Gated Garden

We have 5 sprinkler boxes spread throughout our back yard. It is kind of obnoxious. These two are right in the middle of the yard, so we decided to conceal them by building a garden around them. It is planted full of summer perennials, and it is going to have a cute bench in it one of these days.

Many of these plants were planted in the fall. Then this garden was under 3 feet of snow for close to 3 months. That fence was almost hidden. Apparently the intense winter was too much for a lot of our new plant babies, because we only had about a 30% survival rate. Some things survived, though, and we had fun choosing new things. This was my center garden around the beginning of June. 

Sarah is a great garden helper. She loved scooping the soil into the pots and helping me place the flowers. She has a couple of shows she loves to watch about flower gardening, and she can name most of the plants in our yard. 

Things starting to grow - big and miniature hollyhocks, pineapple lilies, ranunculus, roses, coneflowers, delphinium, dianthus, sweet peas, and some other things I don't know the names of. There are also irises and poppies that I transplanted from my grandparents' yard. I also have lilies of the valley that came from my other grandma's house. What better way to honor my two flower-loving grandmothers than to have some of their plants? I love it.

Things starting to bloom! It had been so long since we planted a lot of things that we weren't even sure what everything was. It was exciting to see what the plants turned into. 

We planted a mix of hollyhocks, and we ended up with these beautiful salmon and pink ones. The color was so pretty!

These miniature hollyhocks are one of my very favorite things we grew. They are like regular hollyhocks, but only about 2 feet tall with flowers about the size of a quarter. Cute!

Yellow and pink coneflowers

Not sure what these are. Gloriosa daisies maybe?

One day we caught this toad in the middle of the garden. Sarah was super excited about it. We released him into the vegetable garden, hoping he would work on our slug problem. 

Front Yard Flowers 2017

One of the most exciting things about making this house a home has been designing our landscaping. We all love flowers (especially Sarah. She is her mommy's girl.) These are the flowers in our front yard this year. A lot of these were perennials that we planted last year that are starting to mature and look amazing. We ended up with a really fun assortment of colors in the front.

After our crazy winter, these crocuses were a very welcome sight. There is something magical about planting bulbs in the Fall and seeing them pop up in the Spring.

Happy Columbine. We have several colors.

This rose was so cute and little at the beginning of the summer. Wait until you see it a few months later.

larkspur

There is a nursery outside of my hometown that sells the most amazing flower baskets for really good prices. I had one on either side of the door.

The zinnias in this pot went crazy. I think they loved getting the extra water from the basket above them.

Our shasta daisies were amazing this year. We went from one bloom last year to probably 75 this year. Daisies are the happiest flower.

We bought this bee balm having no idea what its flowers would look like. They have turned out to be one of my favorites. They remind me of truffula trees, and they kept blooming all summer. 

Shade Garden

The only shady spot in our yard is between the house and the fence on one side, and we were excited to make a fun little secret garden there. Last year, we put in the arbor and planted a chocolate vine to climb up it. Then a new house was built next to us, and when they built that lot up higher than ours all of the water started draining into our side yard. Every time it rained or the neighbors turned on their sprinklers, we had a flood. We had planted a lot of flowers there in the fall, and they were all drowned. We were not pleased.

On a happier note, our Nelly Moser clematis is happily growing, and we planted a wisteria on the other side of the arbor that has so far avoided death by flooding.

More flood carnage.

Apparently impatiens don't mind being flooded. They flourished all summer. Maybe we just need to research swamp plants.

As an experiment, we made a flower bed along the fence and filled it with wildflower seeds. It was so fun! There was always something new popping up and blooming throughout the summer. 

I don't know what these little guys are, but I love them!

We built a flagstone path down the center, and we are working on the flooding problem. We are determined to make this garden adorable!

Chris isn't quite as helpful in the garden as his sister. He tends to attack any flowers that he can reach. He sure does like to get dirty, though!

Chris: 11 Months

This little stinkbug is 11 months old!

Chris at 11 months:

• Mama's boy. Exclusively. If Mama leaves his sight, he gets very angry.
• Jabbers all the time. I'm claiming Mama as his first word. He definitely says it when he is angry and wants attention from me. He also says "Da-ey" pretty consistently when Kelson is around. 
• Gets into everything and puts all things in his mouth, food or not.
• Still loves water and the outdoors. He hates being left out of anything.
• His favorite food lately is watermelon. If we are having watermelon, we have to save it for the end of the meal or he won't eat anything else.
• Cruises around furniture and pulls up on everything, but he shows no signs of attempting to walk.
• Loves story time and has learned to turn the pages in his books.
• He is having a great intellectual growth spurt right now, and I see him turning into a toddler. Stay my baby a little longer!

 Trying to sneak a choking hazard into his mouth. Yep, that's our Chris.

