Thursday, June 21, 2012

Garden Rookie: Update!

Our garden is looking pretty great this week!  HUGE but great.  I go out there each day and can't wait to see what I find next :).  My squash plants are producing lots and lots of squash.  I made black bean and squash quesadillas on Tuesday night and they were delicious.  I wasn't too sure about the recipe but we are trying to eat healthier.... so I made it.  And Selah absolutely wolfed them down!  Here are a few pictures I snagged this morning as I watered our garden.  

cucumber vines tightly wound

Look who was trying to sneak into the garden this morning.  One of the prettiest weeds around :)

green beans with a beautiful blossom

big boy tomato blossom

squash flower

look who's almost ready for the pickin!
Related post: Garden Rookie

Monday, June 18, 2012

Face down in four year old foot funk...

It all started with my new shoes...
Aren't they so cute??  As most of you know I am 25 and a mom to two children.. under the age of two.  I cling to things that make me feel as young as I am, like these wedges here.  When I put them on, I morph into that young college student that is still inside of this baby mama. I've only had them for a few months and haven't had too many places to wear them yet.  Wearing these bad boys to the grocery store with two kids in tow is really hard work.  These shoes happen to weigh like 20lbs. 

So I wear them to church on Sunday morning.. drop my kids off in the nursery and have an hour and a half long date with Jesus, my husband, and my new shoes.  It's awesome.

Friday rolls around I was feeling pretty spunky that day, so I put on my new shoes.  I met a friend in a neighboring town, loaded the kids up in the almighty double stroller, helped her look at some fantastic wedding dresses, went to lunch, came home and put the kids down for a nap.  Since my day was going so well while wearing my new shoes, I decided that I would continue sporting them all evening. 

Zoovie was the event that we were going to that hopeful Friday night.  It's where they play a fun movie on an inflatable movie screen in the middle of the zoo.  It's free for members and we usually bring a big blanket to sit on.  We made our way into the zoo with Bar-B-Cutie in hand to watch "Horton Hears A Who".  So far, so good.

Selah is at the "escape" stage right now.  She tries to escape us in public places at all times.  It is terrifying because that little booger is so fast and she will talk/kiss/hug anyone.  We are working on boundaries.  As we roll up to the park where they show the movie, I can see her little legs dangling from the stroller just waiting to hit the grass.  Her chubby little hands can't wave "Hi.. Hi...HI" fast enough to every person that walks by.  The Nashville Zoo contains the most heavenly of jungle gyms around.  It is like eye candy to an almost 2 year old.  I decided to take her and let her run around so that maybe she wouldn't be so dead set on finding a new family to go home with during the movie.


As we approached the jungle gym she spotted it.. the toddler pit of hades. It's this toddler area that is completely padded.  You have to take your shoes off to get in it.  I am kind of a germaphobe.. so hot summer days, padded area, and toddlers with their shoes off... makes my skin crawl.  Selah was squirming and flailing her body completely backwards in order to escape my grip as we got close to this toddler pit of hades.  I successfully took our shoes off and let her run wild.  And that she did.  She danced, she jumped, she squealed, and hugged.. lots of children. 

Once I felt like I couldn't take the smell any longer, I grabbed the not so happy to be leaving Selah and headed for what I thought was the back exit out of this place.  Once our shoes were back on I realized that this "back exit" was nothing more than a big ole blocked off area.  As I turned around, I thought, "well, I don't want to this whole shoe thing again.. so I'll just discreetly walk across this area very quickly and we will move on to the baby swings." 

BAM!  As the breath entered back into my body I quickly realized that I was face down in four year old foot funk.  This padded material resembles a cross between a bounce house, foam, and jello.  Do you know what 19 inch wedges do when they collide with this?  Nothing.. they do nothing.  Down I went, face first.  My face actually ricocheted off of the padded surface.  I then noticed that Selah had landed about two feet in front of me.  She saw her opportunity and was taking it.  She was up and running for the exit.  I then, obviously without thinking, stood up and started running after her.  BOOM!  I landed harder this time and actually heard an audible gasp coming from the now audience of parents surrounding me.  All I could think to do was just get the heck out of there. 

