More Gardening

This afternoon, Peeper and I did some more garden prep work. I put together another 2x2  bed, moved the spinach out into the sun, and built and planted a tater tower.

I think I should go ahead and get the onions in the ground (I'm leaning toward the middle four squares of the big bed, so they will have plenty of shade later in the season, when you're supposed to knock down and cover up the leaves, so that the put all their umph into the bulb. Just learned that. Will actually do it this year.) and then we'll wait a few weeks before planting everything else.

We've more than doubled our garden space since last year. We're going to have to keep up with this whole "fruit and veggie eat a rainbow" thing, because we're going to be overrun!

The main bed. This is all we had last year. I'm thinking onions, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, pumpkin and maybe eggplant and zucchini.

Spinach. Looking kind of sad. I don't know if the problem is lack of sun (it was closer to the house, in the shade) or cold (we got pretty nippy for a couple of nights) or too much water (Shrike punched some drainage holes in this yesterday, before that they were swimming from the rain) or what. I hope they get over it though.

The same spinach, plus a smaller container with more spinach.

The tater tower. It's about 1/2 to 2/3 full of compost with three layers of potatoes around the sides (fifteen taters total). We are told that the plants will sprout out the holes. We will see.

The deeper bed is carrots, and the shallower one will probably be watermelon and cantaloupe, because there's lots of room around the bed for them to spread out.

The whole set up. Well, almost. There are also two containers on the patio - strawberries and mint.

Get Gardening

We did some work on the garden this evening, putting together Peeper's 2x2 raised bed, and planting her carrot seeds in it (that's why it's double-deep), and adding some peat moss to the big bed, then wetting everything down. Of course, Peeper helped.

Oh! The carrot seeds! Check this out:

I really, really, really hope they produce.

Look Moms, No Cavities!

Peeper got a great report from the dentist today. Her teeth are "healthy and strong" (as we say around here) with no cavities and she was a model patient. As she has done before, as soon as we were in the chair, she opened wide and sat there, mouth agape, before the hygienist (and later, the dentist) was even ready to begin!

Although we were at a different location (Same dentist, new practice; I stalked her on Facebook and found where she'd moved!) we still found a restaurant for our traditional post-dental-exam Mexican food lunch. As soon as we sat down, Peeper unrolled her silverware (as usual) and gave Mommy her knife (as usual). Then she plopped the napkin on her head and said, "I'm Little Red Riding Hood!"

Not Happy

This is for everyone who comments (on the blog or Facebook) about how Peeper is "always so happy."

She is a pretty easy going kid, but I wouldn't say it's so much that she's "always happy" as it is that I don't usually take photos of when she's not happy.

I believe this was about turning off the videos and going to bed. At 11 pm.

Sampler

Peeper-Sized Ice Mocha

Bunny Work

At one point, while the camera was not running, unfortunately, BigGaloot came in the room, and Peeper said, "Do you want to meet my work friend? This (gestures toward him) is my work friend, Galoot."

Make a video - it's fun, easy and free!
www.onetruemedia.com

Celery Stamping

Yes, celery stamping.

I was cutting up a celery this afternoon, to take part in a veggie tray that I will be serving to some of the MOMS tomorrow, when I remembered something nifty that I'd seen on Pinterest.

It seems that if you cut off the bottom of a stalk of celery - as you do -

 the cut edge is very flower-like. Roseate, in fact.

I showed it to Peeper, and even she recognized the flower. She'd already been painting and I'd promised that we would do that right before bath time (for obvious reasons), so I suggested that we use the celery to paint flowers. She loved the idea.

Here's the picture that I made. Does that look at all like a big, red bird flying by, in the upper left corner? Peeper slapped a big 'ol handprint on it when I was almost done, so I tried to salvage it with a couple of fingerprints of my own (the head and beak). Did it work?

Peeper wasn't really feeling the landscape thing, so she decided to go a little more abstract with hers.

Dot a Rainbow

This afternoon, Peeper stumbled across one of the bingo dauber that Santa brought her last Christmas, thinking that they would be a great, cheap substitute for dot markers. Santa was sadly mistaken, because it turns out that bingo daubers are neither non-toxic nor washable, so, Mama went to Staples and bought some real dot markers.

Peeper was insistent that "It is okay to use that one, because Mommy gave it to me!"

That may or may not be the case, but Mama wasn't letting her have that one.

Instead, I spent about ten minutes trying to figure out where I'd stashed the good ones, but I did finally find them, and she had a good old time with them.

Since there was a rainbow-colored set of six, I thought I'd print out some coloring pages from Today I Ate a Rainbow, and she loved those.

Of course she loved them, she loves anything that has to do with that site, eating a rainbow, or Hannah, the Rainbow Girl.

(I believe there was a discussion this morning about "Does Hannah brush her teeth?" "Yes, Peeper, I'm sure that she does.")

She also wanted to use her scissors to "cut out" the fruits and veggies. So far, she's very good at making fringe, but that's about it.

Sloths Sleep Snugly

Peeper calls her toothbrushes "sloths." That makes sense, right?

Okay, there is a bit of backstory to that.

One evening, right before toothbrushing time, Shrike showed her this video of an adorable baby sloth:

So, when it was time to brush, she started talking to the toothbrush, and calling it "Sloth." And it stuck.

Well, actually, that night, and for a while, she called it "Moss" and I had to figure out what she was talking about and correct her. But now, it's "Sloth."

Peeper is Baby Bear, the toothbrush is "Sloth" and it looks around in her mouth, finding leftover things to eat.

Of course.

Well, this morning, I was doing my business and only about half paying attention to her at the sink, when I realized that she was singing some sort of song about the toothpaste being sleepy, and joining the sloths (There are actually two of them, they take turns looking for food in her mouth.) in their bed.

And then she told me to take a picture of them. So, of course, I did.

Don't they look comfy and

Bluebonnetting

Now that I've actually had time to send the photos from my phone (my camera is kaput, I'm debating about another) and process them, here are some more photos from our visit with BabyBro and HisLovelyFamily and our pilgrimage to the bluebonnets.

The flowers themselves were pretty sparse in the field that we visited, but we did get some good photos of the kids. Anonydaddy should be sending me a CD of the ones he took soon, and I'll have more to share then.

In the meantime, here are some of the better ones that I took.

DaNiece enjoy an apple with her lunch

DaNephew - "How you doin?"

Grandma and Peeper (with silly hair)

Bluebonnets!

This one is my favorite of Peeper

 This is my favorite of the twins.

So much for a "cousin hug" photo of the three of them.

I took a lot of photos like this - Peeper's backside, from a distance, getting farther away.

I think my dad got some good photos of them on the tree roots. Mostly, they wanted to climb the tree.

Telling Grandpa "big bye-bye" before they headed home

Telling Grandma "big bye-bye"

Morning hugs for Uncle BabyBro