the best meal of the year

Behold the Fried Green Tomato.

I am pretty sure it is my favorite food to eat. I thought about that fact long and hard as I ate them this year. I thought through the christmas menu, the thanksgiving menu, compared it against my favorite soup, even against a caprese salad. And I decided that the Fried Green Tomato wins for top favorite.

And I think I know why: you can only have a Fried Green Tomato for a few weeks of the year. It is a seasonal food, available nowhere unless there are green tomatoes growing.

Not to mention the dipping sauce. A kicked up mayonnaise with extra vinegar. Salivating as I type. I wrote about the dipping sauce back in 2011. And you might remember last year when I paired the food with the movie, which was pretty much as awesome as I had imagined it would be.

While we ate our Strawberry Pie back in June, Rory and I were talking about how delicious the pie was, partly because we picked those very berries, and partly because those berries were perfectly ripe. You can order a slice of strawberry pie any day of the year at Bakers Square, but you're not going to get a pie like the one we ate at the end of June. You have to wait until the end of June to have a strawberry pie that good.

So we decided to only have strawberry pie at the end of June. And a peach pie only in July. And homemade blueberry cobbler with homemade ice cream in August. We got all excited about having one special sweet treat each month of the year, depending on what is in season. (I've googled some mid-winter sweets...custard pie, banana cream, honey pie...just you wait!) And to not eat that treat any other time of the year.

Because food tastes better when it's in season. That should be obvious. But maybe part of the goodness is in anticipating that food all year long. Like my Fried Green Tomatoes.

more jesus

Each night when Elsie goes to sleep we will read three books and then I'll ask her if she wants to snuggle. She always does and it means she turns her body and rests her head under my chin as we rock back and forth and I sing Jesus Loves Me.

Tonight as a stalling tactic, she kept calling out during the song, "More Jesus!" So I sang Jesus Loves the Little Children. And she kept on, "More Jesus! More Jesus!"

I mean, honestly, what is a mother to do?

So I kept on, "Jesus, Jesus there's just something about that name. Master, Savior, Jesus..." and on, "Tis so Sweet to Trust in Jesus...Jesus, Jesus how I trust Him!" and on, "What a Friend we have in Jesus, All our Sins and Griefs to Bear..." And at this point it became a game for me too. A good ol' church-girl challenge. I went through camp songs, hymns, and church liturgy.

It was a really precious moment and a moment I am sure will now be repeated, now that Elsie knows the magic words that will keep me in her room, holding her close, rocking her back and forth, back and forth.

More Jesus!

july at the grovestead

And I'm back! We just returned from family bible camp and had an awesome time. I had planned on blogging while up at camp, but as it turns out camp has its own wonderful pace and I only got my laptop out one time. Which might just be reason number 6,793 why I love family bible camp so much.

But it also meant I went a whole week without blogging! Which is a very rare occurrence for me.

This month flew by and I have a whole lot of posts still left in my head so I thought I'd close this month with a bit of a photo dump. We're in full on summertime here at the grovestead. Lots of animals, flowers, produce, sunshine and weeds. Our chickens are growing, our children are growing, and our garden is growing.

It's a happy season and we're happily soaking it all in.

overheard

Elsie has started calling me, "BahKah." I've tried to tell her that I am her mama a few times, and then I heard Ivar tell her this, "Elsie, only oldults call her Becca. Are you an oldult? No. We are kids. So we call her Mama. Can you say Mama?" Elsie looked right at him and said, "BahKah."

We have been listening to an old VBS cd in the car and one of the songs says, "I'm fired up for Jesus!" Ivar asked me what fired up means. I told him, "Well, when you're fired up it means you want to tell everyone. When you're fired up for Jesus it means you want everyone to know that you love him so much." Ivar told me, "Oh. I'm fired up for these chips. Mama, you should tell all the people that I just love these chips!"

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And I put these up on facebook, but I don't ever print out facebook like I print my blog...so it's not really a great place to write my kid's quotes. But since I print out my blog, I'll record them here:

Ivar just put on his spiderman glasses from McDonalds and said, "When I put these on I am going to be very grumpy and pretend that I am not hilarious."

Ivar just said, "mom, you remember that movie of the little lamp that was jump, jump, jumping and it smooshed a letter? I want to watch that one again sometime. Maybe we can get it at the library." (he was talking about the little scene that shows before every Pixar movie.)

Ivar during his bath: "And mom, don't get any wetness on my hair. Because then it will grow and remember I got it cut yesterday?"

We were given a children's picnic table and the kids are thrilled. Ivar told me, "now me and Elsie will sit at this little table and the oldults will sit at the big table!" I think that makes me and Rory oldults.

Ivar just said, "Remember when we went to the zoo yesterday and we got a rememberingship so we can go again and again and again?"

Last night Ivar and I were struggling to get his tight pajama shirt on. He said, "It won't go on! Because it is for small-year-olds, and I'm three-years-old!"

the rice county fair

After Elsie's birthday party we decided to go to the Rice County Fair. Our friend Kandi was competing in the Karaoke competition and had made it into the finals. Obviously we had to go and watch! And we're so glad we did. She took home the gold, or in this case, a whole lot of fair bucks! When she started singing the guy behind us said, "well, here's the winner!" She was awesome.

And of all the rides to choose from our kids chose the big slide. Ivar loved it and would do it again in a heartbeat. Elsie held her breath most of the way down and let out a whimper when we got to the end. It might have been just a little bit too big for her: 

elsie slide from Becca Groves on Vimeo.

Then we went and saw all of the animals went home when everyone was still happy. A great night at the fair!