2014 Garden Update: First Seedlings

Happy Birthday Cap: 11 months and counting

2014 Summer Outings: Albany Tulip Festival

Happy Birthday! Cap at 10 months

Garden 2014: Fencing 101

I know, I know, absentee bloggers aren't really the right way to work a blog but I was so stressed with having to accomplish a post all of the time that I had to cut somewhere and this was first! Honestly, I figured that if I was stressing about blog posts then it just wasn't worth it, I want this to be a stress-free zone, a place for me to unload (or upload) my life, a way to detox and let some out without overburdening Hubby and freaking out the neighbors! So, no promises that I have returned indefinitely, but I am hoping to restart (again) and stick to it. 

My biggest issue is that I feel like I need a schedule, so I make one post a week, which seems too little so then it becomes three posts a week, which also seems cheap but I can't keep up with five posts a week either. So let's settle on a number here, my obsessive nature demands it. I will post twice weekly, I can manage that through the summer, while the kids are home. In the fall, I might change that, but for now, I can commit to some Momma time spent here. On to what I actually came here to chat about!

I have epic plans for a brand new garden this year. Plans that may or may not actually come to fruition, considering that we had snow not so long ago and this Northeast weather has decided to skip between winter and summer, pretty much skipping spring! We have just now got around to putting in the posts, Hubby says that we have to have all the plants in by May 15 in our zone. We shall see if that happens. We needed a pretty fair sized fence since we live surrounded by woods and we have three dogs. We found a great deal on pressure-treated posts, which, looking now, may be a bit overkill but I suppose, that it is better to be safe than sorry. 

Hubbs had a day off and our two older kids were spending a weekend with their mom, so we had relatively unhindered time to get half of the posts in. Cap fell asleep and took a nap with his grandpa while we dug so that was helpful too. 

This adorable helper had me in teary smiles with how cute he was. Not very helpful but who can say no to sunshine and smiles

Digging went a bit slower since a few of the spots had rocks the size of my hand in them. 

My brother even came out at one point to help me dig one post hole while Cap tested his leg strength

Cap desperately needed to climb into the holes that I made and then use the trowel to pull the dirt back into the hole, just in case it was an accident that it was in a pile next to the hole. 

I am so happy and grateful that I have this beautiful child to help me enjoy the sunshine

Happy Spring Everyone!!!

Bookstore Score

I know that I have gloated about our wonderful secondhand bookstore, but it really is amazing. If you live in the Middletown, NY area. Go there, it is cute, tiny and perfect! I love being able to walk in with pocket change and be able to walk out with entertainment for us and the kids. While this trip was not the bank breaking excursion that we have made before, when we ended up with more than $20 worth of books and not enough bookshelves at home, I was happy with this collection. 

These two were random pick ups that I figured would be read because there was nothing else closer to read but at least one of them has ended up on Grif's bed almost every night. So I guess they aren't too bad. I am also trying to start my collection in preparation for homeschooling. I am hoping that the US does not change too much in the next five - ten years, or the human body for that matter. I am hopeful on that front. (internal scream about planning homeschooling already!)

 

These were other random choices, I can barely turn away from old, hardbound books. If it is before 1950, I pretty much have to say yes, especially at a dollar a piece, I have even found a couple that were pre-1900. The Blue Fairy Book is one that I have on my Kindle (free downloads!) but I wanted a hard copy to be able to read to the kids at some point. They are just a collection of fairy tales, some familiar, some a little odd. The Forgotten Realms book was one that was a pure luck find. I had finished one of RA Salvatore's other books (remember that I am trying to finish the whole collection!) and there was an excerpt in the back for this book called Daughter of the Drow. I did not have this one so I figured that I would keep it in the back of my mind and try to find it. Lo and behold, not a week later we found it on the bottom shelf at the bookstore and I was thrilled.

I am dreading when we move and I have to find another bookstore with such great finds and such great prices. I also need to get my library card for our Thrall Library updated so that we can use that as a rainy day playdate. The library also offers movies, knitting lessons, games on the Wii and lots of other fun things that I really need to get more involved in! 

