wearing her red heels…

well, my red heels, i should say!

but for those 10 minutes she tromped and sashayed her way around the house in them; i guess they were hers 🙂

she struggled to get them on but did she want any help?

uh, no way!

(as shown by The Hand!)

success!  she has them on!

now what i wonder?

ok, now she wants to play a game.  in heels.  got it.

after the game playing, she wandered the house for a bit and then eventually sat down to take them off with a universal statement of:  “whew, my feet hurt!”

to which i replied, “yep but we wear them anyway!”

then she says, “because they are so red!  and pretty!”

she kind of hit the nail on the head there, didn’t she ladies?

“i’m going to be a doctor, mama!”

wendy gave jasper an actual (versus a play version) stethoscope and jasper loves it!

she likes to ambush us with her doctor routine:  “mama, breathe deep!  mama, take two more breaths!  deeper!”

she is a strict doctor 🙂

i am always a little relieved when somebody else gets to be the patient 🙂

and once she determined the pony was “just fine!”, she moved on brushing the tail…

once the horse was pronounced healthy and her tail brushed, jasper dragged it into the dining room and climbed on up!

giddy-up!

“daddy, what does THAT do?”

our saturday morning gym run was topped off with a little jon and jaspy-time 🙂

while i finished my stretching, jon and jasper waited patiently for me…  for about 3 minutes, then they wandered over to where i was and jasper started her questions:

“what does THAT thing do?”

“what is this red one?  can i try it out?”

and so jon proceeded to show her.

some kind of weird, jasper-sized stair stepper…

so they tried out about 5 different machines while i finished up and then we went home!

and then when jasper and i went back to the gym on monday, jaspy goes, “mommy, can i try out those machines again?  like last time?”

i told her to wait until saturday…  when jon was there with us 🙂

what comes from picking blueberries?

PIE!!!

blueberry pie to be exact!

jon said, “i would love some pie – with the lattice crust on top and nothing fancy on the inside.  just blueberry pie.”

the man knows me well – somebody says, “i want pie” and i go look up recipes that sound interesting, fun or different – none of those were what jon wanted 🙂

in fact, “no, not cream pie or rhubarb-blueberry pie or 3 berry pie – just blueberry pie…  with the crust on top.” is what he said…  again...

after the third reminder from him, i finally got it – yes, sir!

so i made a simple blueberry pie (with an abnormal lattice crust because i forgot to weave)…

and man, was it good!

hands and lips stained blue!

so mom has been trying to talk me into blueberry picking for years now – years…  and i kept saying no – the whole early morning thing just didn’t appeal to me.

but this year, when mom made her annual blueberry farm request, i figured that jasper was old enough to appreciate it and i might as well just go with the flow – see?

so i went with the flow and it turned out to be a lovely morning…

even though i was up and in the car by 6:30 am for no good reason…  or so i thought (hint:  i was wrong; wonderfully wrong)…

the weather was fantastic – cool and breezy and by the time it started getting hot, our baskets were full and we were ready to stop…

i was very happy to be proven wrong and i think this will have to be an annual summer event!

there weren’t that many people out there (maybe they wanted to sleep in?  just a thought…) so it was quiet with just the sounds of us talking softly and our happy gasps when we came across a particularly big blueberry…

i just couldn’t get over how pretty they were – so soft, frosty and blue…

i might have thought they were very pretty but jasper though they were very tasty!

luckily, the lady owner said they were having a bumper crop this year and that jasper could eat as many as she wanted while picking.

whew!

she mostly stayed by her neena (no surprise there!) but every once in a while, she would come and check on me – i would hear, “mama, where aaaarrrreeee you?”

and then she would pop around the end of the row 🙂

and then we would pick blueberries together until she decided it was time to find her neena again 🙂

jasper must have been enjoying the quiet too because she was pretty focused on berry picking instead of talking (this is rare – she is a talker) so it was very soothing – it really was!

every thing was soft:  soft sounds, soft berries, soft sand, soft morning, just soft…

can you tell i enjoyed myself?

all of our hands were slightly stained blue by the time we were done but jasper was the only one with blue lips as well 🙂

she was pretty good about picking off the stems –  not great but hmmm, better than her neena!

here she comes:  checking up on me and seeing how i am doing 🙂

“just coming to see you, mama.  you want some company?”

that was an offer i couldn’t refuse!

see what i mean?  soft, frosty and blue.

so pretty…  mom, i totally embrace how wrong i was!

by the time we finished, mom and i both had mostly full buckets and jasper had about 1/2 a bucket…  ‘cuz the rest of the blueberries she picked, she ate!

once it started getting hot and we had filled our buckets as much as we wanted, we wandered out of the fields and into the store (where aunt jimmie was) and man, the smell!

oh, the smell was soooo good!  they had blueberry pies and blueberry muffins and blueberry scones and blueberry breakfast rolls and blueberry ice cream  and i can’t remember what else – all made on site in the shop by the lady owner and her daughters…  the very air was so filled with blueberry yumminess, i swear i think it was tinged blue!

really.  cross my heart.  tinged blue.

