Like this:
Chaser turns 12. 12!! Omg.
He is too cool for home-baked cake. Cheesecake Factory gets a visit.
RJ turns 3, big sis Indigo decorates his cake special with Thomas.
She is pretty good with that icing pointy-thing.
Indy turns 10.
I have no cake pic because we took it with our other camera that I don't know how to get pics off of yet.
So now we have fully upgraded - in 95 days, from 11, 9, 4 and 2 to 12, 10, 5 and 3. I can stop stumbling over their ages now.
Cross that off the list. Done.
Also somewhere in those 95 days (also mostly called summer, as Chase's birthday falls a day before Summer begins and Indy's 2 days after Fall begins, so yeah, summer), we did some other stuff.
The gardens produced for us.....
...and we ate well....
....and we made pickles, sweet and spicy, mmm, mmm, mmm!
The best-tasting potatoes ever!
This is called Plant-to-Mouth Gardening.
Cleaning and snipping green beans.
More cucumbers anyone???
We threw in some school for good measure:
This tiny traveler hopped on a plane with her grandparents to visit her great-grandparents in SC.
And this shaggy-headed tot scoured Pinterest for the perfect new 'do:
Lookin' cool, RJ!
We worked on the farmhouse.
Somehow I still end up like this before 7am on most days (view clock in background for proof)...
Soccer started for Riley in town and Chase out of town. It wouldn't be nearly as much fun if they played in the SAME town, you know.
RJ still finds afternoon grocery shopping to be an ideal time for a nap.
Let me explain this cart for a minute, lest we look bad - the Lunchable is for Riley, it's been explained that this is the only one she will ever get because they are fake and nasty (she heard about them and was curious, and for $2 I let her experience it), the Boston Market frozen meals are for my neighbor, who has a love affair with them and can't find them in his regular store anymore, and the Potato Chips are mine. Because I deserve them, dammit.
Another nap in another store.
I visited an allergist for the first time in, oh, 28 years. I thought a few things might come up.
Confirmed. Nature hates me. This here back of mine, which came up in less than a minute, caused quite a stir in the allergist's office, and I did not have to go the whole 20 minutes, because I was maxed out on everything in about 5 and they were starting to worry, standing by with epinephrine, and clipboards, they all had clipboards. They brought interns in from another part of the hospital to have a gander at the Super-Allergic Patient in Room #2. Glad I can be so helpful. See that non-reactive spot on the left side? That's feathers. I can be around feathers, out of all the environmentals. That's it. Feathers.
Since my back was filled up, they hit my arm for some more. This here's me reacting to the entire Farm, and some foods that I already suspected because they make my mouth super-itchy, like Avocado and Apples. It was a fun time. I'll post more about that adventure later, mostly because according to the test, I'm SEVERELY ALLERGIC TO PEANUTS. Except I don't react and I eat peanuts all the time. So, ha, take that all you Bumper Sticker Moms - I was right! Most of you don't actually need to teach your kid to hassle Moms with Granola Bars that are in a 1-mile radius of them.
And, more excitingly, we rode THOMAS! (I'm also not allergic to trains. Good thing.)
Peep, Peep!
