and battles and good guys vs. bad guys. I came across a new children's fantasy series about rabbits with swords, so I read the first two aloud to Josiah before rest time (The Green Ember and Ember Falls). Unfortunately the author hasn't yet finished the series, so we're stuck on a cliffhanger. For his birthday, we gave Josiah a short backstory volume by the same author called The Black Star of Kingston that he's enthralled with right now.

Perhaps his favorite of the school read-alouds is I Heard Good News Today, a book of missionary stories put out by the Mennonite Central Committee. He begs me to read it each day--and then "read another" when I'm done with the assigned one. He also loves the Bible stories we read from Egermeier's Bible Story Book.

He's been listening to lots of audio books: Benedict Flynn's Robin Hood, Jim Weiss' storytelling rendition of King Arthur, another King Arthur borrowed from the library, 50 Famous Stories (involving lots about famous people from King Alfred to the Black Douglas and Robert the Bruce to Leonidas and the 300), Narnia, George Sarris' scripture narration (he loves the prophets one), etc.

It's so fun to read, listen to, and talk about books with Josiah. Pretty soon he'll be reading some on his own, too, I think. He's made good progress in Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons (though the "easy" in that title isn't always true). We're going slower right now but are about 3/4 of the way through. His speech has gotten clearer this year, too. We've done some speech therapy and seen good improvement in his production of sounds like /k/, /g/, and /s/. I think learning to read has propelled his progress forward, too--especially with /th/, /y/, and /l/.

He also loves to eat

Josiah continues to be very friendly and social. He loves our weekly homeschool park day, during which he runs around with a passel of boys; he makes friends with any likely kid at the nearby playground; he says "hi" to just about everyone we pass; he races out the door to yell "thank you" to the UPS guy; and he regularly asks when we can have various friends or neighbors over for dinner.

Sometimes he seems like he's growing up too fast, but then he melts down in tears about something I think is insignificant or storms around the house throwing a toddler-type tantrum. He's a juxtaposition of big boy and little, figuring out how to handle himself and the world of joys and disappointments. I'm so glad God has given him to us and pray for the fortitude, wisdom, and faith to raise him well.