Garden Days

This year we seem to have a couple of avid mini-gardeners on our hands so we decided to step up our gardening game a bit from years past in hopes of cultivating a love of growing things. We've got a nice row of lettuce going, and last week we planted beets, beans, tomatoes, squash and pumpkins along with some herbs, sunflowers, and nastursiums. Retta planted my spinach seeds somewhere too, but time will tell where they ended up. She dumped out the bag of seeds while I had my back turned....and she's been digging in the dirt trying to copy what she sees us doing, but the problem is she's digging up our seeds we've already planted. So, it will be a bit of a miracle if anything actually grows in our garden, but we're trying! Now we just have to practice the garden's greatest lesson, patience, while we wait to see what grows.

Preparing the soil

The littlest "helper"...wearing Mommy's hat

Drawing some rainclouds in hopes of a good watering for the garden

Rowan's herb garden...I love that she wrote all the labels for our plants this year--so cute to see her 4-year old writing.

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Retta likes to sneak behind the trellis

Caught in the act

Miss Rumphius has been here

Retta at 7 months

 Yesterday my sweet little Retta turned 7 months old! What a big month this has been for her--she is now sitting up, almost crawling, waving, making the sign for "milk" and saying "Dada!" So much has happened in a month. She has also decided that sleep is not a hobby of hers- last night she was up literally every hour on the hour, but the night before she woke herself up laughing so hard in her sleep, which was one of the most adorable things I've seen. She may be getting the nasty cold that is methodically working it's way through our family, or her first tooth might be finally coming to the surface, but as I manually forced my eyelids open this morning I just kept trying to remember that these sleepless nights won't last forever. So, at 7 months we are tired, but happy!

 

 

Craft Project: Halloween Lanterns

Happy October! We are in full-on fall decorating mode at our house. This weekend we got together with my parents for a fall feast and some crafty time. Before we went to their house I googled "Halloween crafts" and this cute lantern project jumped out at me. Here's the link:

Halloween Votive Lanterns

You'll need the following materials:

• some old jars (baby food, or any size mason jar or recycled jar will do)
• orange and white crepe paper or tissue paper
• black construction paper
• modge podge
• paintbrushes
• scissors
• votive candles

Cut or tear crepe paper into small squares, and use modge podge and a paintbrush to adhere to the outside of your glass jar. Cut out pieces for the face from construction paper and use modge podge to affix to the jar as well. Let dry and place the votive candle inside. Turn out the lights and feel festive! More Halloween crafts and recipes are on their way!