Our Summer Garden

 We planted a garden this year, a very large garden.  It was our first experience with gardening, so we anticipated that it would be a learning experience more than anything.  And yes, we were right.  We learned a lot!  First of all, we knew we’d have deer since we live right near the woods and see deer all the time.  So our first project was putting up a 4 foot fence of chicken wire.  I did this all by myself, thank you very much!  Nate took care of the tilling with his new power push tiller.  Then, the kids and I got to work planting seeds!  We planted sweet corn, lettuce, spinach, green onions, cantalopes, watermelon, pumpkins, potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, and strawberries.   After we planted, we had a very long and hot heatwave with no rain.  The heat scorched some of our seedlings and unfortunately our spinach, and root plants like potatoes and carrots, never came up.  I think our dirt is still clay-like as well which may have played into the problem with the root plants.  So we started a compost and will work that into our dirt for next summer so our dirt is finer and more workable. 

 The corn came up thriving, which was so exciting for the kids to see.  Every day we’d go out and it would be taller…eventually taller than them and they just couldn’t believe it.  And our green beans too were thriving.  BUT, we had thieves.  We found hoof prints in our dirt, our corn had been broken and trampled on, and the tops of our green been plants had obviously been chomped off.  We couldn’t deny that deer had actually been walking around inside our fence!  So they could hop over 4 feet!?  Wow, we didn’t see that one coming!  Nate’s solution?  An alarm system.  He placed a motion detector on a tall pole in the middle of the garden facing the “tempting plants.” 

 It would catch 180 degrees of any movement for quite a distance.  It started to go off almost every morning around 4 or 5 am when the deer were out.  Sure enough, deer were in our garden.  The first couple times Nate ran out there with a shovel or tool and chased them away in the dark in his jammies.  It was quite a funny sight.  Pretty soon, they slowed down coming and the sound of the siren often scared them away too.  Problem solved!!!  The corn was demolished, but the green beans grew back, thankfully. 

Our tomato plants have been producing more than enough tomatoes.  I have been skinning them, seeding them, and dicing them and freezing them.  I use lots of diced tomatoes in recipes, and since I don’t have a canner, freezing them in the same amount as a can works well.  We also have been snapping green beans and freezing them.  We got one yummy salad out of our lettuce, but our lettuce didn’t thrive through the heat.  Our strawberries are more delicious and flavorful than any strawberries I have ever tasted.  They make the store bought kind taste like paper, flavorless.  

Our next problem came to the pumpkins.  We were introduced to squash bugs.  They are evil things!  They slowly start munching on the leaves of pumpkin vines and lay eggs on the green leaves.  After a while we started to notice that the pumpkin vine leaves were turning brown and wilting.  Turning them over we realize there are hundereds of these tiny squash bugs all over the leaves and vines, destroying them.  Every day more and more of the vine leaves were wilting.  One day we tried to catch as many squash bugs as we could with gloves, scooping them into a big bucket.  Cooper went around squishing and destroying all the little red eggs he could find.  And Jaxton caught a few squash bugs but was too grossed out to keep catching them.  It was an impossible feat to conquer them at this point.  Slowly, all of our pumpkin vines died off.  We saved 1 beautiful pumpkin that would have grown quite large if allowed to do so, but we cut it off the vine before it could die.  It is a good 10 inches tall and maybe 7 inches diameter.  Perfect to carve.  We picked it green and it slowly ripened on our counter and the boys have been asking to carve it!  That will be fun!  Next year we will spray our pumpkin vines with some kind of pest control since we won’t be eating the pumpkins, just carving them.  After the pumpkins were gone, the squash bugs moved on to their second favorite, the cantelopes.  And thirdly, the watermelons.  We may have a few cantelopes and watermelons survive, since there were tons of them out there, but unfortunately, those bugs are taking over our vine plants.  Now we know for next year.  

 We were going out to pull weeds in our garden every afternoon, however, with the heat it was nearly impossible to get the boys to work through their sweat and too tiresome for me.  So we decided to change things up a bit and work before breakfast, just like they did in the old fashioned days.  I told the boys that long ago, kids had to get up super early and go milk cows and take care of the animals.  Well, we would do the same, we’d get up and pull weeds before breakfast.  So that is what we did for the majority of the summertime and in fact, the boys loved it.  They would stay outside longer than needed, play in the dirt, destroy weeds, and examine bugs and plants of all kinds.  It definitely was refreshing to be outside and working hard early in the morning air.  It got the kids working and being involved in the garden and was a great learning experience for them to see things grow from seeds! 

The New Nursery

 We have had a hard time trying to figure out where to put our new baby once he is born.  The boys were set on wanting him in their room, but you can imagine the problems that could cause in the nighttime if he keeps them awake at night.  I feel like I just decorated Kaylee’s room in pinks and browns and had no desire to change it to be a girl boy combo room.  The toy room we use all the time still and it is so large.  I hate to use up such a huge room for a tiny baby.  When we built our house we knew about some attic space above our third garage that connects to the boys’ room.  We wired it for electric and put a large window in it, but closed it off with a wall.  Well, we decided that it was time to finish that space.  The new baby could sleep in there and then he would have his own space, yet still be connected to the boys’ room.  Brilliant!!  So Handy Dandy Nate got to work.  He cut out a door in the back wall of the boys’ room, protecting his eyes with 3D movie glasses the boys found in their dressup box.  The boys’ room got dusty and dirty and filled with power tools and odd construction smells for several weeks, but slowly the attic space got framed, drywalled, mudded, and painted.  Nate painted and put down the flooring and all the trim himself.  What a hard worker!!  There was a large beam that ran down one side of the room.  To maximize the space, we decided to frame in that side with a bench going over the beam.  So the left wall has a 3 foot wide bench all along the wall, which actually makes it a perfect space to put down cushions and double it as a couch or 2 small beds for kids.  That will be great for when we have company.  The room is about 13 feet by 10 feet and the ceiling is short, about 5 ½ feet at the top of the triangle ceiling.  So, after it is used as a nursery, it will be used as a kids man cave, where only kids can fit well!

