Sunshine in Germany?

Wow! Gemma has changed so much in the last month. She is a little lady now. She still isn't quite walking, she prefers to bear crawl her way around. We are convinced that she can walk, she just prefers to take her time for which I am thankful. She has discovered that she can crawl up onto things. In the last week, she has wiggled her way into drawers, onto chairs and my personal favorite was when she made her way up to the window sill! Thankful the window was closed, but I couldn't help being proud of how she made her way to the top of the couch to crawl onto the window sill. She was standing on it while pointing to the trees outside and babbling out descriptions. Too cute! I am sure I will find this less and less cute as she makes her way faster and higher!

She LOVES to be outside and we have been blessed with the most amazing weather lately - so all we do is hang out outside. I found this little wagon at a flea market and Gemma loves to push it all over the driveway and backyard. If I am working in the garden, I can rig the wagon so that she pushes it in a big circle and she will happily do this for 10-15 minutes which gives me some time to work! Ben and I are growing some flowers that I bought at the Tulip festival in The Netherlands last year and also a few tomato plants. We had our first nearly ripe tomato yesterday and it was delicious! We have also been picking the blackberries that grow all over our yard here and I have been having fun making jams, scones and any other recipe I can find that has berries in it! I learned how to make jam when we were in Italy last time. It's so easy and so yummy! I love it because I don't have to follow a set recipe...I can make it however I want. I boil the berries in a saucepan, stirring occasionally. The only things I add are a tiny bit of sugar and some lemon juice. Once the berries have boiled down a bit, I pour it into piping hot jars that have been steralized in the oven at 120 celcius (about 300 F) for 30 minutes. I put on the lid, flip the jar over and let it cool completely. Voila! Yummy homemade jam to last the whole year! It's been fun to spend time doing the simple things in life with Ben and Gemma. He leaves way to soon for yet another deployment and we are jealous for every second that we can spend together as a family.