Putting my garden to shame

Fortunately my best friend is now in Michigan so I can actually see her more frequently, which is awesome, especially for special occasions like her son’s 2nd birthday party!

So one poopy diaper, a lot of loud jabbering and over 2 hours later we arrived at our destination. Ella loudly jabbered on and on in the backseat until we were about 2 miles from our destination, then finally fell asleep. Shoot. We let her sleep for about 20 minutes with the car doors open as we sat and watched nearby. But then she was ready to go.

The party had a “farm” theme, which was ideal, since they live on a farm. There were chickens (Ella’s favorites), a very, very large garden and a big pond, and lots of land to run around on. Oh yeah, and a neighbor brought over a pony!

In new places it’s always a little nervewracking though to make sure your kid is safe. Two bodies of water, a high deck, stairs with no gate! Ah! Luckily my good husband took over plenty, giving me time to visit with friends.

I think my favorite thing was just walking through Chey’s garden with her. Row after row of cilantro, basil, peppers, squash, brocolli, green beans, potatoes, and … you get the picture. She has grown everything I can nearly think of. She even opened a little vegetable stand to sell her goods at. And no surprise, it’s as cute as can be. With it’s sweet hand painted signs and flowery tablecloth.

I love the whole idea of a garden. I love vegetables. I love the outdoors. I love eating nonprocessed foods. But for some reason I have the hardest time getting myself out there, starting a garden. This year my friendly neighbor (they’re not all bad!) even tilled an area for me. And I still didn’t! Terrible. My sister said it best once when she said “I just always find something better to do.”

Oh well, I at least think I inherited my mom’s love of cooking. I guess I just didn’t get her green thumb …

Take a peek at the photos and check out the darling cupcakes she served too.

How cute are those? The “butter” is laughy taffy. The “kernels” are jelly bellies.

I think she got a taste for hot peppers in New Mexico!

Zoo trips: Help wanted

This weekend was packed full of outdoor summer fun. My sister, mom and SIL took the kids to the zoo on Saturday morning and had a really good time. There were no meltdowns, no overly tired or cranky kids. I think we timed everything and planned everything just right!

We left around 10ish – which was a good thing. By the time we left the zoo at 12:30 it was sweltering hot. But we fit a lot in. Did the logride, the older kids rode ponies – London pointed out her pony’s name was Jeff – let the kids play in a treehouse, hammocks, rode the carousel. I think that may have been the key to the kids’ happiness. They actually got out of  their strollers a lot and did stuff. And snacks of course. And we took their swimsuits to let them cool of in the water fountain at the end.

Afterward we hit Olive Garden. With four tired, hungry kids … but we all ordered immediately and things went pretty well. Grant asked me at the restaurant if my Wii Wii worked and if he could play it. It’s so funny to hear him say that. It’s actually just called at Wii, not a Wii Wii, I tried to tell him.

Anyway, it was a good day. Sara pointed out though that we have a really good ratio. With my mom’s help we have one adult to every child, so when more children come along, it may not be so smooth. So, we’re looking for recruits … maybe we can talk our husbands into going on those trips or bring an extra sibling.

Short and sweet

I don’t really feel like blogging right now, but I do want to mention that I got my new camera – yay! The canon SD750 and I love it. Here are photos from a few days ago … I’ll have to tell you later about the zoo trip and our friend Liam’s farm birthday party.

Nack! Nack!

I actually wrote a really long post about how Ella’s nap schedule is totally haywire and I don’t even know when to leave the house anymore or if she’ll take one three-hour nap or two one-hour naps, but then my Internet connection went bad and I lost it all. So, we’ll just leave it at that, because I really don’t feel like explaining it all again.

Anyway, Ella seems to be doing different things all the time. Most recently, she can reach door knobs! And she thinks it’s just a riot to go in the pantry and shut the door. The other day I panicked when I didn’t see her and sure enough, in the pantry, and chewing a piece of GUM, with the paper on it. Ew, I think I need to do some more childproofing.

Also hilarious to her is when I go into our little “trash room” to clean the cat’s litter box, remove trash etc, she shuts me in there. There are no lights in there so I have to open the door back up right way. Then she shuts it again. And repeat. That’s what’s going on at my house.

She’s also very into crayons. Not coloring. Just the crayons. She takes them out of the tupperware container they’re in and then puts them back in. She carries them around the house, she puts them in her stroller and pushes them, she takes them up her little ladder and down her slide. They’re practically her best friend.

And her favorite word: Nack! When offered up a “snack” she gets reallly excited and says “nack! nack!” and goes to the pantry. And of course, shuts her self in.

In other news, we’re finally looking at lights to replace the one outdoor light the neighbor boys shot out. Now here’s our dilemma: Do we just replace the one that’s broken, for a small fee that our neighbors should cover, or is it the right time to upgrade our lighting to something nicer and more stylish, although it will cost 4x as much (we have 4 outdoor lights and one post that would need replaced.) Obviously we would still only ask our neighbors to cover the price of the one they’re replacing. The first one is the one we have:

The others are some that I prefer. But really, is it worth the money? The one I like best I couldn’t find, but you get the idea – clean lines, kinda modern. But the ones we have aren’t bad …. so I’m torn.