A Weekend Review

Friday we ALL went to the Zoo (including Jason). Jackson showed him the rhinos and cho cho train, while Abygail showed him the Sea Lions and Polar Bear. It was so much fun spending time with him and the kids doing something we all love.

Saturday Abygail and I went to the farmers market and got some strawberries, cherries, apples and summer squash. Abygail single-handedly ate all the strawberries (1 quart) by the end of the day. We also enjoyed the summer squash in a stir-fry that night with carrots, snap peas and green beans from the garden. Last night (Sunday) we ate the same stuff but sauteed with lemon butter - it was quite yummy and the kids loved it both nights. (Jackson actually liked the rice the most - his favorite food of late).

We have pictures ... but we can't seem to find the cord to download them. This is why our blog is barren of pictures lately :) Hopefully we'll find it soon and you can see what we've been up to - and for those of you outside of Buffalo, you can see my new hair cut Jason gave me :)

Hey, What's Goin' On?!

So, I've been a slacker of late. My apologies to my loyal reader base. I know you all sit with bated breath waiting, waiting, waiting for some sign of what's going on in our 'hood'. (ha, ha, ha!)

Well, wait no more. Here's a small update on what's been happening.

Our good friends and neighbors, Rachel and Tyler, are out of town for a month or so and let us borrow their kiddie pool while they are gone. We've been swimming and playing on our outdoor playhouse. We've been to the Zoo, Jackson's favorite animal is the rhinoceros but unlike his sister he doesn't like the carousel too much. Also we have gone to Cazenovia Park and played in the water fountains. We went to a 4th of July birthday party for Sam (Abygail's 'boy' friend :)

The kids are getting so funny. Yesterday I caught them playing with each other and just laughing and laughing. One will chase the other and then the roles are reversed - very cute! Abygail is such a talker. She says the funniest things. The night of the last book club meeting I told her I was going out with my girlfriends to talk about books. She said "I go with my friends and we talk about books, and we tell stories." This morning she told me "Mommy, you eat your breakfast and when you are through you can have a popsicle, but you have to finish breakfast first." I think she is the one that wanted a popsicle! Speaking of, Jackson is in LOVE with popsicles, everytime he goes by the fridge he reaches up and says "psssss". He also likes to say "teessssss" to brush his teeth and "tisssssss" for everything else (this).

He understands LOTS of words and can even say "mmmimmmm" for milk. This is the week for weening him. I've nursed him for 13 months and it's time to move forward. It's a bitter sweet ending. I'll miss my special time with him but, it's time so we will march forward.

What else can I tell you about? The garden is doing well, the tomato plants have little green tomatoes on them. I left my cauliflower a day too long and they went to seed. The broccoli is huge but still have not produced anything. Carrots, lettuce, beets, green beans and snap peas are all growing very well. We are harvesting lettuce and snap peas anytime we need/want them but that's really all that we are getting right now. Everything else is growing well and we can't wait to see the fruits of our labors.

Not much more to tell. Hope you had a great 4th of July and a happy weekend!

It's June Already?!

Here's just a few things that have happened since the last post.

~Abygail's friend James was over on Wednesday, I got some great film of them dancing.





~Jackson got a bloody nose from playing so hard on Friday at the Ward Activity

~Jackson bit his tongue last night

~I got a new calling, Activities Committee Chairman - now I have keys, is this a good thing or bad thing?

~More planting: Corn, Carrots, Lettuce, Zinnias, Peppers

~Garden growing like a weed, weeds are growing too :)



~"We're in the spinach", we've had spinach every day for the last 4 days. In eggs and salads.


(Before the first harvest of baby spinach leaves, The first dish with spinach in it)

~We rode to church today. Jason left me 2 miles behind...but I finally made it just in time for the announcements :)

~Jason sold his 2 month old bike and got a new one

~I've ridden to the store a few times with the kids. Here's a picture of Abygail after one of those rides :)



****UPDATE****
~And apparently my daughter got in a fight with one of her very good friends in nursery...what a crazy girl! Her father took care of it.

Recent Happenings

Jackson fell down the stairs. There is a strawberry squished into his forehead in this picture, which accentuates the bruise. We are not sure how he got the scratch under his lip. The bruise on his cheek is from me picking up a book and misgauging how much room I had to lift it and thus catching him with the corner of it across his face. Nothing keeps this boy down though, he is always happy and smiling!