my mouth started watering as soon as i stepped through the door and then i started in on all of the tasting of the jams and jellies and peanut butters that they also make there – i walked away with piece of blueberry cream pie a la mode that jasper, mom and i shared and a jar of no sugar added blueberry preserves…  and if i had been really bad, i would have gotten the blackberry pecan peanut butter – it tasted like candy!  but boy, i bet i would have eaten it like candy too so that jar of badness stayed right where it was!

wandering around the little bakery and store was almost as much fun as the berry picking itself and the end result?

no longer will i moan and groan because next blueberry season?  we will be up bright, shiny and early!

thanks mom for being right and persevering – i am glad that we didn’t miss out on that morning 🙂

let’s not forget the baby horse either!

lots of kitty time, no doubt but if you think jasper lilith forgot about the horses, you are bonkers!

because after our kitty hour, we had horse time 🙂

although when i say horse time, i really mean brooke time…

the baby horse was just as fascinated by jasper as jasper was by the baby horse…

in fact, this little horse just kind of followed jasper around like a tall, gangly puppy!

it was really interesting to watch.

brooke has to test out what jasper is doing 🙂

it works out for both of them – jasper just wants to love on brooke and brooke just wants to be loved on – isn’t it nice when things work out the way they should?

“mama, i sure wish we could take brooke home with us.”

what?  a kitten isn’t good enough anymore?  now you want a filly?

right.

now if this isn’t two young creatures in love with each other, i don’t what is!

kittens, horses, wait!  mom, now we just need puppies!!

puppies!

at what point is a person overrun by kittens?

we spent the week at mom’s and not only did we get to see neena, richard and all the kitties, doggies and horses but we also met aunt jimmie for the first time ever!

aunt jimmie is my grandmother’s youngest sister – jasper got a real kick out of calling her “great great aunt jimmie” every time…  and i mean every time 🙂

it was the first time that either mom or i had met jimmie and i wish we had her in our lives much sooner than this.

but we do now 🙂

aunt jimmie and jasper each petting their brand new kittens – little 3 week old babies…

jasper couldn’t decide who to love on first:  baby kittens or the baby horse – the kittens won out but barely!

pure and simple savoring of the moment.

uh, oh, that kitten doesn’t look so happy to me 🙂

“great great aunt jimmie, aren’t these kitties just adorable?”

aunt jimmie agreed 🙂

we sat under the shade of the big pecan tree for about an hour – holding kittens, passing kittens around (there were 5 of them), talking, enjoying the breeze and each others company…

it was a wonderful end to the first day of our little family gathering!

a girl on her trike…

we went for a walk at the lake on monday evening but the walk quickly turned into more of a trike ride…

“you better take a picture of this, mama!  i am going to go so fast, you won’t be able to see me in a minute!”

then she shouts, “go, jasper, go!  and off i go!”

and so off she went!

the hat, the sunglasses – she is all summered up, isn’t she?

“off i go!  i am so fast like lightening!”

or something 🙂

she takes a break from her trike to go check out the water with her daddy…

and wander around the dock some before heading right back to her tricycle!

it was a nice evening…

and another birthday party on sunday!

this birthday party was impromptu and unexpected but no less enjoyable for that!

we went over to wendy’s new house to celebrate jack’s birthday on sunday with brownie cupcakes and hot dogs – yum!

jasper and the boys ran around in and out of the house for a while and we girls hung out on the porch and supervised the lighting of the grill and the drinking of the mike’s hard lemonade…

and also we provided sweet liquid dinners for the mosquitoes…  you are welcome, mosquitoes.

after the bigger kiddos finished exploring wendy’s acre and 1/2 of land, we rung the imaginary bell (you really need to get a bell, wendy!) and gathered them all up again for food!

after the real food, we moved on to the Good Food…  which really just means iced brownie bites 🙂

that’s a happy face, isn’t it?

can you hear us singing?

and now it’s time to dig in!

wendy:  “what color do you want, honey?”

jasper:  “oh, just pink, of course!  always pink!”

and so she picked out two pink brownie bites 🙂

two pink frosted brownie bites = one happy jasper lilith!

(and one yellow frosted brownie bite = one happy daune!)

happy birthday, jack!

a birthday party!

welp, it’s official – jasper lilith is the last of her class to turn 4 years old!

we went to kendra’s  birthday party on saturday (if i used the term “best friend” i would use it here but really, they are so young; they don’t know what best friends are yet!  i think maybe adults use it ‘cuz it’s cute?  but i digress i think…) but not only was kendra a classmate but she is also someone we have weekly playdates with so they are close…

anyway!  and so once kendra turned 4 that has left jasper as the only one that hasn’t!  i am not complaining though – the end of august will be here before we know it and jasper will be a 4 year old (before we know it) and that will be too soon for me!

we had a great time – jasper had a good time with her classmates and friends and i had a good time with some of the mothers that i hadn’t seen since school was out…  however, a side effect to the party?  jasper asked if she could have her “friends from school” at her birthday party…  i was not excited to hear that request 🙂

but i will probably honor it anyway…  and prepare myself for an onslaught of 4 year olds in my house…  ok, i am going to not think about that again for another month!

first there was a miniature bounce house!

jasper and the boys loved that!

getting out was a bit trickier when everybody is still bouncing 🙂

and then there was presents!

and then there was cake!

gotta love the barbie cake 🙂

it was fun for jasper and it was fun for me and that is A Good Thing!

happy birthday, kendra!