Big Boy and Baby Boy

I am saddened to say my baby boy is 10 months old as of yesterday. I am happy for him. Sad for me. Pitifully sad. But, here is something to cheer me up: My two little (big) boys can now take a tubby together!

This makes me so happy! I forgot how much I liked tub time! Since the older two have moved onto showers, our 4 year old did to sometime ago much ending his short lived play time in the tub prematurely compared with our other children. So, its been a lot of fun for him to play in the tub again. Then there is our little baby man who Loves playing in the tub! He was getting way to wild in his baby tub and constantly trying to climb out, sit up, and roll away so that this is a much better fit for our crazy guy. They could both stay in there till they pruned away. They play, make bubbles, and splash so much water all over the place that I'm soaked too by the time we have finished up. Seeing them both in the tub having fun together makes me so happy. They have a very sensitive relationship. Our big guy seems to have magnets in his hands and on his mouth that are attracted to his brothers head and about a thousand 10 times a day I say Please don't love on brother that....hard! The baby does not seem to want to reciprocate these feelings of crushing love and glares whenever he sees his brother approaching. Or he just cries in anticipation. But, I think a part of it might just be the youngest in the families lot to have the previous baby of the family be extra affectionate and loving to them.

This is the former baby getting loved on by the baby he replaced ;) He is and probably always will be her baby. She bosses him around and he loves it oddly enough. I think because she does it out of love-- she loves him so much and was his smotherer when he was a baby.

She is very tender and like a little mother to the baby. She is very sensitive to his needs and meeting them and for that I am so thankful!

I don't want to leave out my oldest who is an excellent older brother to the younger two! That's a whole different post though on the life of boys ... and the relationship of my older two is also a much, much longer post! Ha! How are all the different relationships in your household?

From Lawn to Garden Part 5

These past few weeks have been a little busy and even though we have kept up on planting our seeds and photographing it, Ive been a little negligent with the blog. So here is what was happening two weeks ago...

And I realize that in the picture it says three weeks ago, but it was 2. Two weeks ago our spinach finally sprouted! They took the full 12 days and I was getting a bit nervous but in their own sweet time they sprouted and are now going strong. Our lettuce shoots that we were trying to re-grow from the cast offs are not doing so great. I was a bit optimistic that these cleaner cuts would do better than previous attempts, but now these ones are beginning to turn brown. This is our third attempt and I think its a bust!

My 8 year old was my helper last week and due to some miscommunication he brought the soil in instead of the container out and it was quite the mess. But, he was a good sport and did a thorough clean up job and blessed me in the process.

Last week we started two broccoli seeds, two artichokes, and eight thyme plants. My four year old and I also planted a few oregano seeds but they are so microscopically tiny I have no idea how many went in ;) We start everything in even numbers-- always at least two for pollination purposes and also in the hopes that if one fails, the other won't. It's not a scientific theory to my knowledge but what we do. It has been a lot of fun watching the seeds sprout and the sprouts grow their true leaves! These next two weeks we will be starting a lot of our seeds as we will be 6-8 weeks from the last frost in our area. I feel overly optimistic typing that sentence as we still have 6-8 inches of snow on the ground and more to come! Normally I love winter, but this year I'm itching to get outside and begin all that we need to do! Not only do we have to cut all the sod, prepare the beds, fasten climbing contraptions, but a lot of our exterior areas need re-painted or painted for the first time since some of the outside got re-done when we did the kitchen. So, a big to do list awaits us but we have never been so excited to begin! Have you started any seeds yet?

From Lawn to Garden (Part 4)

Hello! This week we had tons of snow and ice in the northeast, but inside, our seedlings have sprouted!

Our little cabbages are growing quickly! Just since I took this picture a few days ago the seedlings have grown to about an inch and a half. Its been very exciting for the kids to see actual growth taking place. I think we finally figured out how to grow our lettuce cut offs and it appears to be all in how you cut the base that helps them to grow. I discarded two that weren't growing properly and now we have two left that are growing from the center and we should have some new lettuce soon.