Happy (belated) New Year: Chinese Year of the Horse

Happy Chinese New Year!!!  I know that I am about two weeks late, but between weather and the fickleness of planning with three kids, we only just got around to actually celebrating the Chinese New Year. Since we only have the two older kids on the weekends (the pros and cons of a blended family!) I try and plan at least one big sit-down meal and some sort of crafty activity to do with them. 

Two weeks ago, we celebrated Chinese New Year, which was at that point a week after the fact but it was awesome. I created a Pinterest board to collect ideas for Chinese food, crafts and decorations that I ended up almost completely ignoring. We are lucky enough to have a relatively diverse neighborhood so we do have a Chinese supermarket in town, so Hubby and I went there to try and find some decorations and food. Oddly enough, they had no little Red envelopes so I was disappointed. We picked up scallion pancakes, chicken dumplings, sweetnsour sauce, soy sauce, almond cookies, jelly candies, wasabi peas, red bean pastries, coconut flavoured cookies, Panda cookies, and some other random bits. I also had meatballs and chicken in the freezer that I ended up using. Weirdly, the meatballs were Italian seasoned which I did not account for when cooking them, but they turned out okay. 

Through Pinterest, I found great instructions for making paper fortune cookies. I was under the impression that no one in our family really liked the taste of fortune cookies, I was mistaken. Note for future parties, fortune cookies are an okay choice.

While Hubby was at work, the kids and I decorated a bit and then I tried to help them through making the fortune cookies. This was one of those stressful momma activities that I did not forecast. I tested out a few to make sure that I knew how to make them, I laid out all the supplies so that we all had our own circle template, glue sticks, pencils and scissors. I thought that this would limit the fights. I was incorrect. We were about two minutes into the project when the baby woke up from his nap so I had to go and get him. In the time that it took me to walk from the kitchen table to the bedroom and back, the two older kids got in a fight over gold shiny paper and ripped one of my scrapbooking templates. This did not set the mood well for me, I took the paper away all together, I still don't know if that was the best option but sometimes I need to wipe the slate and start over. 

The instructions were easy to follow, but our ten year old does not have much patience and when things do not work out immediately, a meltdown is imminent and our eight year old would much rather just do whatever grabs her goat before listening to any instructions. So while I was positive that this craft was in their ballpark, I was a little wrong. It may very well be a child dependent craft so heads up!

This was my template, I was able to get four cookies out of one sheet of 12 x 12 scrapbooking paper. I missed mentioning that to the kids and then just traced their circle into the middle of the paper, thus getting one cookie per sheet. Next time, I may just make them all and have the kids write the fortunes. That was hands down the best part of the entire project. We all wrote our own fortunes, some funny, some mean, some good, some random. Since Hubby wasn't here while we made them, we made him guess who wrote them after we read them outloud.

Reading them outloud and laughing about them all made up for the stress of making them. It was really fun while we were eating to giggle over Hubby guessing incorrectly. The tutorial I found here at Duitang, which is in Chinese but Google will translate if you need but the pictures were plenty to walk me through it. 

I wanted to do other crafts, but sometimes I run into a wall whether the kids are too old or two young for some things. So instead we just ate and laughed about some of the food that was not quite to out palate. Overall, it was successful, we ate tons of food and dinner lasted an hour with us just talking and trying lots of food. Happy Year of the Horse everyone! 

St Valentine's Day family celebration: Thank you Pinterest!

Happy Late Valentine's Day everyone! Cap is learning to crawl so my ability to sit and update the blog or my Etsy store is rather limited. The store comes first, well, after sweeping, laundry, sleep and food! He has really picked up on it so quickly, within a week he now will follow me around the living room while I clean or work at my craft table. There are days when I am so tired but the majority of the time I am so in love with all three of the kids that I cannot wait to be pregnant again and start the whole process over! 

Valentine's day is a little different with three kids, Hubby had to work through until the afternoon and then we picked up the older kids from their mom's house, so we had to plan a family friendly, love filled evening instead of a romantic night out for just the two of us. 

