Some things

Leave it to me to all but abandon this blog and then randomly pop in with the world’s most scattered, incoherent brain dump post.

We’ve reached the point where getting Gwennie changed is worse than wrangling a wild zoo animal. So that’s fun.

Hardwoods throughout the entire house + crawling baby = also fun.

Whenever I’m out, be it shopping or at a restaurant, or any public place, really, and I see a baby asleep in a car seat or stroller, I have to stop myself from staring with my jaw on the floor. Honestly, this really happens? My babies do not do this. Ever. Aside from very early infancy, neither of my girls have ever stayed asleep in the car seat. Sure, they’ll sleep in the car but as soon as we stop (even at a red light sometimes) awake. And to even consider falling asleep while riding in the stroller? Impossible. Evalyn did it once, around 10 months old, on the hottest day in the history of the world at the zoo. For 15 minutes. So yes. Babies sleeping in public places. Foreign world to me.

Evalyn has her first ear infection, well, make that double ear infection, of her life. In other words, this was highly warranted today.

We’re almost halfway through the month. How? I have no idea. I had a great old list of things to get done this month and so far that seems to be flying out the window.

As of yesterday, I’m obsessed with spring footwear for my toddler. Toms? Converse? What’ll it be?

Sleep talking is funny. Last week, when Evan came to wake me up to tell me the baby was up (seriously, I think him waking me up instead of my body waking up to the sound of the baby crying totally screws me up). I told him: “Bring the shelf in here. Let me dust it, that’ll help”. Then the next night, he woke me up at 2am and said “I think by tonight we should be ready for the wall prep”. And last night, I stood outside of Eva’s door and listened to her telling her baby a big old story about something. Who knows what.

I am tired.

That’s about all that’s inside my brain today.

surprise! a post about halloween!

So, in case you didn’t know – yesterday was Halloween. Surprise!

I have to admit, I kind of dropped the ball on Halloween. As of last Thursday, my kids didn’t even have costumes. Thankfully, though, Kar came to my rescue and showed up on my doorstep with a bag full of costumes to choose from.

We settled on a Pink Bunny for Eva and a GloWorm for Gwenner. Cute, right?

Last night, we headed down into town to have pizza and wings with the Aunties before setting out for trick or treating. I wasn’t sure how it was going to go down because of the weather forecast, but thankfully there was a nice little window where the rain wasn’t very heavy so we were able to sneak out.

Through the day yesterday, Evalyn and I talked about trick or treating and how it would go. I told her she’d ring the door bells, say trick or treat and then people would put candy into the little bag that she had decorated. To say she was pumped would be an understatement. She was also a little confused. At one point yesterday she said to me, “Is trick or treat will kiss Eeba? Is trick or treat has a beard? And a sleigh? Do Eeba say, ‘cuse me Tirck or treat! Can Eeba has a candy?”

Despite the confusion – she managed to figure the whole thing out. And quite quickly, I might add. As soon as the first person gave  her candy, she said, “Okay, Mom. Yet’s go! Next place!” She asked at almost every place if she could go inside and at one place, she even attempted to take off with the entire bowl of candy. A girl after my own heart. We only went to about twelve houses, but that was more than enough to make this kid more hyper than I have ever, ever, ever seen her.

When we got back she and her Daddy had a riot sorting through all of the candy, picking out what to taste and getting super excited about all the goodies.

She opened the door for a few kids who rang at Auntie’s and then she and Evan headed off to drive around to visit a few other people. She went to see our old landlords, her auntie and uncle and her great grandparents. It made for a late night, but oh so worth it.

This morning when she got up, she sat up to the table for breakfast and I heard her say, “Daddy. Thank you for trick or treat. Thank you for driving to Tim and Shelley. It was pretty fun!”  Seeing the joy that this little activity brought to her life? Way better than any trick or treating memories I have! I forgot just how fun it was.

The View From Here - June 26th

The garden has really progressed since the last time I posted about it nearly two weeks ago. Everything is growing like crazy and it won't be too long before we're eating fresh veggies.

The cherries are a bit late this year. In previous years we have been able to pick a basket to take up north to my family reunion but this year, they just weren't ready. This made me frown (and I'm sure it will make a few of my cousins frown, too). Hopefully they will be ready when we get back.

Here are a few pictures of the garden (please note: I went outside to take the dog for a walk and planned to take photos on the way back. It began to spit as soon as I got outside so I decided to take the photos first. By the time I walked behind the barn to the garden, it was pouring. I still took the photos. As a result, please excuse the increasingly poor quality as the photos progress. It was a snap and go session).

The peas are beginning to make their way up the lattice. They are a bit late so hopefully we'll still be able to get some fresh peas despite this crazy heat.

The potatoes came up very quickly and started growing like crazy. Have you ever seen potatoes grown in old tractor tires? We decided to give it a try this year, so hopefully it turns out okay. You can read about the tire planting process here.

The tomatoes are coming along really nicely as well. Many of the plants are starting to show some buds. Because of the rain I couldn't get in close enough to show you.

The peppers are looking much the same as they did two weeks ago, just taller. More buds are showing up each day and all 18 plants look very healthy.