This week we planted our Bloomsdale spinach in an egg carton. I have to say thus far I prefer starting seeds in old vegetable/fruit containers. They drain better and allow for more sunlight to filter through and create almost a mini green house. The egg carton is getting soggy and the soil on top is drying out quicker using this method. Speaking of soil watering, we have been doing some research and have found these to be an interesting prospect for watering our garden this spring and summer. Have you ever used an olla? I am hoping I can convince my sister who has dabbled in pottery at her university to make me a few.

In the meantime as much as we would like to get outside and begin putting up some trellises or preparing the yard to have the grass removed with a sod cutter that's just not going to happen for a few more weeks as we get hit with snow storm after snow storm/ The kids have been diligently keeping up with their schoolwork and we haven't taken any snow days as we are waiting for SUN days :) I am so proud of my daughter as she perseveres and is plugging along with her reading lessons. This year we began using BOB books instead of her 100 easy lessons which worked so well for my son but was making her miserable. These are little books that she can read and feel triumphant! I liked them so much I got them for our little guy and he loves the ABC set. I am loving homeschooling him as well as he reminds me of my older son-- he can just memorize much faster and also has sister's love for learning. It's a pretty nice combination!

Snowy Days

Here in the Northeast we have been having my dream winter-- lots of snow! In January it was a bit too cold for the kids to really get out and play-- especially for the baby! But yesterday, we had perfect "movie" snow descend upon us. It was absolutely lovely to watch as we did our school (only 60 days left which means we will be done sometime in April).

Look a my sweet baby and his eyelashes catching the snowflakes! So precious! This was her first time out to play in the snow. And he didn't like it which was sad, but I think it was because the snow was so wet and kept getting into his eyes and that is the only reason he didn't enjoy this lovely gift descending from above!

I did take all four for a quick little walk up and down the snowy street before I decided that my neighbors had had their fill of loud kids and a screaming baby. Plus, we had to shovel (which mr. D actually enjoyed watching us shovel more than anything else we did outside...hmmm) and shoveling led to snow ball fights. Of course.

Since we are still enjoying life without our tv, we have surprisingly still not missed or even noticed it gone even with all this extra time in doors.

The kids and I have enjoyed crafts, reading, and of course snuggles. And the ipad. We aren't a very gadgety family but this is our weakness. Thankfully mine has a lot of educational games on there and their time is limited. In the evenings we hit up our stash of board games!

Our favorites are Catan Jr., Monopoly, UNO, pick up sticks, and here we are playing the Enchanted Forrest. So much fun staying cozy and warm and snowed in! What do you like to do when you get snowed in?

From Lawn to Garden Part 3: Starting our Seeds!!

We are so excited to be continuing on to our journey of turning our entire yard into an urban garden! If you missed the first two posts for this series, you can click here or here. This week our seeds arrived from The Incredible Seed Company! We also began using Sprout Robot to tell us when we should plant what when. This week our area needs to begin cabbage indoors and so my little helper and I got them started in some old containers placed in a larger glad tub.

Once they were emerged in the soil, we closed the lids (which have little air vents) and placed them in our pantry at the top of the cellar steps.

We did an experiment a while back on where seeds sprouted best in our home. We placed a few bean seeds wrapped in a damp paper towel in three different Ziploc baggies. We hung one baggy in our kitchen window, one in the refrigerator, and one we placed at the top of our basement steps. We all predicted that the window seeds would grow the fastest and were surprised when the cellar sprouts went crazy. They were searching for light which is why they grew so tall, but they did sprout fastest there too. So, we are seeing if our cabbage plants will begin there quickly as well. Once we seed little shoots we will transfer them to our kitchen window. Currently, we have some lettuce bases from salads that were made a month ago trying to grow.