A logical person would have just stopped, taken their shoes off, and calmly exited in a very ladylike manner.  Well.... I panicked.  I began to crawl, dragging my 20lb shoes behind me.  I finally caught up to Selah and headed to the nearest exit.  Unfortunately, the closest exit was the toddler exit.  Without thinking (again), I then did a sideways split (thank you Belton High School Cheerleading Program) down the exit.  Once I stood up, I realized how many people I had staring at me.  My first reaction to keep from crying was to walk off frantically while sporting my nervous laugh that sounds like a hyena being tickled to death. 

Totally embarrassing and completely hilarious for those watching.  I'm pretty sure I am on YouTube somewhere.  When I told Andrew what happened all he could say was, "that's what you get for wearing your hot mom shoes to the zoo."  That man always knows just the thing to say to make my heart go pitter patter.  Needless to say, I a little scarred and will be a little more picky where and when I will be wearing my hot mom shoes.

The End. ;)

Cookout time!

About a month ago, I hosted a cookout for a women's group that I help lead. Several of the women brought their families over to play and eat. Even though it rained like cats and dogs once I got everything perfect outside, we still had a great time!  We ended up with lots of towel wrapped bodies on the couch watching cars :)

Selah in the sprinkler

Krystle, Leah, & Jodi

Michael and his boys

Eli

swimming

grill master

rain rain go AWAY!

Ted and Margie

YUMMO!

Swimming!  My garden was just barely sprouting back there!






looks like we were going to get rained out :(




first date for Thomas and Selah

lots of wet little bodies :)

Brought the food inside

 Watching "Cars".  Good thing I have a leather couch!

June bugs

My two little june bugs are growing up so fast! Here are a few pictures I have been meaning to blog for about three weeks now!

Photo shoot gone wrong!  Obviously Selah is concerned :)

This makes me laugh


love my two little june bugs


Now that is one cute boy!

Selah's masterpiece

Toddler moment: yogurt all over the dog, kitchen, couch, and selah.  We are also growing her bangs out :)

Took the kids to the zoo.  It was a million degrees!
Sterling wasn't too thrilled to be there
Honey sent Selah ELMO COOKIES! 
They didn't last 24 hours...


Toddler moment: I stepped into the kitchen to find this.  Skipbo cards all over the entire floor.

rolling in the cards

love her!

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Garden Rookie

This spring has been the first time that Andrew and I have been able to have our own backyard to do whatever with it that we please.  We went from living in a town home to living on half an acre of land... with lots of fruit trees!  We have apple & peach trees.  The apple trees are loaded down with green apples that are slowly turning red.  We don't have as many peaches on our peach trees... but hopefully next year after we prune it and show it a little TLC we will see more peaches.  We also planted a garden.  Having no clue about how to have a garden, we were starting from nothing.  No knowledge of how to grow things or what to grow.  I did a little bit of research and we just started with the hopes that we would learn a whole lot during this "trial run" and have a bigger and better garden next year. 
We started everything from a seed except for three of our tomato plants and one cilantro plant.  To date, I have planted squash, okra, cucumbers, green beans, corn, cilantro, carrots, tomatoes, and onions.  I had NO IDEA how BIG squash plants get.  Our garden is WAY too full of HUGE plants.  Weeding our garden is becoming more difficult as the plants get bigger and bigger.  After taking care of our garden for the past several months, I am loving it!  It's so satisfying to see a plant grow from a seed.  I definitely will have a TON of produce to can and cook in a few months. 

Here are a few pictures of our "rookie" garden:
Apples from our biggest apple tree. They are slowly turning red.

rasberries!

Peach on the biggest of our peach trees

The littler of the two apple trees. It's loaded!

about a month ago

2 weeks ago

last week

today!

beautiful squash flower