Here you can see more pepper plants as well as the Okra plants. The Okra are the four plants closest to the bottom of the photo. They were looking a little shabby last week but after some nice rain and high heat, they appear to be rallying up.
The turnip have gone crazy over the past two weeks. It seems everyday I can notice a change. Soon we will thin them out and attempt to transplant a few of them further down the row where the onions were supposed to be, but never came up.
The beans are getting pretty tall and since the last post, many more plants have appeared. We planted four rows and at one point it seemed as though only the far side of the rows came up. We weren't sure if we planted them too deep or what. So, we added a few more yellow bean plants and now the rows have filled in. We even had to pull a few plants out that were too close together.

Here are the beginnings of our carrots. We only have two carrot bunches, thanks to my expert weeding skills. The weeds were very heavy in this area and I got so carried away with ripping them out that I accidentally ripped an entire bunch of carrots out. Oops! At least carrots aren't my favourite veggie.

Beets. Soon they will be tall enough that I can pick the tops and boil or sautee them like spinach. Also, on the very edge of the photo you can see where the lettuce is coming. We have two bunches and they should be ready for picking within the next week or two. I am so excited to have our first "fully homegrown meal" of the summer!

Top to bottom: Squash, cucumber (very tiny in between the first and second mound), summer squash, zucchini. These plants are also going like crazy. I can't believe how much they seem to grow in one or two days. On each plant, we can see between 10-15 squash/zucs/cucs starting.

Here is the evidence of our first zucchini plant coming along. The cucumber plants also have a number of flowers blossoming, but with the rain I didn't take the time to get close up photos of them.

A view of the entire garden.

We're off today to my family reunion in Northern Ontario so I will be absent from blogland until Wednesday or Thursday. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and I'll see you when I get back.

Garage Sale Fun

Head over to Homebody Holly's to see what others thrifty deals have been found this week.

As I mentioned in my weekend recap post, I did a bit of garage saleing on Saturday morning. I went with a whole slew of my in-laws, I think there were more than 15 of us at one point.

The morning started off pretty well. SIL #1 was got a bag of gender-neutral infant clothes for $5 for the baby that is on the way. The clothes were all in great shape and some looked like they had never even been worn.

At the second sale we went to, I picked up these Brandy glasses, which I will use for desserts and parfaits and a microwave popcorn maker that I had been contemplating purchasing at Walmart for quite some time. My total here was $5. Not the greatest deal but still good considering I would have paid $15 for the popcorn maker alone at Walmart.

We stopped at a few other sales, some were okay, so not so much. But then, we saw a sign pointing down to an area on the water where lots of people have cottages. We followed the sign and drove, and drove, and drove, and drove. We began to wonder if they were trying to lure us into some sort of trap.

Eventually, we made our way to the sale that was located at a little cottage on the water. When we got out of our car, we saw boxes and boxes covering the ground all around the cottage. My first impression was that this garage sale was not very organized. Well, organized or not, it was a sweet sale. We discovered that the previous owner of the cottage had passed away and so they were selling many of her things (I am not sure if the seller's were her children/family or the new owners of the cottage). Apparently, the previous owner was a bit of a shop-a-holic, as was evidenced by the possessions. Most boxes were filled with unopened and unused items. AND, they were practically GIVING this stuff away. Most boxes were labeled 10 cents each, but some things didn't even have a price. What we discovered was that we could pretty much fill our arms, bags, boxes, what have you, and they would either say $2 or $3. Here's what I scored at this garage sale....

Two country fair drinking jars (I collect Roosters)

Two old lanterns. My plan here is to clean them up and possibly spray paint them. I have an idea for a decorating scheme I want to incorporate into our home and these will fit perfectly.Christmas Loot. If you can't tell all of this is unopened. There is a cookie recipe book, a package of cookie cutters, two packages of candy cups, a package of Christmas cards, Snowman element covers, Jell-o mould, self-adhesive decorations (perfect for cards, scrapbooking and adding an extra something to gift tags), and a Penguin decoration.

8 mini storage containers (unopened). These are the perfect size for granola, trail mix and even craft supplies such as beads, brads and other embellishments

A Tupperware patty press. This might have been my most exciting find of the day. Last week when I was making my Greek feta burgers, I was wishing for one of these. My mom had one when I was growing up and it is really quite handy when making homemade burgers. It makes them the right shape and size and even comes with storage containers to keep them in. When the FD's uncle found this and asked if anyone wanted it, I leaped at him like a rapid squirrel and got it before anyone else could. Trust me, we were vicious at this sale. FD's 5 year old cousin was diving into all the boxes, holding up items and yelling, "Mom, do you need this?" Classic....Lastly, I got these bread baking supplies. First up, a set of 5 disposable mini loaf pans, perfect for gifts. Those mini pans are sitting inside a regular sized loaf pan, that is clearly brand new. And the best deal of the day - two sets of miniature locking loaf pans. Each of these pans have 4 little loaf pans and they are all connected for easy storage (should I be on infomercials or what?). Both of these are brand new and still had the price tags on them. 16.99 each!

And I got all this for a total of ..... wait for it ....

$2.25!!

So, my grand total for the day was 7.25. I'd say it was a pretty good haul, especially considering those linked loaf pans which are worth more than $30 alone! If I had kids, my haul would have been even better because there were a couple really great sales selling tons of baby clothes, blankets and other items as well as toys and books. But, I guess you have to stop somewhere, right?