but wait! there's more...

Blooms.

I'm not sure if it was the mild winter or what, but the yard is exploding with color. It seems like each year can't get any better than the last, but then the flowers come out in the spring and out-do themselves.

The blue irises keep making more of themselves and the view out the sunroom is all indigo. Any that fall over make the big time in the vase on the kitchen table.

Across the bricks from these beauties we have complementary hues of yellow and purple.

 

Best year ever for the clematis too ...

 

Just look how many we got on this fence!

 

I happened to look out the window and noticed one of my favorite flowers, the James Kelway's, are out. They are almost neon red and oh so fleeting in their bloom time.

Vegetables are really my thing, but I've got to hand it to the flowers, they really put on a show!


 

The May Garden.

This is the time of year that I start getting really excited about the garden. After months of perusing seed catalogs, babying seedlings and waiting for warmer weather, things are starting to go into the ground in the form of seeds and plants. Every morning after dropping off Zack, I take a stroll through and see what's popping up, falling over or needs attention. Our street is full of cars and they must wonder why this chick is standing in the yard looking at the ground all the time :D

Lily and I planted lettuce a few weeks ago and she was a bit heavy handed so I've been transplanting them or picking and eating the thinnings. Yesterday she had soccer, I had a library volunteer shift and there was a school fair too, but in the late afternoon I managed to get my peppers transplanted. They are mixed in amongst the lettuce, but I think you can see their plastic collars here and there. I planted 9 California Wonder (bell pepper), 3 jalapenos, 3 Craig's Grande (hot), 3 Santa Fe Grande (hot) and 6 King of the North (bell pepper) this year. We do love our peppers! I ran out of stakes halfway through though.

I put in a lot more tomatoes this year than I normally do because I want to make up for the dismal crop from last year and have more paste tomatoes for sauce making. We use a lot of sauce and I'd like to put up quite a bit. Nothing like fresh sauce in the middle of winter. A friend gave me a roll of wire so I made tomato cages for my Roma's and was given traditional cages (and bought a few more) for my San Marzano's. They went in a little earlier this year due to space contraints but it was also warmer than usual so it all worked out.

Happy tomatoes.

I had three extra seedling that I couldn't bear to part with so they are living in pots.

This year is the great potato experiment. I saw this on a few gardening blogs and Pinterest and since we are space starved for potatoes we are giving this a try. As the potatoes come up I will hill them up with hay as opposed to dirt. We shall see how it goes.

It seems like I'm growing nothing but galvanized fencing this year :D  

My pea plants are on the left side and when they are finished I will put in Cherokee Trail of Tears for a dry bean so a late planting won't be a big deal. Yesterday I put in a green bean called Lazy Wife (nice right?) because they are supposed to grow in clusters and be super productive hence easy to pick. In the shade underneath I may put more lettuce or if I find it's still sunny with the angle of the sun I will add bush beans.

I mistakenly ordered 2 different kinds of beans this year, a bush variety called Sugar Ann and the regular Sugar Snap I always do so I planted them both. They are climbing on each other, but the Sugar Ann produces ten days early so I keep checking for flowers.

Today I was rewarded!

All my dad's hard work over the years has paid of in the explosion of irises and lupines. I posted a photo of this area not too long ago and it was all pea stone with little plants but look at it now!

It's looking like a cottage garden out there. The bees are having such a good time. I sit on the bench and just watch them when they land on a lupine because they are so methodical. They start at the bottom and go around and up one level until they reach the top ... it's amazing.

I like the pink ones :D

Sibling revenge.

Zack and Lily have been hanging out with each other for the last few days and generally getting along pretty well (I think he is finally seeing the value of a built-in playmate), but there have been a few times I've had to step in and break up a few fights that threatened to escalate. Now, they know it's not okay to put hands on each other or use names to hurt each other so after I'd separated them the other day and saw Lily get out the markers and paper I thought "okay, a little peace and quiet", but then after abour 15 minutes she pops up and calls to her brother to show him what she'd made.

She holds up the paper, shouts out the door to where her brother is on the swing .... "This is a giant rainbow asteroid landing on your HEAD ZACK!!" This of course prompted a draw off where each sibling had numerous asteroids dropped on them. Then they were taped to the sun room door for all the world to see. Retaliation through art.

She is ...

the craziest little kid I know. So funny, so stinkin' dramatic. A complete and total opposite of her brother in almost every way. 

