He's Baaack! And other news...

So Caleb got back from his two-week vacation at Nana and Papa's house on Monday morning. We saw them coming, so the girls and I went outside to greet them as they got out of the car. It was the cutest thing: Camille took off running toward her brother and he yelled "Camille!" and gave her the biggest hug! "I missed you Camille!" he said. "I missed you Caleb," she replied. Aw!



They played happily for about fifteen minutes, which is pretty much when they started arguing about which Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle toys each one of them was going to play with!

We are really happy to have Caleb home, although it has been a tough adjustment for everyone. For two weeks, Caleb had Nana and Papa's undivided attention whenever he wanted it. For two weeks, Camille had her run of the house and didn't have to share toys with anyone. For two weeks Mommy didn't have to worry about how to split her attention three ways. We've had our fair share of temper tantrums, sibling abuse and general grouchiness, but I am hoping that it all passes quickly. When kids aren't being crabby at each other (stealing toys, biting each other and what not) they truly do play together quite well.

Here are some pictures of our family at the park this week.

The girls


I like the funny faces Camille is making in these!



In other news, our garden is starting to keep us stocked with produce (well, just zucchini and tomatoes since our squash plants fizzled and our cucumbers dried out because of the lack of rain). We just started eating our homegrown tomatoes today - so delicious! And I've been making batch after batch of zucchini bread. My kids won't eat it as a vegetable, but grate it up and make it into bread and my kids will eat it up. We like to put lots of fruit in it - raisins, dried cranberries if we have any, dried apples. That makes it really yummy. As a special treat, we put cool whip on it and eat it as cake! Yum! On a good day, I make it with home-ground wheat flour so we can pretend that it's healthy enough for us to eat the whole loaf in one sitting! No wonder I can't fit into my regular pants yet!