Tiny Talk Tuesday

David unloading the dishwasher:
Knives are like little swords.
Spoons are like little catapults.
And forks are like little spears.

I walked in from the store holding the little pink hat. Elizabeth gasped, wide-eyed, and said excitedly, "Mom! Do you have a pink hat???? Is it for me?!?!?!?"
Pink hat from Dollar Tree: $1
Elizabeth's reaction: priceless

Elizabeth walked up to me the other day and said, "Mommy, I want to go to Lowe's."

I told the kids I decided to make carrot cake for Rebekah's first birthday party and I'll make chocolate chip cake for Dad's. They both replied, "I want Dad's cake." I think they're afraid carrot cake might be healthy!

I've got sprouts!

Friday, March 19 - I dug a new bed in the garden. I hate hearing all those Bermuda roots as the shovel goes into the earth.

Onions are happily growing. They'll be thinned for some green onions before long. Then hopefully the larger ones will grow better than last year. This bed will have more dirt in it next year.

My little strawberry plant is coming back after being eaten by the goat. Hopefully there will be enough time to make me at least one berry before it gets hot???

Garlic is growing back after being eaten off by the goat:

The angled piece of cattle panel is what I grown my tomatoes on. Last year, it was in the bed on the right. I thought I'd move them this year. I've got 3 Romas getting a head start indoors in pots. I'm still trying to beat my sister to the first tomato... I decided to do mostly Roma this year since they had such good flavor last year, produced heavily, and are good for canning & freezing sauces. I just don't think I can say no to the yellow pear, though...

Monday, March 22 - NEW SPROUTS SPOTTED!!! Rainbow Swiss Chard is really prettier than it looks. I love the crimson stems on the tiny sprouts!

This was in the area where I planted spinach. I've never grown spinach before, so I don't know if that's spinach or a weed coming up.

Radish seedlings appear to be forming true leaves!

That, my friends, is a cockleburr growing amongst my radishes. At least it was.

Tiny carrot sprouts are beginning to peek through!

There were a couple of these in the pot where I planted peppermint seeds. Could it be?

I also have peppers growing in the house - 1 poblano, 2 Anaheim, 9 jalapeno.

I know my mulch is pretty rough for starting seedlings. I should have scrapped it off a little better. And for those who were concerned about the goat eating my garden, we picked up a roll of fencing. Now to find the time when Dad's home to work on the fence.

For the Growing Challenge - strawberries, garlic, spinach, radishes, carrots, peppermint and poblano peppers are new to my garden.

Tiny Talk Tuesday

David did Power Yoga with me one night. The workout was only 20 minutes long. About 10 minutes into the program he began to ask how much longer. About 15 minutes in he said:
It's hard to exercise this much when you're a kid.

All three kids were playing with our dancing monkey musical baby toy thing. (I couldn't find a link in English! I don't think it's sold here any more. We got it for David's first Christmas.)
Elizabeth started hollering: I want to play the banana!!
Mom: What? You want to play the banana???
Elizabeth: Yeah! I want to play the piano!

2010 Farm & Garden Report

Wow, I can't believe it's March already! Today I spent some time looking back over my 2009 Garden Log, remembering what worked & what didn't. I participated in the 2009 Growing Challenge: Seed to Seed and failed at it, because I ended up not saving any seeds from things I grew! I did, however, grow new things from seed that I'd never grown before, so all was not lost. And we're still eating salsa that I canned last summer with my abundant crop of tomatoes & peppers! Now on to this year... and this year's Growing Challenge!

We had a devastating start to the year and I didn't get seeds started indoors like I did last year. Back in January, I received an order garden tools - fertilizer makers! This is what they look like now:

Really, I wanted them for the eggs, but the droppings are already going into the compost bin, so I think they will be beneficial to the garden, too. And they look so pretty!

I got straight run, mixed lot, so I don't really know what all they are yet.

I do know that this one is an Easter Egger - she's gonna lay those pretty blue & green eggs:

We had some rain the other day that resulted in a magnificent rainbow!

Click to enlarge. And a pretty cool puddle, too.

Your husband may bring home flowers... but mine brought home plants! Yeah, baby!!!

He brought me jalapeno seedlings. Wow, that's gonna be a lot of peppers if they all survive!

And a strawberry plant!!! This is it before Blackie, the goat, ate it. It's coming back, though.

He brought some arugula. This is it before Blackie ate half of it.