A few weeks ago she lost her first tooth and then right afterwards her second. My last 'first lost tooth'. She swallowed the first one and when told I wouldn't try to find it she kind of freaked out, but a letter to the Tooth Fairy calmed her down. She sort of has a vampire look about her know, but it's adorable.

Her new teeth were right behind and are both almost halfway up now.

This spring I signed her up for soccer and after weeks of "when does my soccer start?" "is it soccer yet?" she finally had her first practice 2 weeks ago. She loves it.

Learning to dribble.

Waiting to be 'unfrozen' by a teammate. 

Man, she's cute!

She almost always has a milk mustache.

Can play with a bucket of water and plastic animals for hours.

She has a list a mile long for 'my birthday' or 'Christmas'. Anything that catches her fancy she states that I can get her that 'for my birthday'.

Takes showers instead of baths.

Skips instead of walking.

She makes friends easily and often.

Has learned to pump on the swing and goes as high as she can, head thrown back, eyes shut, hair flying as often as she can.

She can read small words (3-4 letters) and loves a good book.

Talks with her hands all.the.time.

Loves to color and draw. Especially people holding hands ...

She cannot wait to start kindergarten.

Worships the ground her brother walks on, but drives him bonkers most of the time.

Still the fussiest eater I know, but is at least trying things now.

She's growing so fast, and showing no signs of slowing down in that department. I'm always sewing her up new clothes!

She keeps things hopping around here, no doubt about it.

 

 

 

 

Spring sewing.

While the weather turned chilly after our unseasonably warm spell, I started sewing up some summer tops for Lily and even made a top for me. This was my first ever attempt at sewing for myself, and it's a whole different ball game than making kids clothes. 

I used patterns from Lisette, the same woman who makes the awesome patterns (Oliver and S) that I use for Lily's outfits. They are distributed by Simplicity so Joann Fabrics carries them and when they had the last sale of those patterns for $1, I picked up 3 of them.

LIke I mentioned, making clothes for yourself is different because you need to take your measurements and pattern sizing is COMPLETELY different from store sizes. For instance, I take a 10/12 in the store, but wear a 16(!) in patterns. Even with your sizes in hand you will usually have to tweak things a bit in some areas. It's trial and error, and most sewers will make a muslin (cheap fabric version) before using the good fabric. I didn't, but bought sale fabric I wouldn't worry about messing up if it failed. The first one I did was the Portfolio top (the short blue top in the middle pattern) but because I don't like tops very short, I lengthened it a few inches. It came out pretty good! 

It's a little boxy in the bust area, but knowing that, I can alter it next time I make one. Also, the pattern calls for cuffed sleeves, but I topstitched mine so they wouldn't unroll. It's a pull on top and the back has little loops and buttons at the collar for detail.

I'm making the Market blouse now out of a lawn fabric (super light) it's the one the model is wearing in the first pattern. It's coming together quick, and maybe with the heat on Monday I will be able to wear it!

I also used up some stash of fabric that I had left from a previous Lily jumper to make her a top. This is from the Ice Cream Dress pattern and is the shirt version of it. It's SO easy and I'm sure I'll be making more. My favorite thing is that the seams are mostly hidden when you construct it. Love that!

5 months?!

Have I really been that much of a slacker with my blog? Well, gardening season is starting up again so I'll have some fun stuff to post with that, and I have been lax in taking photos of the kids and this will keep me honest with that. 

We've had some truly wacky weather here with swings to the 80's (!) in March to lows in the 20's so it's been a lot of work trying to keep up.

I started seeds and set up our grow system in the basement this year so as not to completely take over the sunroom. While it looks small now, when those little seed cups start needing pots and the plants get bigger, I will need all the space on these racks. The addition of a timer this year has been awesome!

Roma tomatoes have already come up.

My dad and I set up a new system for the peas and (what will later in the season be beans) this year. Old bed slats that someone threw out and some wire fencing stapled over it for them to climb. It's not facing the wind this time around so hopefully it'll hold up better than last year.

Last year I put pvc pipe on this bed in case I wanted to make a hoop house in winter (which we never seemed to get this year) or keep the peppers warmer on cool nights.

Right now it holds three different kinds of loose leaf lettuce in four rows. Lily helped me put the seed in and she was a little heavy with the sowing, but it's okay.

That lovely line of green will be salad soon enough!

