A Weekend Outdoors

Lots of memorable things from our weekend: swimming with cousins, picking strawberries and mulberries, making strawberry shortcake, picnicking with family. Though I think most memorable will be this first time to catch some fish, which were examined (by Millie, but not Silas!) and then thrown back into the pond.
Hope your weekend was filled with good memory-making.

First Strawberry

Tonight Millie and Silas discovered the first ripe strawberry in our garden. It was promptly cut in half for them to share.

Random Follow-Up

Remember this gorgeous flower whose identity was unknown to me? No one in the comments seemed to know what it was either. But my mom managed to figure it out (moms are so smart like that!). It's common name is wallflower, and it's a biennial, so it blooms in its second year. There's a lovely description of wallflowers at French Gardening. This is one instance in which my lack of weeding paid off!

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Sam mentioned in the comments that ivory soap can help with leg cramps at night. Of course, I had to do a bit of research on this funny suggestion, and according to Snopes.com, there just may be something to this! I haven't tried it yet myself, as my experience with leg cramps is fairly infrequent (every couple of weeks or so). But I'll keep it in mind if I experience an increase!

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And my friend Jill seemed to think that my wordless Wednesday picture could use some words of explanation. :)  There's really not much to tell. Isaac was standing on a chair at the sink playing in the water while I washed dishes. I got him all undressed once he was totally soaked. Then he seemed to think it would be a good idea to climb into that pot. So I helped him in and grabbed the camera. :)

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Have a great weekend!

Garden Boxes of Their Own

Millie and Silas each get their own garden boxes this year. Tom built 2x3-foot boxes for each of them, which I thought would be a kid-friendly, manageable size. They sorted through my stash of seeds, then made their plans. The boxes have been planted and watered, and now we're just watching for those first sprouts!

Wordless Wednesday

Baby Bump - 30 weeks

Wow, 30 weeks! It's hard to believe I'm that far along, with just a couple more months until we'll meet this new little person.

I'm still feeling good, for the most part. I've hit the point where I get the occasional leg cramp at night. Not fun, though I've yet to have a pregnancy without them. And I'm just feeling bigger these days, even though I know it's just the beginning!

I'm bracing myself for a tough adjustment once baby arrives. I know everyone says that once you have three, adding more is no big deal. But somehow I'm not buying it. Mostly because this guy is still such a baby:

He's getting to be a big kid in so many ways; everyday I'm amazed at what he's saying and how grown-up he seems. But still, he's little. I'm expecting some bumps in the road come August, but I know we'll find our way along.

Colored Pencil Roll

A gift for one of Millie's friends, whose birthday is today! (It's pictured with some of our colored pencils, but we put in some new Prismacolor pencils for the birthday girl.)

When Silas saw it, he had to have one for himself.

He chose the fabrics from what I had on hand.

Using the tutorial found here, these came together really quickly. I'm hoping to sew one up for Millie this weekend!

This post is linked to:
Made By You Monday

Fragrant

Okay, I'm stumped. I don't know what this flower is, but I have quite a bit of it in one of our garden beds. I planted a wildflower mix last summer, and I didn't see it then, but here it is now. And the smell is just amazing! This afternoon I was weeding this particular spot, and just enjoying the sweet fragrance.

Oh, and I promise it's not going to be all gardening all the time around here. It's just what I've been really enjoying lately! :)

This post is linked to:
You Capture

A Garden Fort

For at least the past two summers I've wanted to make a garden fort for the children. I got the idea here, but with that sort of price tag, I knew we could find a way to make one on our own for much less. Once I got Tom on board, he came up with a great idea. We spent $2 on the pvc pipes, and already had the wire garden fencing on hand. To secure the pvc to the ground, Tom used rebar, which we also already had. We splurged on 2 clematis plants to get us started, which were $6 total. And I already have plenty of seeds to plant (morning glory, sweet peas, pole beans). So for less than $10 out of pocket, we have a garden fort just waiting to fill up with plants.

