He's Reading What?

Talmage has always loved books. He's been attempting to read them since he was a baby. Now he reads nearly everything he can get his eyes on. He is currently reading The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien to himself and sometimes to Anya if she asks politely.

Here is a few videos of Talmage "reading" just after his first birthday.




We bought him a "reading" light to have beside his bed and he loves using it to read at night before bed and sometimes in the mornings when the LEGOS aren't beckoning him too loudly.

This is how I found him one Saturday morning. He was excited to find a book on the shelf written by James E. Talmage. He read a few pages before breakfast. I was nervous he might read past where I have read-- that would be embarrassing.

Wildseed Farm

After picking strawberries today, we headed over to a wildflower farm.

This field of red corn poppies was so pretty I wanted to get a nice picture of the kids in front of it.

After several attempts Anya couldn't stand the wind blowing her hair or dust into her face. I don't blame her. So I gave up on the cute picture.

The farm had mowed paths in fields of wildflowers. The kids liked following the paths. They weren't so excited about sitting for a picture. But I made them do it anyway.

Anya did like the bench out in the middle of the field. You can see it by the smile on her face.

Talmage thought the bench was a great idea.

These pictures were only a very small part of this "Farm". It also had a high end nursery, restaurant, brew house, gift shop, butterfly house, and lots more stuff we didn't even get a chance to see.
I bought some Strawberry Jalapeno jelly that is amazingly good. And Talmage, who dislikes ice cream, had an ice cream sandwich that he really enjoyed because "ice cream sandwiches are not as cold as ice cream".

Strawberry Picking

Today the kids and I went with a friend and her kids to Marburger Orchard to pick strawberries. This has been a great year for berries because we had such a wet winter.

There were tons of berries. We picked a little over 10lbs in a very short amount of time.

It was a cool 60 degrees or so in the morning so Anya wore her jacket. You can see by her grass stained knee that she already found a green spot to fall on. She sometimes practices her falls on purpose.

The kids, a friend, and I didn't even pick one full row in one of the strawberry fields.

Talmage was very pleased with his picking skills. Maybe he'll grow up to be a migrant worker. He liked finding the dark red, perfectly shaped ones.


Here are the kids at the end of the hour or so we spent picking.

Natural Bridge Caverns

For Aaron's birthday this year we went up to Natural Bridge Caverns. We had a lot of fun on the tours we took. The kids weren't afraid of any of it. They even thought the "total darkness" experience was cool. We learned all about stalactites, stalagmites, soda straws, ribbons, curtains . . . It was fun and educational.

These statues are out in the parking lot area. I'm not sure what they have to do with the caverns but they were fun for the kids.

We took lots of pictures inside both caverns.
These first few are from the Illuminations Tour. They used special lighting to show off the amazing and intricate formations. It was very humid in the caverns because they keep the entrance and exit closed with series of doors. This allows the formations to continue growing.

The following pictures are from the Discovery Tour. The formations in this cavern are huge. We also got to see the tiny crack/tunnel the original explorers went through when they discovered these caverns. It was amazing that anyone fit though there and to see what they found. I would have been way to scared. I liked all the safety lighting-- it would have been creepy to feel the huge dark expanse and only be able to illuminate a small part of it with an old 1960's head lamp.

Happy Birthday Elmo

Anya had been telling me for months that Elmo's birthday was on the same day as mine. I didn't think much about it because she tells me a lot of interesting things about Elmo everyday. He is her imaginary friend as well as her stuffed animal and scape goat. He sometimes gets into mischief and keeps Anya awake late into the night. So when Anya went downstairs on the morning my birthday she was very pleased to see that Dad had decorated for Elmo's birthday. I didn't have the heart to tell her he'd done it for my birthday, not Elmo's. We had a great birthday party for Elmo at lunch time. We made little finger sandwiches and fruit salad. We also made him a little cake with two candles on it. Anya dragged out the baby seat and all his stuffed animal friends. It ended up being a bigger party than I expected and we didn't have enough seating for all his friends. Several had to sit on a blanket next to the table.


When we lit the candles on his cake, Talmage ran to the piano to play "Happy Birthday",
while Anya and I sang.

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Anya was very satisfied with the party. Talmage enjoyed the party so much that he announced that the next day was Puppy's birthday.