Adventure in urban gardening

 Guest blogger Brian Thomas :-)

March 18:  Experiments in Lakeside Suburban Farming phase 1: The Indoor starts.
Basil, purple basil, thyme, oregano, spearmint, rosemary, chives, various colored sweet peppers and various tomatoes varieties (cherry, yellow pear, plum, Roma, pink, orange and red).  Also started lavender and foxglove.  I predict rainbow salsa and spaghetti sauce in our future. More starts to come in the next few weeks :)

March 23:  Experiments in Suburban Lakeside Farming: phase 1.5; More indoor seeds planted.  Started several gifts seeds from Chef Brian (my boss) and have added the following heirloom tomotoes:  Cherokee purple, brandywine true black, black cherry and JL Blue.  We also got lemon cucumbers and jingle bell peppers (tiny sweet peppers) from Chef.  I also took the opportunity to start other seeds:  regular cucumbers, sugar baby watermeleons, lemon drop melons, cinnamon basil, lemon basil, and a bunch of marigolds. That makes 11 different tomatoes planted...

April 11:  The Suburban Lakeside Farming Experiment Phase 2:  Over the course of the last week Tamlin, Jude, and I have constructed 5 raised garden beds (8' by 8'), 2 rain collection barrels (32 gallon trash cans with a hose spigot mounted at the bottom, over flow holes near the top, leaf screening, and a drain pipe hole), a 32 gallon compost bin and 3 20gallon potato growing bins.  We've already got some fingering potatos from the store sprouting and I have "All blue" and "Purple Majesty" seedling potatos from Burpee's we're going to try out.  Now to find roughly 350 cubic feet of topsoil/compost...

The Suburban Lakeside Farming Experiment:  Phase 3:  The Planting (cue twilight zone music).  In the last 3 days me (mostly), Tamlin, and Jude and the neighbor boy Liam have planted a ton of seedlings including:  10 sweet basil, 10 purple basil, 6 lemon basil, 6 cinnamon basil, 6 spearmint, 10 thyme, 1 lemon thyme (donated), 10 oregano, 6 rosemary, 5 chive patches (donated and saved from lawn), 5 lavender and 3 sage.  Yay legal herbs :)  also planted sunflowers, cone flowers, gallardia, phlox and sedum. Vegetables to be planted soon...

May 15:  The Lakeside Suburban Farming Experiment continues:  more planting this week including 40 tomato plants (13 different varieties of mostly heirlooms), 12 peppers (bell peppers of various different colors and sizes), 3 cucumbers, 2 watermelons, 70 marigolds (take that rabbits and my allergy prone family), Asian lillies, day lillies, and 120 onion starts (red, white, and yellow).  Almost done :-)

May 20:  How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?  I just saw one pick up a twig, gnaw it for a second, and then throw it down.  The answer is 1.

May 23:  The Lakeside Suburban Farming Experiment "The Planting" has come to an end over the last 2 days as Summer and the boys helped with 2 packets of carrots, 2 packets of radishes, 3 blueberry bushes, 3 more cucumbers, 2 more watermelons, 2 pumpkins, 3 spaghetti squash, 4 yellow squash, 4 zucchini, 12 green bush beans, 10 Italian rose beans, 6 snap peas and a bunch of flowers.  That is of course in addition to the 40 tomatoes, 3 potatos varietiees, dozen peppers, 100+ onions, 3 cucumbers, 2 watermelons, 100+ flowers and roughly 80 herb seedlings from the previous weeks.  Yes, we are possibly insane.  Let "The Watering" begin (recue twilight zone music).

Our flower gardens in the front of the house.  Mostly donated plants from the moms and some rescued from Michigan.

 Playset partially converted to hold inverted tomato plants. Brian removed a glider swing that the boys didn't use to make room for the buckets.  Some peppers and onions planted in the top with the tomatoes hanging down below.

Potato tubs...colorful ad practical.  As the plants grow, we add soil underneath.

If I get real ambitious, I'll get photos of each bed to show our baby plants :-)

Spring Walk at Mill Hollow

A couple of weeks ago we went for a nice hike in the woods.  And by "hike", I mean a stroll along a smooth path whose length was under one mile.  We have been to this park before, but had never actually taken one of the designated paths.  It was sunny and warm and the boys were freshly awake from their naps.  I was just itching to get out in the local nature and see what spring flowers were blooming.  Mill Hollow's woods did not let me down!   Our little path took us through a wooded area that flitted about with a wetter / boggy area.  There were lots of maples, hickories, a few ashes, sycamores, oaks...and lots of ferns :-) 

The boys held up well.  Tamlin climb on and over every rock or fallen log that we came across.  It was fun to point out cool things that we saw together...mushrooms, spiders in their webs, smelly flowers, even a little garter snake.  Jude started well, but got a bit more ornery toward the end.  He has worn his croc shoes and often got little rocks in them (note to self...no crocs next time).  He got tired and wanted carried...and then wanted down to chase Tamlin...and then wanted up because he was tired (repeat).  But there were still many smiles and ice cream afterwards.

Yes...we are a hat family.

Frozen Dress

 We borrowed and watched Disney's Frozen movie this past week.  It was... cute.  Not my cup of tea because there was way too much singing.
But my neice loves it.... so a dress had to be made inspired by one the lead characters.

