Gardening

Now, I am notorious for having a rather black thumb, I have killed almost every plant I have ever tried to grow. I say this so you know how incredibly amazing it is that I am planting a garden and it actually seems to be thriving so far.

While looking for more flowers for our flower garden out front, my kids discovered some plants they desperately wanted to try and grow: watermelon, pumpkin, cucumber, red bell pepper, strawberries, and cantaloupe. Oh and peanuts. Yes, it's a very odd list, and that's with me editing out several things I knew we wouldn't actually eat (I know they wouldn't eat the jalapenos they grew).

So we spent a few afternoons planting the flowers and the herbs I picked out because they smell good/I want to try cooking with them. The plants from this fall have mostly survived, with the exception of the basil, we even actually grew broccoli, and discovered that if you don't pick it in time you get lovely yellow flowers that bees love.

Finally it came time to plant the watermelons and pumpkin. I let them plant the pumpkin in front, but couldn't quite figure out a way to fit lots and lots of watermelons in a 3 by 8 foot patch that was already pretty full. So, we needed a new garden.


Jeff and I dug out the grass, and used a pry bar to break up a bunch of big rocks. Then the kids got involved with their hoes.


This lasted about 5 minutes, and then they decided it was just not fun. So, they spent the next 45 minutes running around. Part of that time Superman had gotten ahold of my camera, and took about 90 pictures. So the vast majority of the pictures on this post come from either Superman or Neighbor Girl, who is over here almost every day.


Well, Jeff and I dug for ever to get all the rocks out, and still haven't. I did find one weighing about 10 pounds. Superman's picture above is actually of some of the smaller rocks. I think all told we removed a couple of bucketfuls of rocks.




Princess and Batman came back around for planting their precious watermelons, however I seriously doubt they'll make it. After being planted they were trod on quite often in the process of planting the other watermelons or digging more holes for other plants. Preschoolers do not make good gardeners.

I'm thinking that Superman might become a photographer, anyone know of a good kid digital camera? Here are his unedited pictures (a very small sampling)





Of course there's also pictures like this, a lot of pictures like this.



I'm hoping to use our garden as a real world way of learning about plants. We'll see if it works.

I don't need a stick horse Mom!

Yesterday we went to Wal-Mart for our grocery shopping, mainly because I knew we also needed to get some gardening supplies that I figured wouldn't be at HEB. Well, after going through the garden department and picking up a few more plants, which I probably didn't really need to get..... I found 3 child sized hoes, and they were in my kids favorite colors. It was like a sign from heaven, because it was on my list of things to keep an eye out for, so I thought I was set.

While in the store they learned all sorts of ways to play with them. We learned that they can slide along the bottom of the shelf.



It also can be a horse. This was the most popular option because after a while I got tired of the sound as they were dragged on the ground and asked them to pick them up a little.


Now, of course eventually the horse gets tired, or gets shot, and so you have to fall down on the ground and die.


And everyone had to have their picture taken while dead.

I'm going to be so sad when the boys outgrow these shirts, they've worn them for the past three summers. I have so many pictures in these shirts. Of course, my problem is now the opposite boy is wearing them.

To explain that comment, for the first two years of their lives Batman wore blue, that was the only way we could tell the boys apart. About 9 months ago Superman decided that blue is his favorite color, and he NEEDs to wear anything that is blue. Then we went to the Renaissance Festival and Batman decided the Green Knight was the coolest, so now he needs anything that is green. So, I've had two years of Superman wearing the green shirt and Batman wearing the blue, and now they've switched on me. They are getting really mad at me.

Oh, and forgive the general messiness of the pictures, they're taken with my phone. I didn't have my camera handy, and they were just too funny in the store not to get a picture.

Come by tomorrow to see the hoes in use, and find out how many rocks our back yard has.

Tot School: Monsters

So, as a posted earlier in my blog (How to Make a Monster) my kids have suddenly and very randomly become obsessed with monsters. So, we spent Tot School this week learning about monsters. I collected a bunch of Sesame Street monster books and anything else that was remotely monsterish and we spent the week reading those.


I made a Monsters Inc. monster sort, printed it out and laminated them with my super duper cool sticker maker. I absolutely love this, I've used it several times for activities this week.


We also put together a monster number book. I cut out and stapled the book together, and then cut out lots and lots of monsters and fed it through the sticker maker. We then spent a couple of days putting stickers on and counting our monsters.

