The Veggies of Our Labor

When we first started the garden, I had visions of all the vegetables our efforts would produce. We could live off our garden for days I thought, maybe even weeks! I envisioned myself bringing in baskets of carrots, onions and lettuce. I saw myself having so much that I had to give some away to friends, and would then need to find a way to store whatever else we couldn't use right away. Oh the joys of gardening!

Then, harvest time came and the reality hit me. The lettuce was short, the carrots the size of my alien-like fingers; the green onions even thinner. Even though we would die in about a day if we had to live off our garden, we were still quite excited about what we got! The girls got excited about pulling the carrots out of the ground and happily ate them. This alone made the work well worth it as they had not befriended many vegetables at that point. Brenna even started eating the green sprouts on the top of the carrot, and I almost stopped her.... Eat up my little rabbit child! Eat up!

 So this picture of the girls with the carrots is the only one we have from October's planting thanks to the lady who stole my old I-Phone. We made good use of all the carrots in salads and just by themselves. The green onions were added to our Monday night veggie burritos, and the spinach and lettuce were great for salads, and sandwiches.



This spinach is from the October garden, but continues to replenish itself which makes it my favorite vegetable so far. Seriously! I'm tempted to just plant a bunch of spinach and let it do the rest of the work! It shot up and grew larger leaves once I started watering twice a day. Now we have plenty to use on sandwiches, salads, and green smoothies. I love that I can just go out and pull off what I need.

Now on to March's planting:

 Here is our tallest corn sprout. We've got two rows of them, and I'm curious how they are going to do. I hear you have to water them well if you don't want the corn to be super thick. They seem to do well in the summer which is good, but our turtle seems to enjoy eating them, so we will see if they last!

 Here's the carrots and their happy green sprouts.

I'm hoping they will be able to brave the hot summer!

 Lastly, the green onions which are in two rows.

I'm concerned about these ones with the heat as well, but we shall see!

Our compost bin is finally full, and I wish I could get my hands on that stuff at the bottom that is ready for the garden. I really don't follow the compost rules as well as I should. I just chuck stuff in there and water it every now and then. Hopefully we'll have some compost to use at some point. I'm still learning a LOT, but it's fun trying to figure things out as you go. 

Happy gardening:) 

Just A Heads Up

Some friends have brought to my attention that my old blog (kevinandmelissa......blogspot.com) is now showcasing tattoos and pictures of Miley Cyrus. That blog is no longer mine, and I have no access to it under my blogger account. If you are still following the old one, I would take it off your reader and just follow this current one. Gracias:)

Food Face

Sometimes my kids have a hard time eating all their food because they get bored. So one day, I started making faces and objects out of their food to keep them interested. So far I've made sailboats and Easter baskets out of BBQ chicken sandwiches and grapes, but mostly I specialize in food faces.

I give you...

Grilled Cheese Carrot Apple Face

Bean and Cheese Crisp Apple Face

and

Bean and Veggie Taco Apple Mickey Mouse Face

That's a long one, and yes.... it was for me.

It was fun, and the first time I did it I even gave the girl's "food face" a voice. I and started talking to the girls saying things like "please don't eat me!" "please don't eat my eyes!" thinking it might help even more. Unfortunately, they became more interested in their food talking and stopped eating completely. So now we are back to just food faces, that can't talk like a pirate or tell stories. It's much better that way:)

18 months

Dallin turned 18 months old on March 12th. 

It just so happened that we put him in a shirt with an 18 on it that day. When I pointed the 18 out to Kevin, he thought it was to honor Peyton Manning being in the valley. Not so much...

Anyhoo, here's the latest and greatest with the Dally-Man:

Weight: 25 pounds (30th percentile)

Height: 33 inches (60th percentile)

Head: still huge (80th percentile)

Dallin doesn't like to use a lot of words yet, as he can get what he wants without it. He says "Mama," "Sis," "Dada," "Shoe," and "Cheese," and "Please" which sound exactly the same at this point. He also waves while saying "BAH" aka "Bye."

He takes one afternoon nap that usually runs from 1pm to 4pm.

Bedtime is around 8-830pm, and he gets up around 7-8am.

His new thing is wanting three Binky's when he goes to sleep. One for his mouth and one in each hand.

We haven't cut his hair yet, and I'm afraid to as I struggle with cutting straight lines. Fortunately his hair is really fine and curly (just like his mommas!) and so it's easy to do.

Dallin gradually weaned himself and was done nursing at around 17 and a half months. It was a little bittersweet. I was glad that he was able to benefit from it for a good amount of time and that I didn't have to deal with Aunt Flo, but I was happy that he was ready to be a little more independent and I didn't have to worry about being away from him for more then a few hours.

Dallin's latest tricks are crawling around on his hands and knees and acting like a puppy. He also enjoys using chairs/small tables, and bar stools to climb up on top of anything. We have relocated all the knives in our kitchen due to his ability to get into any drawer he pleases in record time.

We have been taking him to nursery for the past few months to get him use to it, and just recently he is letting us leave him there. For a long time he needed us in there and by him at every moment.

Dallin loves animals and follows our cat Toby around whenever he can. He is known to pull Toby's tail and whiskers, and fortunately our cat puts up with it.

As for food, he likes it simple. He'd rather have pieces of cheese, turkey, and bread then a turkey sandwich. Mixing items isn't his favorite.  Still loves fruits. Not so much with the veggies, although he will down a green smoothie without question.

Dallin loves playing with cars and anything that has a function.He also enjoys plugging the earphones into i-phones. I have to peel him off the computers when we visit the public library. I think that is his new favorite place. He loves climbing up and down stairs which usually scares me to death.

Dallin has been eating with a fork and spoon for a long time now. He tries to do everything his sisters do, which gets him in trouble sometimes. He thinks he can do anything and is very confident. He is like a headstrong teenager stuck in an 18 month old's body.

He loves checking the mail every day, and taking baths. He likes looking at the pictures in books and pointing at things. He enjoys people holding him and leading him around while he points and directs where to go. He likes to be where the action is.

He's cute and drives us crazy sometimes, but we love him!