 Chris might look a little silly in this picture, but I had to include it because it is so incredibly rare to snap a picture of Sarah with a calm, serious look on her face. No worries, she was back to her happy, silly self about half a second later.

Sarah wanted to take a picture too. Not bad for a 3 year old photographer.

Gardening 2017: June, July

All of a sudden, we discovered that we could grow a fair number of plants.

Just not squash. We got a D in that class this year.

From left: potatoes, onions, garlic, spinach, beans, peas, radishes, carrots, beets, lettuce, cabbage, celery, broccoli, brussels sprouts, tomatillo, tomatoes, green peppers, jalapenos, pepperoncinis, watermelon, cantaloupe, cucumber, zucchini, pumpkin, nasturtiums, and sunflowers.

What failed: yellow squash, broccoli, golden beets, pumpkin (mostly), berries.

Then the weeds came. And we spent too many hours and days removing grass and weeds.

But we did win the battle of the goatheads. 

Sarah helped so much with weeding during the summer.

(Her shoes are on the wrong feet.)

The little herb box was cute until...

(1) the herbs matured and multiplied

(2) the marigolds exploded and took over

We grew rosemary (not from seed, because that is not logical),

dill, basil, cilantro, parsley, sage, and thyme.

Easiest thing to grow, ever.

Some early harvest items.

The early beet greens were good - very much like chard.

We picked the mini watermelon to see what it looked like inside.

This one actually turned out to be overripe. It was really hard to tell. Most of the ones we picked later were underripe.

The giant sunflowers quickly came into their own, topping out at almost 8 feet tall.

Interestingly, they all faced the morning sun.

Except the shy, droopy one.

Here are some early potatoes.

The feeling of growing and then harvesting one's own potatoes for the first time was exhilarating.
I felt like a real farmer from Idaho.

As the summer progressed, the garden really filled out (so did the weeds),

and we ate vegetables as they came ready.

May/June: radishes

June: spinach and peas

June/July: tomatoes, lettuce, beans, tomatillos

July/August: beans, beets, zucchini, tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, cabbage, carrots, cucumbers, onions

September: garlic, sunflower seeds, onions, tomatoes, carrots, beets, cucumbers, celery, cabbage

November: apples, brussels sprouts

Here is a meal made from the garden except for the pita, chicken, and yogurt sauce.

Points for plating.

And here is another.

Chris: 10 Months

 Our baby is turning into such a big boy! This month:

• He finally cut his first tooth at the beginning of this month. Then he got 3 more. He now has both top and both bottom front teeth. The teeth made sleeping this month a little bit of a challenge. He has decided that putting himself to sleep is traumatic, and he would much rather cuddle with Mommy for an hour at bedtime. 
• He loves to eat, and he will eat pretty much anything. Now that he has teeth, there is no stopping him. 
• This boy is always on the go. One of his favorite tricks when someone is trying to hold him is to throw up his arms and go limp so you will put him on the floor. There is always something to explore or destroy. Some of his favorites lately are playing in the dishwasher, pulling everything off the fridge, and squeezing through any small crevice available.
• He loves water. We have been playing in the pool a lot lately, and he loves it.
• Changing diapers and getting dressed are traumatic events. Laying still for that long is just too much to ask. There is a lot of thrashing and screaming involved. It is like dressing a fish. One-piece outfits with no fasteners like the one in these pictures are the best.
• He absolutely hates being left behind. If someone walks past him into a room and closes the door (as his sister loves to do), he will burst into tears. It is especially tragic if that person goes outside. He loves being outside, and if he knows someone is out there without him he will throw a huge fit.
• He is still our smiley, happy boy, and we love him so much!

The adorable moment just before she tackled him to the ground. That is pretty much how life goes around here.

Chris: 9 Months

At 9 Months:

• Weight: 18 lbs 11 oz (25th percentile)  Height: 28 1/2" (66th percentile)  Head: 85th percentile
• Fun fact: Sarah was exactly the same height at this age, but she weighed over 3 pounds more. Chris is much easier to carry around.
• Chris is a busy boy! He crawls like a madman, explores everywhere, and gets into everything.
• He has learned to climb stairs and pull himself up on furniture, and he does both any chance he can find. His other favorite pastime is crawling through small spaces such as under dining chairs, through end tables, and in between couches. All of these activities add up to the collection of bruises that makes him look a little bit like an abuse victim. 
• We have totally given up on baby food. Chris eats what we eat, and he does pretty much all of it himself. I don't think we have found a food he won't eat, although he made some pretty funny faces when I gave him partially frozen blueberries. 
• He has started babbling. His favorite sound is dadadada, although it means everything. I am not giving Daddy the credit for first word yet.
• Chris is such a happy baby. He smiles and giggles all the time and loves his sister most of all. 

Escaping up the stairs is one of Chris's favorite activities. He knows there are toys up there.