He loves dagoons

Coen is learning a lot of new words. He is even putting a few words together like "see you". He has a hard time with his "B" sound, though. This has led to some adorable variations on words. For example, instead of saying "balloon" he says "dagoon". And that boy loves dagoons. Also, instead of saying "bye!" he says "DIE!" very very loudly--and then there is a delayed wave. It's fun to see the looks on people's faces at the grocery store when we're leaving.

Coen also loves songs. He can keep a tune pretty well, too! He makes sounds to go with the songs, but you can definitely pick out what he's singing when he does it. One of his favorites is "Old MacDonald had a Farm".

Today we were working on body parts a little bit and plurals. I pointed to my left eye and said "Eye", then pointed to my right eye and said, "Eye" then pointed to both of my eyes and said "Eyessss". Coen followed my lead. He pointed to my left eye and said "Eye" then pointed to my right eye and said "Eye" then pressed his sharp little fingers into both of my eyes and sang "Ohhhh!"

Halloween cuteness

We had a great Halloween, this year!

Fintan was an anteater, an idea he came up with all by himself, and he was so excited about it.  Here he is getting ready to march in his school's Halloween parade. 

And here he is waving to his adoring fans while parading.

Little Coen, was an ant.

 

A really cute one!

Most people didn't get to oogle his adorableness, though, because he spent most of the evening like this:

 

having the time of his life.

He loved kickin' back in his wagon.  And behind him, so did his little pirate cousin, Logan.

Fintan had a great time walking and trick-or-treating with his cousins.  And they didn't mind being held up by his carefree pace--too much.

Here's a group photo that includes most of the cousins.  (To get Coen in it we had to strategically place him at the top of the hill and let the magnetic pull of the road draw him into the frame.)

My boys adore their cousins. Fintan's best (and most repeated) joke of the evening involved licking his cousin Shaun with his long anteater tongue and telling everyone "I'm eating a three amigo!"

All in all it was a wonderful night with loved ones, and I'm grateful.

Don't fall in any lakes, okay?

This morning Fintan has already made me laugh out loud three times with things he's said.

The first, when his daddy was leaving: "Drive careful, Daddy. Don't fall in any lakes."

The second while we were eating breakfast. He folded his hands together and said: "We're eating breftast now--but one of us is missing." I laughed and asked, "Who's missing?" and he told me, "My daddy".

The third was when "breftast" was finished and I was cleaning the grits off of his face and hands. I said, "You're a mess!" He pointed to the only grit-free spot on his shirt and said "I did a good job of keeping myself clean right here."

Trouble with a capital tea

Fintan asked yesterday. "So, does a green stop sign mean go?"
"Hmmm, you'd think so, but no."

Tonight in the middle of playing Fintan went tearing off down the hallway and through the kitchen. I yelled after him to come back and he ignored me. He raced out onto the porch, with me following not-too-happily behind, and picked up a little metal kitchen pot he'd left out there earlier. He'd played with it in the water table this afternoon but I hadn't looked closely at it when he'd set it down after we finished. Now he brought the pan carefully to his lips, took a couple sips and said "Aaaah, I needed a little tea!" He set it back down and raced back into the house. I looked in the pot and saw that he had a lemon balm leaf floating in the water.

Twerps and castrators

No, not Fintan. He's not a twerp. Well, he sometimes is a twerp, I suppose, but I've never called him one! "Twerp" is what he calls the waistband of his pants. I don't know where this word came from. When we play tickle games and he's "trying" to get away, he'll yell "catch me by my twerp!" as he runs by. The first few times I said, "huh?" Now I find myself thinking: "Where's my belt? My twerp's riding a little low."

Whenever we play "store" Fintan tells me to wait while he goes and gets his "castrator". It's a small device with a door that dings open when you press "cash" and it has lots of little numbers on it. It looks like a cash register but apparently it has a little calculator buried somewhere in its ancestory--soooo, it's a castrator!

Wanna play, guys?

Let there be beans

The snap-beans have arrived in bulk and I am glad. But...I don't know how to can them. I can freeze them but I don't really like frozen beans much. I'd rather eat them fresh while I have the chance, but how many ways can you eat snap beans?

Here's one. Green bean soup. It's every bit as good as the author says it is. I made it with real potatoes, though. Two baking sized potatoes, peeled and diced and simmered in the broth (six cups) and water until they became soft and I could mash them with the potato masher. I just kept going back and mashing until they had "disappeared" to thicken the broth. Potato flakes (as in the recipe) would make this a super quick meal, though.

I'm actually going to copy and paste the recipe here, just in case the other page ever disappears. I don't want to lost this one!

4 cups chicken broth
1 cup water or milk
1/2 cup instant mashed potato flakes
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 quart fresh green beans, snapped into bite size pieces
2 eggs, well beaten
3 Tablespoons grated parmesan cheese
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

In a large pot, bring the stock and water to a simmering boil. While waiting for it to heat up, start snapping the beans. Add the potato flakes and pepper. Stir occasionally as the potatoes dissolve to make a thickened soup base. Add the prepared snap beans and continue simmering the soup. Meanwhile, make the dough for the dumplings. Beat the eggs in a bowl with a fork, then stir in the cheese and the flour. You should have a sticky dough that's just solid enough to pull away from the edges of your bowl into a big lump as you stir. If in doubt, add a bit more flour. When the beans are tender-crisp (nearly done), it's time to add the dumplings. Use two spoons to dip up and scrape off lumps of dough into the bubbling soup. The dumplings cook quickly, in just a few minutes. When they bob back up to the surface, they need just another minute or two until they're cooked through.

The hungry-boys both loved it! And snap beans from the grocery would serve just fine, too--except for missing out on watching the purple ones turn green in the hot broth. That's all sorts of scientific fun.

Growing in the garden

My boys are always hungry. Always. Especially the little one. And finding a snack in the garden is a fun way to keep his bitty belly full.

This is quite easy to do because he thinks mulberries are tasty.

This tasty!

And tomatoes are good. Very very good.

But he has to share the mulberries with the birds and the cherry tomatoes have been slow to blush--we get only a few a day, much to his dismay.

So Coen has to be resilient and move on to the next thing that's as tall as he is. Squash. Mmmmm.

While Coen is eating, Fintan is harvesting. His favorite phrase in the garden is "Holy cow, look at the size of this one! It's enormous!" Whether he's talking about a toad, a tomato, or an overripe zucchini.

Here's a picture of a recent harvest. We love to harvest. Harvesting is fun.

And even though we've grown our fair share of weird veggies in the garden,

we sure grow some cute boys out there!