These are pictures of the beginning of the project.  I have yet to take more finishing photos, but will do so soon!!  Can’t wait to furnish it and put our little bundle of joy in here J.

 A work in progress

 Here is the finished attic space.  Still needs a window shade and some decorations.  Dawson likes his new room!!  

Fun with the Kiddos

Now that Jaxton has started Kindergarten and is gone every single morning, I have lots of time to spend with Cooper and Kaylee.  We have really enjoyed spending time together at home, where Cooper can be the “leader” of play and we have spent lots of time in the toy room building spaceships, superhero jails, and superhero castles with stairs and ziplines.  Yes, we get creative. Cooper has been a great helper with Kaylee and has enjoyed spending time with her too.  We have tried to do fun things to give Cooper a chance to have mom-time that is all his own without being in a shadow of his big brother.  Painting was a lot of fun!  Poor Kaylee really has hardly painted anything in her life.  It was a lot of fun for her to experiment with this new colorful stuff that make her all dirty.  She was very concerned about the stuff on her fingers at first and wanted to “clean up” every time she got a smudge of paint on her fingertips.  Eventually she realized it was ok, and she went into full blown fingerpainting.  That was fun.  Messy, but fun, and worth the mess.  Cooper was very creative in what he chose to paint and how, using his fingertips to make dots, and making multi-colored hand prints.  Fun times!!

In the afternoons while Kaylee is sleeping, we have tried to have some kind of “school” hour.  Jaxton will do his kindergarten homework first thing while Cooper does a page or two from his preschool workbook.  It makes him feel important to have “homework” too.  Then we try to do something fun and interactive.  The boys have asked me questions lately about random things and how they work or what they do.  So instead of going into great detail, I have suggested we go to the library and find books on that topic.  So that’s what we have done for the last couple months.  This particular week they wanted to learn all about electricity.  Well how do you explain that to a 5 year old and a 4 year old?  We picked up electricity books from the library and spent one afternoon reading them all together.  We learned about atoms and electrons and how electrons flow through the wires like a river.  We learned about having a closed circuit or loop in order for the electrons to move.  We also learned about lightening and how if it strikes a lightning stick, then the electrons have somewhere to go, rather than to go everywhere and break up a building.  Its been fascinating for them as well as for me!  One of the books had an experiment in it that we tried.  We took a D size battery and taped on a long piece of foil to one side.  We wrapped the other side of the foil strip around a flashlight bulb and secured it with a clothespin.  In order for the electrons to start moving through the foil we had to make a closed loop, so we placed the flashlight bulb on the end of the foil strip to the other side of the battery….and….waaalaaaaa!  The lightbulb turned on!  It was pretty exciting!!  I love to do fun things with the kiddos and this was a highlight for us!! 

Ward Party in the Park

We had a fun ward picnic party in the park and it was such a great success.  There were so many people from the ward there as well as many investigators others who don’t attend church regularly.  Of course the kids had such a blast running around and playing with all the primary kids.  There are such good primary kids in our ward and bigger kids that my kids just adore!!  One man in our ward is a professional “clown” who does face painting and parties all around Fort Wayne.  So he  brought his expertise to the park and painted all the kids faces, which they loved!!  Kaylee was scared to death of him, thinking she was at the doctors’ office or something.  But when she realized that she was getting “pretties” on her arm, she softened up and kept asking for “mo, mo” (more flowers).  Then, she was proud.  She showed her arm off to everyone around and kept her arm held up to protect the design.  It was awefully cute.  

Cooper took advantage of the slip n’ slide they set up on the hill.  He had no swimsuit, but that didn’t stop him from running as fast as he could and heading head first downhill.  I am so grateful for the examples of the bigger primary children who take my little ones by the hand and play with them so well.  When they were all going to run off to the far side of the park way out of sight, the big boys made sure they came to ask me if Jaxton and Cooper could come along.  It was very responsible and respectful of them to do that and to take care of my kids so well.  I am so grateful for their examples for my kids to look up to.  What a fun day with great people!

Jaxton's First Day of Kindergarten

Jaxton started Kindergarten!  I can hardly believe it!  He has been so excited, ever since we moved into our house 2 years ago to go to Kindergarten across the street at Cedarville Elementary School.  So when the day arrived, it was joyous!! We had been school shopping for clothes and for supplies and new shoes.  He got a haircut, his favorite Transformers backpack, and there was no nagging or persuasion needed to get him up and going on that first day of school!  He is more than ready for Kindergarten.  He has almost finished the Distar reading method book with me and can read full pages by sounding out sounds to make words.  He loves math and loves to add numbers together.  He is to the point now where he says things like “3 tens makes thirty” or “3 threes makes nine.”  So, yes, in essence, he is multiplying!  Smart Kid!  I am excited for him to thrive academically, but also make new friends and have some great experiences in Kindergarten.  His teacher is Mrs. Hensch an older teacher that has taught for many years.  His class has 32 kids in it!! But they are hoping to hire another teacher to bring the class sizes down to 25 or 26.  I love how confident Jaxton is in new situations.  He has never been nervous or scared or cried or anything of the sort in new situations and I’m so glad that he is excited for this big day!