real food

....is growing in my backyard.

Do you see what I see?  It's a pea!!  And it tastes delicious!  I've eaten about 30 of them so far (not all in one day).  Maddox is not interested in eating them at all, as you will see later in this post.

Although I love the movie "Fried Green Tomatoes", I think I'll wait for these to turn red before I pick them.

Hi!  My name is Broccoli!

I'm not sure how big these onions will get, but I'm thrilled they are here at all!

A few baby Zucchini are sprouting.

And....just because she is CUTE!

And funny!  Just so you know....Mdx now comes over to the computer and points at it and says "Dada Work....Dada Work".  We get to talk to Marshall on the webcam about once a week, and by phone every few days.  I think Mdx understands that Daddy is not IN the computer, but that the computer is how we talk to him.  Either way, it's pretty cute.  Now if the Iraqi internet could run a little faster....sigh.  We are really lucky to have it at all, and we certainly feel thankful for what we get!

She is saying "snack....snack".  And I think it's so funny she will take a bite when I tell her to.

playing catch up

I'm always playing catch up, and I'm never caught up.  I'm just going to resign myself to that fact, especially now that Marshall is gone.  Tonight as I was going over my mental list of "things-that-really-need-to-be-done-sometime-soon-but-not-necessarily-tonight", I was walking Maddox up the stairs to brush her teeth (multi-tasking, always).  It occurred to me that when he gets home, Marshall will get to help with toothbrushing, bedtime, dinner feeding, outside playing- all sorts of lovely things that I now take for granted because I do them every day!  What the heck will I do with my free time?   Ha!

So, focusing once again on my mission for tonight- to get things on this blog so Marshall (and you) can see them!

A few weeks ago we went to Greensboro to visit Great Boo and Nick-Nick.  We hadn't seen them since Christmas, so this visit was really overdue!  Maddox was great with Great Boo, she sat on her lap and cuddled a little bit.  But, unfortunately she didn't want anything to with Nick-Nick!!  She didn't even want him to LOOK at her, I've NEVER seen her act this way.  Hopefully it is temporary and next time we go back she'll be in a better mood.

Maddox and her Great-Grandmother, who she was named after.

Playing with my Aunt Betsy.

And Grammy.

After visiting with the grand and great-grandparents, we traveled to Wake Forest and Louisburg to see Mdx's cousin T.A.'s dance recital.  We also gave her birthday presents, one of them was this pretty swimsuit.  She loved dancing around and posing in it.  This kid is solid muscle.

We made some brownies and Mdx got to help.  Emily is laughing because Mdx just stuck her hand in the raw egg in the bowl.

Emily made tons of Strawberry Preserves.

The kids got some good cousin time, Anderson and Mdx are almost the same size!

Mdx got a bug bite on her face, and with her fair skin it swelled up a lot!

There was a lot of good eating and mess-making.

Did I mention mess-making?