We are sitting them in a cup with some water and are just beginning to get new life coming off the stumps. We tried this once before and it takes a very long time and in the end, our new shoots turned brown and withered. My husband suggested that this time we transfer them to some soil and so next week we will see if that helps them be more successful. Since our seeds arrived this week we began mapping out our garden and seeing where everything will do best-- its actually very exciting! Soon we hope to begin some broccoli seeds in the hope that we can get a spring crop as well as a fall one. If you would like to follow my Garden Board on Pinterest that is where we are getting a lot of our inspiration and knowledge! What do you start first inside and what tips have helped your plants grow well?

From Lawn to Garden (Part 2)

Hello and this was quite the frigid week we had as we did a little more (inside) planning for the garden! The first part of our journey is here and we received a lot of good honest questions. We have thought this out and for those of you who were concerned where our kids would play I can promise you that we spend most of our summers hopping form one park to another or swimming at grandmas. Our yard borders elderly neighbors who don't always appreciate the noise and daily occasional ball that goes into their yards. This is maximizing our space to create our own urban farm. These are actually en vogue on the east coast so who knew? The nice thing is we have been soaking up youtube videos and watching them grow and make mistakes and it's been very helpful. Our goal isn't to just grow to fee our family for the summer but well into the rest of the year. Last summer we did a lot of berry picking and just today we used up the last bag in oatmeal and the kids were quite downhearted. They're looking forward to having some more in our freezer next year (and the jam I can lasting longer than a week!).

We have been reading up on gardening as much as possible. This is our research and planning time as come spring and summer and fall we will be busy in the garden... I hope.

The kids have been busy playing in the snow and stamping lots of moisture down into the frozen ground. Well, I don't even know if that's true or accurate, but for their sake, lets just say that's whats happening! We were also asked what we were planting and here are the seeds we ordered from incredible seeds: 1 ea. National Pickling Heirloom Cucumber Seeds 1 ea. Truckers Favorite White Heirloom Corn Seeds 1 ea. Chantenay Heirloom Carrot Seeds 1 ea. Golden Acre Heirloom Cabbage Seeds 1 ea. Green Sprouting Calabrese Heirloom Broccoli Seeds 1 ea. Purple Peacock Heirloom Bean Seeds 1 ea. Blue Lake Heirloom Pole Bean Seeds 1 ea. Green Globe Heirloom Artichoke Seeds 1 ea. Thyme Seeds - Winter Thyme 1 ea. Oregano Seeds - Greek Oregano 1 ea. Dill Seeds - Mammoth Dill 1 ea. Cilantro / Coriander Seeds 1 ea. Chive Seeds - Onion Chives 1 ea. Basil Seeds - Fino Verde Basil 1 ea. Straight Eight Heirloom Cucumber Seeds 1 ea. Yugoslavian Red Heirloom Lettuce Seeds 1 ea. Paris Island Cos Heirloom Lettuce Seeds 1 ea. Evergreen Hardy White Onion Seeds 1 ea. Mammoth Melting Heirloom Snow Pea Seeds 1 ea. Serrano Chili Heirloom Hot Pepper Seeds 1 ea. Purple Beauty Bell Pepper Seeds 1 ea. Sweet Cherry Pepper Seeds 1 ea. Bloomsdale Heirloom Spinach Seeds 1 ea. Black Krim Heirloom Tomato Seeds 1 ea. Aunt Lucy Heirloom Tomato Seeds

My little snow bunnies and I are anxiously awaiting our package of seeds to arrive! In the meantime, we picked up some pea seeds at a local farm store as Incredibles had already sold out and I believe we still have to pick up some flower seeds too as we would like to attract a lot of bees to the yard even before our vegetables start flowering.

And I did pick up a pretty hat holder and I am envisioning us filling it with 6 floppy summer hats... although I'm sure it will be more like 30 ball caps, but a girl can dream right? Next step, well, hopefully our seeds will arrive this week as they have shipped already. We also need to begin mapping things out. We might start some spinach and broccoli indoors soon as well so maybe we can squeeze a spring and fall crop in this year... we shall see but we are optimistic! So, what have you been able to grow amazingly well in your garden and what was a flop?