And here is my cold frame this year. Our old wooden box fell apart after I planted potatoes in it last year so I needed a new one. Luckily, someone was tossing out an old cabinet last fall and Zack and I stopped in the dark and grabbed it. That sucker was HEAVY, but my boy is very strong :D  

I added a plexiglass front (on what used to be the bottom) and this old screen/storm window I found makes a great top as I can just slide the glass back and let out heat through the screen side when it gets too hot. Right now it holds marigolds we are starting from our saved seed. No more buying those from Home Depot!

Inside on the windowsill we've got celery and romaine growing from the ends we've bought at the store.

Some have grown enough to warrant planting in soil, and in the summer will go outside.

And of course, there are the usual suspects out and about in the yard.

The beet goes on.

Yesterday in the cold rain I pulled out one bed (half the harvest) of beets to can up. They could have stayed in longer as they get sweeter with the colder temps, but I have to move the bed they were in to a new area in the yard.

My dad helped me pull them, rinse them off and pile them in the sink. It's the one vegetable that takes the most processing to can up. First I snipped of the stems leaving 2 inches of stalk and the root on so the red doesn't bleed out too much and we'd be left with white beets. Those get placed in a pot with water until boiling, then plunged into cold water to slip the skins. Messy business.

 

While they were boiling I sorted through all the greens and got rid of all the ones with leaf miners (no extra protein with my greens, please) and set them in a steamer to have with dinner. Beet greens taste exactly like spinach to me, and I like that I can be growing things in one place that have two purposes. This all wilted down to a small bit, but enough for my dad and I to enjoy (nobody else likes them).

 The skins were scraped off with the flat side of a butter knife after cutting off the small stalks and root end. Again, red beet juice all over the place. After slicing into manageable pieces, I filled my hot jars with them, covered with boiling water, wiped the rims, screwed down the lids and into the canner they went.

They must be pressure canned, not canned in a water bath. 30 minutes of processing time later and these 6 pints were popping and sealing on the counter.

Beets are one of my favorite things to look at in the jars, they are like sparkling little tasty jewels.

Carrots are up next!

School.

Zack is back into the swing of things at school now, and we've pretty much got our schedules set up for homework and all the things he has for OT as well. I actually had to break down and get a dry erase chart to keep everything straight this year as he had a few assignments that were due at a later date as well as things that had to be plotted out over the course of the week.

Over the summer he worked really hard on his handwriting because he needed to continue to build up his fine motor skills that make writing harder for him. I picked up workbooks at Lakeshore Learning and we worked a lot on capitilization and punctuation, two areas that he needed to work on. His sensory issues (at least the visual parts) make spacing difficult sometimes, but we saw great imrovement over the summer. He even worked on things while on vacation which was hard sometimes, but he got a dime for every page he did and was allowed to use that money on whatever he wished. We do not pay for homework during the school year, but because this was summer work I gave him some incentive and there was very little complaining.

The way he's holding the pencil there is a big deal here as all last year he needed a grip to get him positioned correctly. Lots of work went into getting him to write with finger movement and not his wrist. He's in a typing program now (assigned to him through Children's and his OT worker) that helps him build strength and he can do the home row with 'e' and 'i' without looking! He loves it because it's fun too.

Lily was there every night while Zack did his work and would beg (and I mean BEG) to do her 'homework' too. Zack had some older workbooks for creating letters that we pulled out for her to get her started in the right direction. Zack developed some bad habits early on like writing letters from the bottom up that we want to nip in the bud early for Lily. She loves working in those books! Zack is totally confounded by her enthusiasm and keeps trying to tell her "homework is awful" but she won't be discouraged (and we tell him not to instill that in his sister as well).

She will be five in October and if it wasn't for her birthday falling where it does, she would be in kindergarten already. So, I decided to give her a little jumpstart here at home since she's so gung-ho about learning. I picked up this book for her after I saw the third grade version (and bought it) for Zack. It has lots of fun things in it for me to do with her and some cool ideas for fun learning. I started working with her this weekend on learning the letter sounds from a great phonics kit that a friend had given Zack in kindergarten. She's picking it up quick and every morning when Zack is at school we listen to the cd and go over the letters and so far she's loving it. 

The book has some fun topics by subject that we can grab books for at the library since she loves being read to at night no matter what the subject. She's really excited about it because she wanted to go to school so badly and this way she feels like she is. :)

Snow White.