I'm always trying to think of ways to entice the kids to explore in our backyard. Some of my favorite books for garden inspiration:

Great Gardens for Kids by Clare Matthews

How Does Your Garden Grow? by Clare Matthews

Roots, Shoots, Buckets & Boots by Sharon Lovejoy

Sunflower Houses : Inspiration from the Garden by Sharon Lovejoy

(Disclosure: the above are affiliate links)

This post is linked to:
Frugal Friday

Yellow in the Garden

It's been a wet, cool and downright dreary week. Spring, please come back! But there is color out my back door. Last week I mentioned the kale that has gone to seed, and I see its beautiful, pale yellow flowers these days as I'm working in the kitchen.



I love to discover what surprises we'll find in the garden each spring. Right now we've got little volunteer johnny jump-ups in various places in our vegetable beds.
And I think this is the yellow I'm most excited about. The promise of sweet strawberries, coming soon.


This post is linked to:
You Capture

Snacky Supper

I spend a lot of time during the week making sure our family is eating well. So my days always involve a fair amount of washing, chopping and prepping fresh veggies and fruits. By the time the weekend rolls around I'm often ready for a bit of a break. And I especially try to be intentional about making sure that Sunday is a rest day for me as well as the rest of the family. So keeping supper simple on that night is a good option. We'll often have popcorn on Sunday night, which is a tradition that goes back for Tom and me before we had kids. Lately I'll also either make a smoothie, or we'll have some "fun" fruit that we don't eat as often, either because it's more expensive or out of season. Last week pineapples were on sale at Aldi (only $1.19!), so I grabbed a couple. We also had sliced strawberries, and so I made an easy, healthy chocolate dip for the fruit. This is actually the recipe I use to make fudgesicles, but just skip the freezing, and it makes a yummy dip!

Simply blend:
2 ripe bananas
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
1 cup raw cashews

A nice, delicious way to take a night off from cooking!

Nine Years

Nine years ago, Tom and I were married in Hong Kong.

The private ceremony took place in the apex of what was, at the time, the tallest building in Hong Kong. That's where the church we attended met, and we had an unusually clear day for our wedding.


We've had lots of adventures since that day, and I'm looking forward to many more!

Flowering Kale

I was so excited to see my kale come back, but how could I have forgotten that it would be going to seed? Just another reminder that it really does take years to get a good handle on certain aspects of gardening. You can read all you want, but some things just don't really sink in until you get out and experience them for yourself.

I'll plan to save the seeds from this kale, and I already have more planted. I'm still off to a slow start with gardening, so I don't have as much to report as I'd like.

I'll harden off tomato, pepper and eggplant seedlings this week, and hopefully get them planted this weekend. I have some peas coming up, along with radishes and lettuce. I finally got around to planting some more lettuce, and also kale and swiss chard. I did plant potatoes about a week ago, which is my first attempt at growing potatoes, so it will be fun to see how that goes.

My first disappointment of the year is that it seems we weren't paying attention to overnight lows, and a frost got some of our earliest strawberries. I think we'll still have strawberries, but it was still a bit heartbreaking for me to see those blackened blooms outside. And it seems our little mulberry tree also suffered from frost as well. The edges of the leaves all blackened, so now I'm wondering if we'll see any berries on it this year? Last year was the first year to have just a few berries.

The major "success" at this point is the oregano that has practically doubled in size, and is threatening to take over one of my garden boxes. I've never tried to move a plant of its size, but I think that's what we'll be attempting soon.

Four Years

Four years ago, our sweet Silas joined our family. We spent today celebrating his birthday.

When I asked what kind of cake he wanted, Silas said he wanted a Thomas the Tank Engine cake. At first I was a little worried that I'd be attempting to sculpt a three-dimensional Thomas, which has the possibility of turning out incredibly bad. But no, we looked at some pictures of cakes, and he wanted one of his own Thomas engines on a track. Relief for this mama!
And we even have the special birthday Thomas engine, so that was perfect.

As for gifts, the ONE THING Silas really, truly wanted was this pair of Buzz Lightyear wings.Any time we mentioned birthday gifts, this was the only thing he said he was hoping for. So we had Buzz flying around the house most of the day, thanks to Mak Joan!

We gave Silas a fishing pole, which we took out to a nearby lake in the afternoon to try out.
Didn't catch any fish, but Silas said repeatedly how much he liked fishing. We'll just have to try a better spot soon.

We are so thankful to have this cautious, thoughtful, funny boy in our lives.
Happy birthday Silas!