We had smores for FHE. We all enjoyed them (except Jackson who was asleep by the time we had them).

Radishes!

The lettuce, spinach, beets, and snap peas are coming up in the garden :)

The Garden

The garden beds

The strawberry "patch"

The blueberry bushes.

Well, the garden is finally underway.

So far I've planted: carrots; lettuce; beets; snap peas; snap beans; spinach; strawberries; cauliflower; and broccoli. All were seeds except the last 3. They all seem to be doing fine (I haven't seen any sprouts on the seeds yet but am hopeful they will show up in the next few weeks).

I'll probably put the tomato plants in the ground this evening. What's left? Lots! I still have plants growing in the basement that are not ready to go in the ground yet: zinnias; pepper, both hot and mild; and mint. And lots more seeds that will go in the ground in 2 weeks (this week is the official last frost date week).

I've started a list on my side bar called "What's In The Garden" for those of you that are curious.

Happy Gardening!

Note Worthy

Sunday morning as I made cinnamon rolls for our ward's conference breakfast we watched the birds fly in and out of the backyard. There were Robins and Sparrows but there were 2 other visitors that we took special note of. One was a Cardinal that also visits our front yard from time to time, gracing us with it's presence right in front of our living room window - offering a perfect view of it's beauty. The other was a wood pecker, we didn't get the best look at it but we hope to see it again.

When we arrived back from the first session of conference we took note of flowers pushing up out of the ground (irises, tulips, daffodils - we know not, that's the joy of new home ownership and suprises left from previous owners), we were very please and excited.

Cauliflower and Broccoli

The seeds I've planted so far are coming right along. The Zinnias sprouted quite awhile ago, the Cauliflower and Broccoli came soon after, now I'm starting to see the Tomatoes emerging. This has been an exciting process for myself and Abygail, who loves to help me water them and even helped me drop a few seeds in.

Sunday afternoon we enjoyed a lovely chat with our neighbors in the back yard. We are so excited the weather has gotten so lovely. It's nice to come out of hibernation from a long winter.


Last week we went to the zoo with lots of friends, Abygail loved playing on the playground and 'hanging' out with her friends. She also loves to see all the animals. Mostly, I think she just likes being outside and able to walk freely around (close by mommy of course).


Today we visited the duck park and enjoyed seeing that the Mallard ducks are back from their winter homes, the squirels were scurring about and the birds were singing their songs.

Spring Break

I Love My Daddy Because...he teaches me to pray.

Last Sunday Abygail said her first prayer all by herself from start to finish. It was at dinner and this is how it went: "Heady Fauter, tink dis day, something something something, de Jesus Kist, Amen". She has since said a handful of prayers all by herself and we are so impressed and proud.

Snow Angels

This week Jason was on Spring Break. It was so nice to have him home. We've just been kicking back and enjoying the snow that dumped on us a week ago. Abygail got to build her first snowman this week. He had a carrot nose, sunglasses, and a hat and scarf from Ecuador - his head finally melted and fell off on Friday. We still have several inches of snow on the ground but it's melted from the roof tops and sidewalks.

I'm not sure if he felt like he got a spring break though, I think I'm the one that got the spring break. I got to run errands and do some shopping all by myself. It was so nice to have some alone time.

(click to enlarge and you can see sprouts)

Thursday night I hosted an Enrichment activity at our house. We learned about seed starting (by yours truly who is learning about it for the first time this year). I had some trays and soil (soil-less soil) for everyone and since we have more than enough seeds of the plants we want to plant this year we shared them and everyone got to plant some and take home to watch them grow. I have my fingers crossed that this works out because I don't want anyone, including myself, getting discouraged. For us I started some Zinnia seeds, others started flowers, tomatoes, peppers and watermelons (we weren't sure if it was too early to start the watermelons so we just decided to give it a try - what could it hurt).

We got to pet and play with 2 adorable bunnies at the museum.

On Saturday we all went to the Museum of Science. It was O.K. but nothing to write home about other than we got out and spent some time together as a family.

Yesterday when I watered the zinnias I noticed some of them had sprouted, today when Abygail and I checked on them we noticed several more had sprouted. I'm really excited about this whole experiment and Abygail seems to enjoy it too.

Yum! My first Oreo!!!

Jackson's top two teeth have started poking through this week. He has been racing up the stairs every chance he gets, he knows how to move the road block that we've put up now too. He's taken a tumble over the side of the Kangaroo Climber which didn't seem to phase him too much.