It was to be a dress up dress...so easy on/off and doesn't need to be lined.  And it had to have a cape.
And be sparkly.   This was key.
I used a peasant dress pattern from Simplicity 2377, which is an easy pattern, and I've used it before.
I had most of the fabric in my stash (I think I was going to do a Cinderella dress at some point).  I just had to pick up the sheer cape material.  Here's Tam modeling the nearly finished project.  I used a new old technique of torching the edge of the cape to finish it, instead of sewing a rolled hem or using the serger.  Easy and it gives a clean, wavy, finish.   I still have to put elastic in the cuff of the sleeves and finish the hem.  I may take in the waist...still considering...it was based on the 6x size of the pattern and may be a bit big.

Not exactly the same...but I didn't want to try form/fitting top without a pattern :-)
And it twirls well.

Birthday Boy

Happy Birthday, Jude!
On May 17, 2011, our little Jude was born...and now he is three years old!  He has grown so much in this last year.
 Latest accomplishments:
* Talking up a storm and always expressing his opinions
* Potty trained...mostly...and wearing big boy underwear
* Putting shoes on and off, at least his favorite Crocs
* Brushes teeth by himself
* Sings his ABCs, and can carry a tune :-)
* Sings "We will Rock You" and "Jingle Bells"
* Counts to 12, but skips a bit: 1, 2, 3, 4 ,5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12.
* Favorite # is 10..."1 and 0 make Ten!"
* Recognizes his shapes and colors.
* Favorite shape is the star
* Recognizes many letters, tries to read like big brother
* Knows his name starts with the letter "J"
* Very into art and craft projects at school. Likes to color with markers.  Drawings are mostly circles still.
* Still takes and afternoon nap, but some nights has a bugger of a time going to sleep in bed.
* Finished his first kiddy ice cream cone all by himself, and most of it got into his belly and not on his face.
* Knows his body parts.
* Great at running, kicking balls, and throwing overhand.  Loves to swing at playgrounds.
* Likes to pretend to be a puppy dog, especially when playing with grandparents' greyhound Kirby.
* Favorites are tiny cars and tiny airplanes, helicopters, geotrax trains and thomas trains, loves to cuddle and sit in laps, reading books, legos, and playing with friends.
* Gets frustrated easily when he can't do something or something isn't going his way.

Favorite phrases of late: 
"Don't know"
"Please help me"
"Play on kindle?"
"One and Zero make Ten"
"That's my car, and Tam's car, and mommy's car, and daddy's car" (As he points to 4 different cars, or trucks, or plants, or whatever vaugley resemebles a family).
"No!"
"I go potty"
"That makes me happy"
"You make me sad" (when he gets into trouble and is scolded).
"I do it"

We celebrated over a couple of weekends, which included a big party with neighbors, friends, and family and a smaller party with Brian's folks.  I made this Number Three shirts for the little guy the night before the party...he choose the yellow color and that there should be 3 stars.

We decorated the downstairs with balloons and streamers.  I know the boys love playing with balloons :-)

There was cake.  I freely admit I like to NOT have to make the cake.  Giant Eagle came through with an awesome Thomas the Tank Engine Cake. Jude thought it was Awesome!  After blowing out his candles, he immediately made to dive into the cake with both hands outstretched.  No, Jude!  Let us cut out pieces for everyone first.  Besides cake, Brian also made a big pot of chili, and lots of chips/dip/and veggies for everyone to eat.

There were presents...and all the kids wanted to help Jude open them.

Jude loved opening the wrapping paper...but wanted to play with each gift right away.

The grown ups had a good time mingling around and talking.  Our neighbors brought their new little baby for all of us to coo over.  It was good to see some of our friends from college again, which is one of the new luxuries of living closer to the Cleveland area.  The pack of kids had fun playing good guys / bad guys together...Ciearra was quite unnumbered by the boys, so she played princess dress up mostly by herself.  Jude had fun playing with all the older kids and being included in their games.

One of our great gifts to Jude (and Tamlin) was an imaginext castle.  I had been looking for this at consignment shops for over two years since it is not manufactured anymore.   I totally lucked out last winter and found it, with a whole bag full of knight dudes.  It has lights and sounds and trap doors and lots of other really cool functions.


And the dragon swivels around and CHOMPS DOWN ON THE KNIGHTS! 
How wicked cool is this!

 Jude was a little afraid that the dragon would chomp him at first.

It was a great party and everyone left with smiles and full bellies.   And, I'm pretty sure that his most favorite thing from the day was the Thomas Tank Engine and Coach that came on his cake, which he can now play with around the house.

Spring day at the beach

 It was a wonderfully warm afternoon, so we walked and rode down to the beach.  Jude has mastered the little blue car and loves gaining speed so he can cruise.  Tamlin's mode of transportation choice varies from day to day.  Lately, he's been on his big-wheels.  It is good to see him pedaling fast and spinning through curves.

 Jude decided that his socks and shoes needed to come off as soon as we stepped foot on the sand.

 Tam went down to investigate how cold the water was... realized it was still freezing cold... and opted to keep his shoes on and not try wading out to his rock.

 Rocks were the theme of the visit.  Jude picked up all the larger rocks he could and chucked them into the waves... or at least tried to with his little throwing arm.  He would yell "I did it"  each time one of the hurled stones actually made a splash in the water.

 Tamlin opted to play with the large rocks.  He found a friend and played "King of the Mountain."  This eventually led to jumping off the rocks pretending to be superheroes.

We found some sea glass, a few shells, and lots of pretty stones to bring home with us.  I enjoyed hearing the waves crash against the break wall and the beach.  I missed that sound while the lake was frozen through the wintertime.  Looking forward to when it is warm enough to swim :-)

Easter... A bit late

 It was wonderful to spend Easter morning at home and then see family for Easter dinner.  I think it has been a bazillion years since we were able to do this :-)  The boys loved finding their eggs that were guarded by creepy spiders and bugs. Jude loved eating all the chocolate.