During beach week, my mother-in-law brought some peaches from her home town, Fort Mill, SC. They were some of the best peaches I've ever had. So like any sane person would do, I demanded that we buy as many peaches as we could before we left the state. How many, you ask? Ohhh, a half bushel.


 
What to do with 25lbs of peaches? Why, make preserves, of course!  My friend Carly and I decided to take the plunge and try our hand at canning.  She had the hardware, I had the software, it was a perfect match.  We spent about 4 hours through the whole process and it was really a lot of fun.  I'm excited about future canning!!  Did I really just say that? With exclamation points even?? 
 
Head on over to her adorable blog The Hale Family and read about our canning playdate.  I have yet to try the preserves, but I hear they are amazing.  Looking forward to breakfast tomorrow.  I know you're jealous.
 
I'm not sure if you realize just how many peaches are in 25 lbs. A whole heck of a lot. 
 
 
 Some other things I did with the peaches are: give one to every kid I know, eat a bunch myself, give tons to Eamon (fun diapers there), make 2 batches of homemade peach & almond ice cream, make a peach and blueberry cobbler, peach bellinis for girls game night, and, last but not least, chopped and froze the last remaining cup for future smoothies.  Phew!  Next time I want to buy 25 lbs of any fruit, please someone smack me.
 
PS - I'm thinking of starting up a food blog with some of my mommy friends as a way to post our recipes.  Keep an eye out for that!!

My friends, the inevitable has happened.  At the beach house, Eamon started walking.  Now that we're home and he gets lots of practice, walking is all he does.  He can walk from one end of the house to the other and is now learning how to turn.  He still falls a lot, but mostly refuses to crawl anymore.  I tried to tell him that walking at 10 months is really more bad than good (due to all the injuries) but of course he wouldn't listen.  I have yet to go out of the house with both kids walking.  This is the beginning of the end for me.  I will become a hermit.

Eamon is growing by leaps and bounds.  His favorite toys are balls and anything he can push/pull.  He even made his first sign at the beach!  BALL!  He makes the sign and says, "bah bah."  Another gifted and talented baby as Mimi would say!


Eamon is now a pointing fool.  He sees things he wants, like your cup in particular, points at it, walks towards it and says "THAT."  Pepin the Cat is his new best friend.  He likes to pull his tail and fall down on him - hence Baby Godzilla.  Here's a video of him pointing to the cat.

From 2010_07

Just like his big brother, Eamon is especially adept at climbing.  He uses his little sticky feet to walk up the slide.  Here he is and he's so proud of himself!  I took the slide away.  I know, I'm a bad mommy but it's for his own good.  He keeps falling off the platform!

From 2010_07

What a cute place to spend a rainy afternoon.  It's small, but the tanks are amazing.  I especially loved the sea horses and jelly fish.  The staff was interactive and nice.  I'd definitely recommend a trip there with the family.

Beach week photos are here!  For the first time in 5 years (don't quote me on that) Matt was able to spend the whole week with us.  The first couple of days were hairy as both kids weren't feeling good and, well, who doesn't get overstimulated with 18 people in 1 house?  By the end of the week, both were loving all the attention.  Unfortunately the last couple of days were rainy and very windy so we didn't spend time on the beach.  We went to the North Carolina Aquarium in Fort Fisher (I'll post pics on another post) on a rainy Thursday afternoon and then spent most of Friday on the back porch.  It was so much fun, but also exhausting.  Now I understand why my parents never went on vacation... it's a lot of work!