Another big thing we did this week: TAXES! We are planing to get Jason a bicycle and redo the kitchen with the return that will be coming in.

The car is still in the shop so we've had a rental car for 2 weeks now. We hope ours is finished soon.

Not much more has been happening. Hope you all have had a great week and ... for the rest of our fellow Buffalonians who will start their Spring Break on Monday - ENJOY!!!

The Fifth Element

(statements in orange have been updated to this post on 2/24/08)

Meaty Chunks recently posted "While You Were Sleeping"
Xochitl Girl posted "A Beautiful Mind"

Now, I certainly can't deny the temptation to follow suit and post "The Fifth Element"

What are the first four elements? Well if you've seen the movie then you know they are Earth, Wind, Fire and Water. If you didn't see the movie, well, now you know.

The fifth element is the human element. I'm reading The Omnivore's Dilemma and it really has got me to think about the human element.

Most of my life my food has either come from a can or a box. Growing up my mom worked full time and raised at least 4 of her six kids pretty much on her own (please note, I'm not downing my dad here, I'm just painting a picture) so she didn't have a lot of time on her hands and it was a struggle just to get us all up in the morning, much less prepare food from scratch. Sure, I had grandparents, one set had a huge garden and the other set had a pretty good sized garden, chickens and even a peach farm. Yes, my family even had a garden, peach trees (5), blackberry bushes (2), chickens and birds too. But pretty much all of that stopped for all 3 house holds at about the same time, that was when I was in my preteen years. So, yeah, I knew corn could be grown and eaten but that's corn on the cob - not regular corn...or at least this has been my thought for many, many years. I'm not saying I'm stupid, what I'm saying is that I simply didn't put 2 and 2 together and with supermarkets...who needs to.

Well, I need to now! That's what I'm talking about and thinking about, and when you see my book review on Michael Pollan's book you'll see where this all started. I lost the human element, the element of being connected to my food source and knowing how it came to be and what it is.

Sometimes at dinner we play this game...Either Jason or I say "Man, Mommy/Daddy sure does make good xyz." Sometimes it's pasta, sometimes beans ... whatever happens to be on the menu. Then we begin telling the story of how it all came to be right there on the table in front of us (or at least how it would have come to be on our table IF we were the human element of our food). Jason is way better at this game than I am, he'll say, "You see Abygail, last fall I harvested the wheat that was growing in our field..." and he'll continue on with what harvesting consisted of. Then he'll tell how he made it into wheat, and how that wheat was combined with eggs from the chickens (including how the eggs where gathered) and so on and so on through all the elements of our dinner, until you get to the cooking, setting the table and eating stage. Sometimes we have to stop and really think "wait, how does that happen, how does cheese come about, or where would we have to go to catch a salmon". (The first time we played this it was Macaroni and Cheese - try that one, a seemingly simple dish can be very complex.) It's fun to see what it would take to really make a meal without help from the supermarket or farmers market. (Again - not down on supermarkets because let's face it...if it wasn't for them I would have starved to death a long time ago and my mom would have gone insane too.) You should try this game - it's great family time fun.

Another thing that's been running through my head: I look at our dinners/lunches/breakfasts in a different way now. Mostly dinners because they are more complex. I think about how I can make it from scratch. Take last night's meal for instance: black beans, Rotel tomatoes, canned corn mixed with spices and simmered for a good while then served over rice. I look at it and think - "how can I make this fresh". It dawns on me, you shave the corn off the cob and freeze it, you preserve the tomatoes with hot peppers, you dry the beans (I don't know about rice, is it even possible to grow in this country?). Then when it's dinner time you use what you harvested.

My point is - I'm really excited for this summer and the change it will bring. I'm really excited about being an element of my food and for my children to know where food comes from. I know it's going to be hard and it's going to be a lot of trial and error and there will be some successes and some failures but, we'll be connected.

Gardening

I am really getting excited for my garden this year. One of our goals for buying the house was to plant a garden where we can grow some of our own food and work with the kids out in the yard. I know, I know...it's still winter and the ground is COVERED in snow, but...my seed catalogs are coming in and I can't help but get excited.

Over at Food Shed Planet they are having a Victory Garden Drive and this has really excited me. Also I have found a companion gardener online, which will be so much fun.

Well, that's all for now. I better get back to cleaning and perusing my seed catalogs. Go Victory!