And he brought me some broccoli! This is one of the plants before Blackie ate it. I hope they come back... Strawberries, arugula, and broccoli are new plants for me to try.

My fall planted garlic is coming up. This is after the goats ate the tops.

There's an overview of the garden area for this year. On March 9, I planted seeds for radishes, carrots, assorted lettuces, spinach, chives, Swiss chard, peppermint, and sunflowers. I have never grown radishes and never successfully grown carrots, spinach or chives.

My pretty little helper:
I also dug, lined, and mulched for a new bed beside the arbor. I think this will be where I put this year's cukes.

Dad rented a Ditch Witch to run the drain line from the water softening system across the garden. Here it is coming down from the garden:

Another trench for a another line that I'm not exactly sure what to call.

Dad did a little witchin' of his own to find a buried water line. It's amazing to me that this works!

Back to the garden today - radishes are sprouting already!!

My purple allium bulbs are coming up!!!

We got the pansies on clearance last week. They're a bit wind blown right now, but still pretty.

The cone flower I dig up from the ditch last summer has survived!

My grape hyacinths are just starting to bloom, but you should see Grandpa's! (hey, Grandpa, maybe you should blog!)

And this blows me away - This Swiss chard was planted from seed on February 2, 2009! I never pulled up the stalks after it "died" and now it's sprouted new leaves! Crazy!

My first iris bloom from my Grandmother's iris:

This is where Rebekah watches the gardening when it's too cool for her to be outside with me:

Well, that was a hodgepodge of information, but that catches me up on what's going on outside so far this year!

A Great New Book for Easter!

The Flowering Cross, by Beth Ryan, is a sweet story of how a child can make a difference in her world. A little girl and her family befriend a grumpy old man who lives next door. As they reach out to him, his heart softens. The little girl and her brother are instrumental in leading him to Christ. Many of the pages includes topics for further discussion and scriptures at the bottom.

I read this book to my children, ages 5, 3, and 11 months. We stuck to the story line without any other discussion, but I did read a few of the scripture references also. My "audience" didn't have the attention span for the discussion. I think it would be good for an 8-year-old and up.

I loved the illustrations in this book. They, and the entire storyline, are very heartwarming. The book in general reminds me of one of my favorites, Liz Curtis Higgs' Pumpkin Patch Parable, in both illustration and layout. I also love how the book ties scriptures in on every page. And if you're handy with woodworking, the book comes with instructions on how to make your own flowering cross centerpiece.

I do recommend this book, especially if your children are just a little bit older than mine. I am looking forward to reading it again in years to come and am excited about the possibility for discussion about how children can impact even grown-ups for the Lord.

The Flowering Cross is available at Amazon.com and Christian Book Distributors.

Disclosure: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Road Trip!

One thing that Dad & I have always loved doing together is taking road trips. It's been a while since we took one, so when the opportunity arose to go to a cousin's wedding and MawMaw offered to keep the kids for the weekend, we jumped on it!

I collect photos of Texas courthouses, so we added a few more to the collection on this trip.

When we were hungry, our choices were Don Antonio's Tortilleria or Dairy Queen. Don won that one! While stopped for lunch, Dad worked on the trip sheet, noting how long we had spent stopped...
Texas has some of the most beautiful courthouses. This was not one of them.

OK, none of the courthouses on this trip were one of them...


But this one had a lawyer handy across the street!

Finally made it & we got all prettied up for the wedding. Don't we look cute?! : )

The church was beautiful! After I caught my breath, I took pictures from all angles:

Just to show that we actually did attend a wedding, here's a photo of us with the bride & groom... ok, us and all of our side of the family that attended.

Their colors were red & black. The cake was very cute! Bottom layer was red velvet, the middle chocolate, the top was white. We had red velvet. Later that night, my body went into shock from that much artificial food coloring, since I have been off of it along with David on his diet. I won't be doing that again...

There was dancing at the reception and I actually had a dance with my sweet hubby! We really need to learn how to dance because there's another wedding later this summer and we may not be able to hide in the crowd next time!

I showed that picture to David of Aunt Jana singing with her arms up in the air, and some Tiny Talk ensued.
David: What is Aunt Jana singing?
Mom: I don't know.
David: I think she's singing a Star Wars song!
bwahahahahaha!!!!

It's really amazing how many windmills there are out there now-a-days! Of course, we followed the rails for as much of the trip as we could.

Now there's something you don't see every day! (it's an inside joke) hahaha!!!