11 months and counting

My sweet Charlton is approaching his one year mark, turning 11 month old today. At church the other day, one of the older gentlemen mentioned that he looked healthy for a two year old baby. I laughed when Elijah told me later, and I laughed even more when he started to remind me to not feed this baby too much. I'm happy Charlton has a good appetite, because he burns energy like no one I know, crawling and climbing everywhere. This baby never rests, except when he is asleep. I'm glad that I have three other children who cater to Charlton's needs and play with him for hours, because I don't think I could keep up with him. Today, for example, Jefferson, and then Gillian, played with Charlton "hide and seek" for over an hour, crawling like him and having him look for them as they circled around and around. He would crawl fast so he could catch up with them, and then the kids would change direction, and Charlton would be puzzled and look around for them. When they showed themselves to him, they would all sit down and laugh with all their hearts. What fun to have sweet siblings! It doesn't matter where and what they are playing, Charlton wants to be with his siblings. If Gillian is reading up in her room, Charlton would climb the stairs and join her there playing with whatever toys or books she has there. He also likes to look at her wall to wall mirror. When he is done at Gillian's room, or if the boys are making more noise, he joins them for more fun. The boys' room is always a disaster area, full of toys and books, and paper and markers. You can imagine this is heaven for Charlton. What is amazing to me is the fact that the older children don't complain that Charlton is disturbing their free time or ruining their game, instead they utter joyous statements like "Yea, Charlton is with us" or "Our sweet brother wants to play with us" or "Mom, you better take this pair of scissors downstairs, because Charlton is up here"and many more of such statements that make my heart burst from joy. Today, when the older children were playing outside with this enormous box using it for various purposes such as surprise Christmas package for mom (with all of my four children inside), or James' favorite spot to read, or Gillian's time machine, or Jefferson's jet plane parking, Charlton was there the whole time, if not inside the box, for sure outside finding bugs and leaves on the ground. This is what Santa gave me for Christmas in July, hands down the most precious present I will ever receive:
A few words about our garden. We have been blessed with a lot of fresh produce from our garden such as cucumbers, squash, beans, corn, and tomatoes. I eat cucumbers and beans for snacks everyday, they are that good. Today, I grilled some chicken and got some squash from the garden and grilled some as well. Then, the children harvested a lot of vegetables, and I boiled some corn, which was so delicious, and also had the children share our produce with our neighbours. They love to do service, and I had them each carry a platter full of fresh vegetables to take to the neighbors. They looked very happy and proud for doing a good deed. If you love any of the vegetables mentioned above, come and help yourselves. My kids would love to help you harvest some!