Ethan is here!

Ethan is here! Joshua and Shannon's son arrived. We have all been patiently but also anxiously awaiting for his arrival. It's not my birth story to tell details so I won't but I'll just say that Shannon, Joshua and Ethan did a great job. He's here safe and well. He is such a good baby, his momma says he hardly ever cries. Here he is resting peacefully later on the day he was born.

Jessica is one happy sister to have her brother here. She'll big a big help to Shannon with Ethan I'm sure.

Ethan is telling Jess "Hi sis! Good to meet you".

Contentment and love.

Ethan has the most expressive eye brows that I've seen on a new born. He looks like he's concentrating on something serious. Who knows he probably is.

As with a lot of newborns Ethan got jaundice so under the lights he went. He rested well under the lights. Like I said he's a good boy.

Jovie wanted to get in with Ethan. her mamma of course held her tight.

Jovie thought maybe if Uncle Joshua held me I can get in.

I love this picture of Joshua and Ethan looking at each other.

I noticed Joshua's bigness along side Ethan's tiny body. He may have big hands but they are gentle for his son.

With Ethan under the lights and stuff I didn't get to hold him for awhile so I was sooo excited when I got my chance. Joshua is looking on though as if I've never held a baby in my arms before. Protective daddy I say. I do have to say though that I've held a few babies in my lifetime:). Ethan went to the nursery for a little bit and so I couldn't hold him but I did get to go see him for a few minutes before I went home at 4:00am. Joshua took me in the nursery and Ethan was crying. I started talking to him telling him how much we loved him and he stopped his crying and started looking around to find the voice. I then started to leave and he started crying again so I started talking to him again and he stopped crying to listen to me. I felt very honored to have had that moment with him.

Got milk???

Ethan I love you and I'm looking forward to getting to know you. Welcome to our family! We ALL love you.

As an after thought I'm including a few pictures of Joshua when he was born so you can see the resemblance Ethan has to his daddy. You can tell he's his daddy's son. Handsome guys!

Joshua is older in this picture. He's about 3 weeks.

Rachel holding her little brother for the first time. He's hungry as usual:) In these next two pictures Joshua is 2 days old.

Misty holding Joshua for the first time. Don't worry I'm right next to her. I would not let her drop him.

Huge pumpkins and more

My garden has produced well this season. I've put in a lot of work and we have enjoyed the bounty. I have also shared with others since their was just so much.
We were able to eat some corn on the cob and then I picked it all and cut it off the cob and froze it. We will enjoy it this winter.

Tomato's, tomato's and more tomato's. We have eaten tomato's, I have given tomato's away, I have made at least 25 pints of freezer salsa, Four + batches of spaghetti sauce and I still have tomato's in the garage and on the vine. I will be making more spaghetti sauce ect. Plus I may just give more away... I practically see tomato's in my sleep.

I'm so proud of the red pepper. This is the very first red pepper that I have grown that actually didn't go bad on the vine while it was turning red. I picked it and I have one more on the vine right now almost ready to pick.

Zucchini's start out as huge beautiful yellow flowers.

Now for the pumpkins. I grew large pumpkins so I could let the grand kids have them for Halloween. I have 4 really big ones so each family will get to have one of the pumpkins. I'm excited to give them to them. I hope they like them.

These two are smaller and have smoother skin and they come from the same seed packet.

I'll keep these most likely.

I have Ruby sitting by the pumpkins so we can see how big they are. She was so good posing for me.

This ones a little smaller than the other 3.

The garden is slowing down but the produce is still growing. Believe it or not I am still picking strawberries. I'm getting a cup or two every 2 or 3 days now. I also have had enough jalapeno pepper and green peppers for the salsa I've been making and have a bunch of them in the freezer too. I did learn this year that I planted too much for Larry and I so next year I will not plant as much. I'll still plant a little extra so I can share but definitely not 10 zucchini plants or even 7 tomato plants. I'm anxious to see if the Butternut squash and acorn squash turn out good. I'm leaving them on the vine as long as possible. I actually tried some acorn squash earlier and it was not ready so hopefully leaving it on longer it ripened more.

I'm grateful for our produce but I'm also grateful I live in the part of the country that the ground and plants need to sleep in the winter.