From Lawn to Garden (Part One)

I'm pretty sure one day my husband is going to insist that I change the title of this blog to "Wife who has husband and kids on the crazy train" because weeeeeeeeeeeeeelllll.... sometimes I get these ideas. I share them with my husband and he asks some really good questions and is surprised when I have some really good answers and then my crazy idea actually begins to make sense. Or maybe he is going crazy too. I don't know, but my new crazy idea is what if instead of having a little vegetable garden if we turn our entire lawn (read every single inch of our outside property) into a massive garden to try and feed our family veggies for the year. And again, my husband said yes to my crazy idea! I want you now to glance back at the title picture. We have a long thin anorexic yard. We don't have acres but a small fraction of an acre. We also have four kids. Two parents. And we are so going to try and make this happen!! And really, if we can do it, anyone can. I mean before this year we dabbled in tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers and last year we had two small pitiful tomato plants that gave us maybe 10 pieces of fruit (which is because I spent the spring on bedrest, then had a baby, then was in a wedding.... yada yada-- we totally did nothing last year). So this year we wanted to roll our sleeves up and do it better. Then we decided to do it crazy bigger and better (I hope or instead of learning alongside of us you'll be learning from our mistakes).

Our kids are all on board. Till we explained it would be the entire lawn. Like no more grass. Or play house (which no one even touches anymore unless they are jumping from the roof which drives me bonkers... but hey, maybe when your mom goes crazy enough stuff like this happens! ha!). And they innocently asked, "What will we play?" To which I said, "Farmers." Which apparently I underestimated how cool this was because they squealed with delight and asked when we could begin. Except this guy.

I think he just figured out Momma will not be holding him every second of every day. So I quickly explained we will get food out of it and I think he's on board too now. Our family has delved into videos on youtube on how tos and gardening and canning and blanching... and pretty much all from this Canadian man at 50 Ducks in A Hot Tub We are feeling pumped up! So, you want in, here is what we have done so far:

The first thing we did was order our seeds. I am mentioning this because if you want heirloom organic seeds certain veggies run out quickly. We even had to go with our fourth choice for corn. We went with Incredible Seed Company but there are others out there. Next we went to some local woods and found a bunch of sticks all different sizes which we will form into teepees to grow beans, peas, etc. and also for tomato stakes. We also got a big bucket from the store 9cost us less than 3 dollars) and will be placing all our egg shells in there from now until, well a long time. Egg shells add calcium to your garden and when you crush them they break down faster-- also placing them in a ring around plants makes it harder for slugs and other nasty critters to eat your prized plants. So very simple steps to begin making this winter in preparation for your garden to begin this spring.

This back yard area behind our shed was originally what we had planned to turn into our garden and this is where we will begin our work. You can see we have our potting soil (organic) ready to go. We also have secured some pallets which we will be turning into vertical gardens so we can grow our herbs without taking up any much needed land. You can see how to make a pallet garden here. We have a large black tub that was originally going to be our little pond but we didn't use it so that too will soon be put to work and grow something on the patio or porch. We also have a lot of patio stones leftover from when we put our patio in and they will become stepping stones. I am showing you all this to have you take a look around your yard and see what you can use that you already have. (and I apologize things are messy-- it got a little crazy when the kitchen was remodeled).

Again here is our little bit of lawn before it goes to veggie seed. We need to get the playhouse out and get the ground ready but will wait till its warmer and the ground is softer. I didn't get it in the picture, but two years ago we planted our first grape vine and last year we did get to add the second. Hoping soon we get grapes as not only do we go through a lot of veggies but fruit too! we are hoping to start strawberries this year too.

One final thing to begin doing now: save your containers to begin seeds indoors! we have berry containers, milk, and clear bottles which we will turn into planters as well. We are super excited and will try and update as time allows. Our kids have helped pick out what we will grow and this week we plan on making our teepees and mapping out where everything will be planted! So, what's the best thing you have ever got to grow in your garden or your secret gardening tip?