Our birthdays!

Here I go, heading back to late September for a little birthday recap! No time like the present since it is the eve of Terah's 7th birthday. I better scrapbook about Jason and my double header of birthdays before we enter another day of celebrating around here! 

I think I can speak for both of us to say that we both had a really nice birthday. And maybe more than ever, we kinda approached our birthdays as a block - sprinkling the relaxation, fun, family project time and celebrations over my birthday on the 28th and Jason's on the 29th. I'm liking having ours back to back more the older we get. And we bought our presents jointly - some new flour sifters, a hand crank corn sheller and an apple corer/peeler/slicer. 

Due to me sharing a birthday with my niece Ivy, our girls headed her way on the eve of her birth (and mine) for a bday sleepover. That meant that I managed to stay in bed for a long time on my birthday morning (for better or worse on two electronic devices!). Additionally Jason and I got to enjoy a hike just the two of us to Hensley's Pond. We couldn't have asked for more beautiful weather on either of our special days. So we welcomed our 44th and 46th birthdays, with me feeling a lot of gratitude for making it through the past year and being at a place of feeling more ready to celebrate me/us than I have for some time. 

The girls returned in time for our birthday dinner, graciously made by my mom. Christen and Luca joined us, making is even more festive AND full of cuteness!!

Jason's birthday morning started with some food favorites - fresh sesame candy and funny cake pie. And then it was time to get into the FUN project of the day. We'd never dig white potatoes on a birthday (see earlier blog regarding the kind of moods we are normally in after that project!), but sweet potatoes are normally a delight and again they did not disappoint!

There was even some dancing on the way to the patch! We started by harvesting as many greens as we could get in a short pass through the patch. I had forgotten that last year we did that on the day BEFORE digging and not on the same day. Oops! Made for a much longer day...

But many hands certainly made the work lighter and more fun. And we were soon carting bushels and more bushels of potatoes out of the patch!

Our process includes lining them up in the yard and spraying them down, flipping them and spraying the other side before loading them in trays for the curing room. We like to admire all the silly shapes while we lay them out. This year had a lot more "normal" looking sweet potatoes, but there were still some unusual ones!

Later in the evening, Kali helped me get the greens in the freezer before calling it a day - while Jason and the younger two did some music. 

But before that, we enjoyed a new food requested by Jason - muscadine grape pie. It was a hit!

And, last but not least, Terah learned to play Happy Birthday on the piano. Super cute!