I love these!

Paintings my sister did for her friend's baby's room. Adik, buat la satu set untuk kakak :-)!

Summer Visiting Vacation 2012 - Part 3

July 9 2012

We went to Peach Crest Farm in Stratford, Oklahoma to pick up some peaches with Poppy. I was totally excited and we got ready pretty early for our U-pick trip. I love peaches and Daniel has been telling me about how good peaches can be here. I've never seen a peach tree before and I was hoping for some big towering trees that could provide me with some shades from the scorching hot sun. When we arrived at the farm, my eyes started to twitch when I saw the real deal. Oh no! These trees were super tiny and the temperature on the dashboard said 92 degrees and there was hardly any shade! For a split second, the idea of staying inside the car with the A/C on seemed far more tempting. But seriously, although I felt that the weather gods were feeling a little too frisky for my liking, I did get myself out of the car to start my peach picking adventure. I was glad I did. Despite being a little bit on the small side, some of the peaches were pretty good.

Since Peach Crest is a USDA certified organic farm, no pesticides are used here. We saw hundreds, could even be thousands of giant grasshopper everywhere in the farm, jumping and hopping, happily eating the peaches until there's nothing left except the pits.

40 minutes later, and we were done with peach picking!

 We drove by Stratford little town. There was nothing much to see or do here.

Sarah : "Move along folks!"

We took a different route to go home and it was great to be able to see other towns along the way. This is the city of Ada.

 Somewhere along the way home, we stopped at an Amish store to buy some fudge.

There are some pretty good fudge here and many choices to choose from.

One of the many beautiful landscapes of Oklahoma on the way back.

A sudden, welcome, rain shower cooled down the temperature from extremely hot to pleasant.

Chilling out at Poppy's place. In case you're wondering why the boys were only wearing swimming shorts, they were waiting to have water balloon fights. The sweet lady wearing an apron, that's GB, Poppy's wife. 

Beautiful and cozy house!

Water balloon fight, especially after the rain is FUN! 

Despite the hot weather, the backyard is unbelievably green and so pretty.

Thriving vegetable garden

Serious grilling is going on here

Producing this yummy dinner

Sarah with the ever cheerful Aunt B.

Cleaning up after dinner.

Hanging out with Poppy in the backyard.

Last activity of the day - the Diet Coke and Mentos geyser. 

From today

Happy baby in the morning.

She loves anything to do with paper. I just have to pay close attention so that she doesn't chew on it.

Some sketches I made for Sarah's dresses. Now, if only I were able to have some quiet time to sew. Also, Daniel's cousin, Sam, is getting married, and I've been browsing through his and his fiancee's wedding registry to find some gifts. I'm wondering what to do next after I purchase the gift. Should I send it to their home address, or present it to them on the day of the wedding? This is going to be my first time attending a wedding here. I'm excited!  

 This girl loves her bubble bath.

"Can you please stop taking my pictures? I'm trying to cruise in peace here". Sarah is wearing a dress that Poppy's wife, GB gave her. GB wore this dress when she was baby.

Love love love the colors! 

My snapdragons are still standing!

She napped for 5 hours today!

My sister's art work

At the moment...

At this very moment, Sarah and I are hanging out at the couch. She's about to go to sleep while nursing and I'm juggling between the nursing and typing and battling not to doze off myself. She already took a short nap this morning, we played for a while, I gave her a bath and now she's on my lap again. She won't nap for long unless I were to hold her or lie next to her. When she's wide awake, she's usually all over the place. Chasing her around the house is pretty much what I do these days as she explores and tries to put everything she sees and finds in her mouth. She doesn't sit still at all! She has started cruising more than 2 weeks now. She even tried to climb the stairs just 2 days ago! Seriously, I can't turn my back for one second, or she's off getting into trouble. It's fun to watch her and all the milestones that she has achieved right in front of me eyes. BUT I have to admit, it is also very exhausting trying to make sure she doesn't get hurt. 

She just got up from her morning nap and didn't have her bath yet.

We bought this ermmm..baby play yard (has anybody raised any brows yet?). I hope it doesn't impair her development in any way; cognitive, physical whatsoever. But Daniel and I wanted to give it a try just because it seems like we can't get much done except keeping an eye on her for most of the time.We never intended it to be a permanent fixture and we only leave her (usually with one of her brothers) in there for a short period of time, less than 2 hours usually whenever we need to get things done, like when Daniel wants to study and I need to fix dinner. It's only been 5 days since we got it and so far she's not a fan.        

                      

I was also browsing the bazillion pictures earlier in the day, pictures that I took last summer and am wondering how in the world I'm gonna post them in here without being so behind. In case you're reading this, Dad - are you still checking my blog daily? I'm so sorry! I'm still trying to figure out how this SAHM thing works - EFFICIENTLY! Either my time management is so poor or because there are so many things to do that never seem to end. And oh I'm a bit OCD. I have certain ways of doing things that I'm pretty sure won't contribute in being efficient but keep doing them anyway just to keep my sanity intact. Sometimes when I read other mummies' blogs, I can't help feeling a bit intimidated by them and how they've accomplished so much and here I am, still struggling to find the right ways, do the right things even after having 4 kids. I have to say I did get a lot of help from my mother and a live-in-maid for the first 3 children so that probably explains why I feel at loss sometimes with Sarah. And I worked before and I didn't get the privilege of seeing my 3 older boys growing in front of me. Heck I didn't even potty training them! My maid did it for me for all the boys.

Excuse my leg. Sarah was trying to get on the laptop and I was busy taking her pictures doing so. And that's my mom in the picture, with Neil and his wife Nancy. Neil is Daniel's friend and he owns a boat and he invited us to go sailing when my parents were here. It was awesome! But that of course would be in other post :-)

Oh oh, she's awake! 

 Post nap happy face!

 Trying to get our pictures together. 

She does not look too happy, although I think it's hilarious the way she looked at me, like 'Errr excuse me, I need to eat so stop taking pictures and feed me' kinda look .

Daniel and the boys just got home from work and school. In case you're wondering why Emir is wearing a reflective vest, he's a school safety patrol and he even got a badge for it. Right now the boys are reading. We set a schedule for them to follow to make life easier for us and for them. When they come home from school, they need to wash their lunch box, then perform their prayers, and do their homework. Then they need to read for an hour and then off to do math practice on IXL (which is great math practice site btw, apart from Khan Academy). And then when they're done with all these, they get to watch TV for an hour and/or play video games for an hour. In between these, they have to perform the rest of prayers of the day when the time comes and have dinner. We made the rule for them to play video games only on alternate days. The games drive me crazy but Daniel plays with them whenever he gets the opportunity.

Daniel is trying to lure Sarah to get inside the 'baby jail' by reading one of her baby books.

It works!

Now that everybody's home, I'm off to fix dinner.