This was one of those Disney moments that I'll never forget, right along with the time when Zack kept hugging Pooh bear and wouldn't let go back when he was a mere 2 years old (we still talk about dang cute that was).  A kind of memory that makes you forget how much work a Disney trip can be sometimes, or how much your feet ache after a whole day of walking, the mini-meltdowns and the scorching summer heat. They all fly out the window when you see your little one light up when she meets her favorite princess.

After meeting all the other princesses and finding out where Snow White does her meet and greet, we headed over to wait so we would be towards the head of the line that was sure to form. We were over 45 minutes early, so we were actually FIRST in line and while we were waiting one of the Disney folk came over to let us know that it would be 10 am before she came out. He was really sweet and asked what Lily's name was and said "I'll go back and let Snow White know that her twin is out here and tell her your name so she can meet you!". Pretty cool, huh? We waited (me with camera at the ready) and no sooner did she come out the door did she swoop right over and whisk Lily away to talk with her.

I'm not sure what they talked about as I was concentrating on capturing every single moment with the camera. This was a long time in coming as she'd worn this costume on Halloween and in the laundry room it had hung every day since for this moment. 

She spent a few minutes adjusting her cape, asking her if her mom had made her outfit, and telling her how lovely she looked. Lily absorbed every word and was more than a little awestruck.

She spent at least 10 minutes chatting with her and letting us take a zillion photos. This one is one of my favorites and will be added to the photos in frames on her wall.

At one point she saw Zack (who still hides from characters) and asked if he was one her dwarves and made him come over for a picture. As he was heading over, I caught another favorite shot ... I love how they aren't looking at the camera and the look on Lily's face as she smiles at her big brother just gets me every time.

Still can't believe she got him to stand with her!

Then we said our goodbyes.

And there was one little girl who kept her costume on the entire day after that and who snagged all sorts of attention from every passerby. It was awesome, and so is she :)

 

Disney- Day 4.

Magic Kingdom! This park is my favorite and it never fails to deliver on the magic, but this year that magic got started at an insane hour because some crazy woman (who me?) planned a breakfast at 8:30am. That's right, we had to be AT the park, IN our restaurant by that time. What was I thinking? Oh wait, photos on Main Street with Lily in full princess regalia with (almost) no crowds in the backround, yup, that's what I was thinking :) 

Everyone got up without much of a fuss and Lily got LOTS of oohing and aahing over her outfit from the second she walked out the hotel door. On the tram, on the monorail, and in line where there were lots of Cinderella's and Belle's but no Snow White (what can I say, we're old school with our princesses). Once inside we made a mad dash to take photos against the castle, but you think my kid would give me a decent smile? Lily, you are in DISNEY WORLD smile for goodness sake!

We weren't eating at the castle (too pricey), but at Crystal Palace. A full breakfast buffet was the only way we could get daddy on board with such an early morning. I love this shot even though there is no smile ... AGAIN.

I've only ever eaten there for lunch/dinner so I was not prepared for the huge lines that breakfast brings. Most of the time I spent in line only to have Doug have to take over my spot because a character was coming and I'm chief photographer. Not the most relaxing breakfast ever, but it was worth it for the kids who love seeing Pooh and the gang. Aw heck, we love it too.

The park had just opened while we were finishing up, and one of the main perks of early reservations is you are in the park before the rope drops. So, I left Doug and the kids with directions to meet me at the princess meet and greet and I bolted to Space Mountain to grab our Fast Passes. Then a quick jog back to take Lily in to see the Princesses. Zack had NO interest in this so the boys waited outside.

When I walked in I was bummed to find out that Snow White wasn't here, and that was big on Lily's list. Meeting the princesses was so cute because they kept calling her "my sister!" and saying "we missed you, where have you been?" which was a little lost on Lily, but I thought it was sweet. A perfect Disney moment.

They would try and talk to her, but she was a little shy.

Belle was great and really got her talking although I couldn't hear much of the conversation with all the cameras snapping and people talking.

This 'deer in the headlights' look is something she always does when taking character photos.

Cinderella came over and walked with her to the autograph area, chatted with her ...

taught her how to hold her dress up and curtsy ...

I sure wish she'd told her how to look into the camera as part of her princess training.

After we left, we found out the Snow White has a spot all her own and at least 2 people ran to tell us what time she would be out for autographs (they could tell it was a big deal for Lily). Turns out it was right next to Town Hall and we headed over to wait. It was by far the highlight of Lily's day and deserves a post all it's own. Some of the cutest photos ever, and it makes my heart squish just thinking about how sweet and innocent little girls are when they are small.