Another activity I thought of, but did not remember to do is Monster Hide and seek, we now have several monsters and I was going to hide them all over the rooms we work in, but we never got that done. They're really getting into hide and seek games.

As to some other Tot School Activites, this week was crazy busy with lots of field trips and outings:


Berry picking with friends.


Playing at a local park, and getting absolutely soaked.


And my new favorite, "Yes, my hoe is also a horse."

And, I'll actually post a few other in detail posts later this week about our Tot School, because I have a whole bunch of pictures from this week, but I have to do something for cleaning and stuff while the kids are still sleeping..... If anyone wants the files for the monster stuff we did, write a comment and I'll figure out how to share it.

Yeah! I got an award!

I was lucky enough to be tagged for an award by Christy from Superheroes and Princesses (notice I actually made the words into a link, I finally found the way to do that). Now, I just need to spend a few minutes figuring out how to copy over the award...... Okay, finally got it, I saved the image to my computer and then uploaded the picture. That works.

Rules:
1) Add the logo of the award to your blog

2) Add a link to the person who awarded it to you

3) Nominate at least 7 other blogs

4) Add links to those blogs on your blog
5) Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs!

I would like to nominate:

http://wigglewormsfirstschool.blogspot.com/

http://angelbugbaby.blogspot.com/

http://cheekymonkeypreschool.blogspot.com/

http://fourlittlepenguins.blogspot.com/

http://spinnersendnurseryschool.blogspot.com/

http://thesnailstrail.blogspot.com/

http://amyclary.blogspot.com/

Olive and S Tea dress pattern

I'm going to be making this pattern several times because I want to enter the patternreview.com contest, so here's my first take on it:



It's horridly wrinkled there, but you can see the general idea of it. I used a wing needle for the embellishment on the side seams, and here's a close-up of the embroideries.

 

 

 

 

A few modifications I made to the pattern:
I made the front and back bloomer pieces into 1 piece cut out on the fold. So all I had to sew was a front middle seam.
The facing for the bottom hem was supposed to be on the inside, but I flipped it around to the front for a contrast band at the bottom.
I sewed a buttonhole onto the back of the bloomers. When I wash them or she's done wearing it I just button the bloomers to the button on the dress. I got tired of constantly having to search for the bloomers in the drawers of dresses.

Are you hungry Mommy?

Sunday we had friends over to play games. I actually have a few things I'll post on games later, but not until I do my experiment later. But, the reason this is a post is my kids woke up ravenous.

Superman ate some string cheese, and he came back with "You hungry Mommy? I hungry. You want cookie Mommy?" This was then followed by going to the next person he thought likely to give him a cookie, until he found someone who was hungry enough to get up and give him a cookie and themselves a cookie. His Aunt Tara is a soft touch, and got him at least 3 cookies. Everyone was very impressed with his reasoning skills.

Here's my reasoning of his thought process: I want a cookie. If I get a cookie by myself I'll get in trouble. If an adult gets me a cookie it's okay. I'll ask if they're hungry.

He also has figured out to ask his Dad for things I won't give him. I had some toys I had set aside for our trip this summer, so they'll be new and fun to play with. The problem being Jeff didn't know this, so he said they could play with them. Oh well, they'll still be relatively new if I take them away today and put them away for 2 months.

Conversations at Lunch

Here's how my convesation went Monday at lunch.

Superman: Mommy! That picture has a car in it!
Me: Yes it does.
Superman: Who made the car Mommy?
Me: I don't know who made it?
Superman: God made the car Mommy!

Princess: Mommy! That picture no have car! That picture no have car. It has people!
Now keep repeating this phrase until I acknowledge her

Superman: Mommy! Who made the floor?
Batman: God made the floor.
Superman: I asked Mommy, not you Batman.
Me: Who made the floor?
Superman: God made the floor.

These are all said in complete seriousness, and we had many different variations on this conversation. Who made the table, the chair, the food (each type of food we ate), and so on and so forth. Each time the answer was God made it. So, they have down the concept that God made everything, now I have to get them to understand that, yes God made everything, but sometimes God uses man to make stuff. How to explain that to a preschooler?

I also learned today that God loves us, and that they love God, and the answer to almost every question is God. It's really hilarious. Now, I'm pondering how to present the gospel in ways they can understand. I think a lot of it is above their understanding right now, but it's worth starting to look into.