Lots of Rain and Banana Muffins!

Okay, so with pregnancy brain and being out of the daily habit of journaling, I don't really have much memory of what's happened in the past week. Shad's family is still out of town til Thursday, so we've been subbing for Levi's two paper routes. Last Monday we went out around 4 when the missionaries left from spending their preparation day with us playing games. It was probably somewhere near 100 degrees and it sucked. Shad and Tommy did the shorter route by Shad's parents' house, and I took the longer one by the grocery store (this was because we each knew our respective routes better than the other person). Anywho, I also hadn't really eaten very well that day, and so that combined with the heat and physical effort nearly killed me. I went to the grocery store afterwards to sit down in air conditioning for a while, then to get bacon for BLTs. I barely survived the shopping, cooking and eating. Really, I'm not exaggerating. As soon as I finished my sandwiches, I told Shad to call Scott and Beverly Burris (a new LDS couple in Norton) and cancel our plans to play games with them. It was around 6:30. I lied down and fell asleep for a couple hours. I was sooooo wiped out.

The rest of last week was heavenly with temperatures! Nothing in the triple digits! In fact, everything was between high 80s and mid 90s. This week, we have low 90s down to 75 tomorrow! Mom and Dad, you guys just picked the wrong month to come. July was miserable, but August has been quite the relief. We've also had great rainstorms! Those have helped tremendously in cooling down temperatures. We had one last night, earlier this evening, and now another one is brewing. One night last week a storm came up in the middle of the night and Tommy got scared of the thunder. I rocked him in his room for a while, then tried to put him back in his crib, but he clung on to me for dear life and cried more. I was tired, so I decided I'd just bring him back to my bed for a sleepover. It was nice to get to cuddle my little guy. He was also teething last week, so that was not the first time I got woken up in the middle of the night. He finally had a third tooth cut Sunday morning (on the top) and is still working on getting the partner tooth through. He'll be 13 months tomorrow and it's about time he gets more than just his 2 teeth.

Remember how I talked about the missionaries last week? Well here they are. Meet Elder Michael Scott Riha (for real, that's his name--Michael Scott) and Elder Alexander Jackson, aka Michael Rollins and Rex Alexandre, my cousins. I love these two so much because they're just like my Michael and Rex away from Michael and Rex. Love it.


Interesting thing--last night for dinner we had summer squash from my garden as a side to our spaghetti and meatballs. One of the two looked quite a bit more orange than it ought to have. I was confused. It's skin was also much tougher than the other squash and the seeds were darker and the pulp...well, pulpier. Needless to say, I was pretty skeptical as to whether it would be good or not, but decided to cook it anyway. The skin stayed tough and the inside went soft and pulpy. Guess what it tasted like. PUMPKIN! Yes, we are pretty sure that that squash got cross-bred with my pumpkin plant. Quite the interesting tasting experience. Not one I'd try to do intentionally, but I'll eat the leftovers just in the name of not wasting my food.

I finally made banana muffins tonight. A double batch. Guess what I discovered this week! Our grocery store sells ripe bananas at half price. So now anytime I want/need to make banana muffins for my little addict, I don't have to wait for bananas to go ripe! So we have lots and lots of banana muffins...and tomorrow I have a good bit of zucchini that needs to be baked into bread as well. Mmmmmm, yum! And you know what is just so great? It's such a rewarding feeling to spend all that time and effort baking muffins for a sweet little person who, upon seeing a muffin in his momma's hand, will start flapping his arms and talking so excitedly to tell me that I can't possibly give him this muffin fast enough. It's just nice to feel appreciated. He even shared one of his oh, so treasured bites with me.

You know what else is great? This. Having your little guy go to his special little chair with a book and ask for help to sit in it and read on his own, content. Thank you, Tommy, for making life and all my efforts just so rewarding.