Hard Lessons Jacob Has Learned

Tonight while I was wiping up the steps into the kitchen and waiting for the macaroni to cook:

Jacob: I stir it.
Me: No, don't stir it, it could burn you.
Jacob: (stirs it anyways and burns his hand) OW, it burned me.
Commence much woe.
Me: Did you not believe me? Again?

Instant Grass

As part of the garden effort, Chris's parents decided that we should sod the backyard. They own the house, so it was fine with me! Chris put in a sprinkler system a while ago and we found with weeds for a couple of weeks before finally laying the sod.

Chris started early on a Wednesday morning to get the grass in. I don't think the kids helped him much.

Now you can see the lovely corn! It took Chris all day, minus a break when everyone told him he was doing it wrong, to get it done. We finally finished when the sun went down, thanks to a lot of help from his dad. Getting the ground level was a nightmare.

So now we have to water, water and water some more before we can go play in it! I'm looking forward to having Jacob's party here in September. I want to string up lantern lights and plant tiki torches and just sit outside in my fake Adirondack chair.

Sadly the mosquitoes will just eat me to death and the dogs on the other side of the yard leave stinky little bombs all over so it's not a perfect dream.

How to Survive When We Break the World

Chris and I are giving each other green thumbs this year. We're pretty sure we can survive when the world breaks down and we go back to having to plant and harvest all our food. The above statement contains no truth whatsoever but it does feel good to think we could survive. Never mind that we'd have to walk over a mile to the river for water! Above is the pea and carrot row. Most of my carrots never made it up or were eaten to nothing by an invisible bug so I had to plant peas in the empty space. The onions are on the left and doing so poorly, I have no idea what to do about them! To the right is the lettuce and it's an understatement to say it's doing well. Anyone need some lettuce?

This is the first picking of my cucumber plants. Two days later, I picked at least 4 more and last night Jacob and Chris picked over 10. I made pickles this weekend! Next year, we are planting 2 cucumber and 2 squash to avoid cucumber overload.

This is my tomato/pepper row along with all my potted herbs. We'll see if any of these produce, as I planted them too late and they are much smaller. The first tomato plants are almost taller than I am and they are about to tumble over, despite the baskets!

These photos were taken just before dark and I have an allergy to my flash so excuse the darkness!

You can just barely see the little tassel of silk, which means we are going to have corn by the bushel in a couple of weeks. Because Chris wouldn't let me thin the rows too much! He's really excited about the corn, guys.

Pink!

I forgot to tell you about the baby girl quilt I got to make this month. It seems I've only made things for boys so I was completely thrilled when my friend asked me to make a baby quilt for a girl.

I think I was probably supposed to go a little more subtle on the girliness but I can't help myself. If you tell me I can use pink, there isn't much stopping me. My favorite print is the one that looks like pink peppermints.


Actually, I like them all! The back is a print of purple butterflies on a white background, but I needed to add a little length to it because I needed 1 1/3 of a yard instead of a 1/4. So I sewed the remaining stripes together, cut them down and sewed them together again to make a sweet little surprise on the back of the quilt.

My next project is a pink themed quilt for ME! Well, after I make something for my mom's birthday. Which is only a week away!

Zoo Zoo

We made it to the zoo for our annual Uncle-Niece day. Going on 10 years now! We always go to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, because it's awesome and only about 30 minutes from our house.

CS joined us this time and it's nice to have someone else to lug the 30 pound baby around. We took the stroller but Jacob thinks it's cooler to ride on his daddy's shoulders. Or my back, like a koala. Once I told him that God gave him legs, so he needs to use them. The next day or so, he came up to me and asked me to pull his leg off because he didn't want them. Because then I have to carry you up the steps for more juice? It doesn't work that way, kid.

Unfortunately, these are the ONLY photos I have from the day. A mere five minutes after we got to the zoo, my camera battery died. I can't believe I didn't think to charge it!

But if I only got a few photos, then I'm so pleased that I got them of my absolute favorite part of the zoo. Where else can you feed a herd of giraffes?

Side note: We had the MOST. AMAZING sandwich at the zoo. We usually scorn food at the cafeterias because it is usually high priced fried food. So we never actually went into the food court since they re-designed it. It's awesome. They have all sorts of stations: sandwich, salad, rice bowls, pizza, grilled foods, ice cream. The sandwiches are the size of platters. HUGE! They were amazing. My mom and I split a Turkey Club with Praline Bacon and I did not realize that you could actually make bacon BETTER. Chris got the Roast Beef but he said mine was better. Jacob got chicken strips. He declined to comment on the quality.

Shop Notes

I whipped a few box pouches up a few weeks ago. I gave one to my mom for a cousin and it felt wrong to not have a few on hand!

Luckily, they are simple to make! Once I figured out how, that is. Since I don't have a serger, I added a little bias tape to clean up my exposed edges. Someday, I will have a serger though!

Like August? It's my birthday soon, after all!

Happy Monday! You can find the box pouches here!

Family Time

The last two weeks, my brother and his family have been at my mom's house. They just left his job in Florida and are now on their way to Utah for the next one. It will be nice to have them closer, so they can visit on holidays without dropping a grand on a 4 day trip.

Jacob has been introduced into the world of Cousins: The Younger generation. It did not go so well. Carter doesn't have many friends, if any, his age. He's very laid back, but not quite sure how to play with kids his own size. He very much wanted to wrestle Jacob and that was not cool in Jacob's book. Jacob would also like Carter to not hug him all the time, touch any part of his body, or touch his food.

But then they would have five glorious moments of sharing and hugging and one bout of wrestling. Jacob actually took Carter down and I was beginning to think my husky boy was weaker than a 2 year old.

Spammy Spam

Well.

I was going to be nice and turn the Word Verification notice off my comments so you didn't have to do that one extra step to leave one but not 10 minutes after I did that, I got a spam comment.

On the post about having to put the dog down.

Ya'll are sick and wrong!

Emma Lou

It's terrible to pop in with bad news, but that's all I have to share today.

Our dog, Emma, is 12 now. A month ago, she started being picky about her food so my mom took her to the vet and found out that she has a lump on her heart. There wasn't much to be done, so we expected to only have a couple more months with her.

Unfortunately, in the last 10 days, she has pretty much stopped eating. She used to be a big girl but now she down to just her fur and bones. My mom decided that it would be better for her to take her in and let her go.

It sucks so bad.