Friday morning brought the citizens of the Hudson Valley almost a foot of snow and since Hubby had to be to work at 5am, we were up early to shovel so he could even get out of the driveway. After finishing up, he went to leave and I went to the window to make sure that he was able to get out of the driveway okay when I saw him sneaking in with this wonderful bunch of flowers! I am not the biggest fan of cut flowers, it seems an odd tradition to me, but since I don't get them often, the once or twice a year that he buckles and buys some are even more special. I do love fresh flowers in the house, it makes everything seem pretty and I love having the reminder of him sitting in the middle of the kitchen table all day. 

Originally, we had planned on making cupcakes with the kids but I wasn't sure how late they would end up getting home with the snow so I made them in the morning. I caught a look at a cupcake recipe on Pinterest where she put strawberries inside of the cupcake. I can't find the original blog that I found it on but here is another. The one that I was reading, the woman had cooked the cupcakes completely, then dug out the middle to put in the strawberries. I am impatient and with an infant on the hip, I need minimal time from start to finish for a project, so I just stuck the strawberry in the batter while it was cooking. I made six without strawberries and the rest with, which went over really well with the family. Sprinkles and some fresh strawberries topped them off beautifully (the leftover raw strawberries were finished well before the cupcakes, we love our fresh fruits here). 

yummy red velvet, strawberry, vanilla cupcakes!

I again stalked Pinterest to find quick Valentine's cards for the kids. Our Minecraft obsessed boy, Griffin got a Creeper themed card, while little miss Eve got a fox themed one. I found them here  and here. Mine are not nearly as fancy, but I had to work with the things I had and in a limited time frame. They both liked them, although I was told that my Creeper was not perfectly drawn. I'll get 'em next time! The fox was a wooden decoration that I had bought on clearance from Michael's more than six months ago and finally got to use!

      This was Hubby's Valentine's collection. The superhero poster in the background was one of his old shirts that he had worn so much that the collar was fraying unattractively. Since I hinted that he shouldn't really wear it out of the house, I figured that I would use it to decorate the house instead. Using a canvas from Michaels, again on clearance, I stapled the shirt onto the canvas frame and cut away the rest of the t-shirt. He liked it and I think it will look great in our bedroom (next to our Captain America and Doctor Who posters).
I have Pinterest (I might be addicted) to thank for the card and the bacon roses. I found the bacon roses here, although I did not follow the instructions perfectly. I refuse to drill holes in my cupcake pan, for one. I use that thing for everything! All I did was to roll the bacon, stab it through with a toothpick, then broil it for about half an hour. I let them sit until they were cool, them finangled them onto the skewer sticks that I had laying about. Those directions also called for using the stems from a bouquet of fake flowers, which I did not have on hand, so skewers with paper leaves in my TARDIS coffee mug worked beautifully. The card came from Pinterest too, but I can't find the link, I believe it was through Etsy's Pinterset board, but I am not sure, sorry!

In addition to my wonderful flowers (and a box of chocolate that is almost gone already!) Hubby and both of the older kids picked out cards for me, which were adorable. Eve's was the kitten, Grif picked out one that had Love you written out in stitches and Hubby picked out the diamond one (I told him that it made me feel like Beyonce, cause ya know, bling). He also gave me a cute little moon necklace, the package said "I love you to the moon and back" and an amber resin necklace that I have been eyeing since before Cap was born! We will see if we like it or not, if nothing else, it is pretty and the baby likes to hold onto it while nursing, so it's a win for me! It was a perfect Valentine's day. I love just spending time with the family with nothing too pressing or stressful going on.

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone and a huge thank you to my wonderful Hubby for being the best and making me laugh and love every single day!!!

A Good Momma day

My month of limited internet turned out well and outside of my deep-seeded addiction to Pinterest, most of the internet holds little to amuse me anymore. So as far as Resolutions go, this one was successful, I didn't stick to every day with no internet, but for the most part I was pretty disconnected. It did help that two weeks ago I cracked my screen, then a week ago we went to pick up the replacement and by the time we got home, realized that it was a demo phone (which supposedly, is illegal for them to sell?) but it took a week for us to get back to put in a request for a new phone. So another week with a phone that interrupts texts with a video telling me how awesome Slacker radio is. Thankfully, Hubby and I both kept our cool at the service desk, considering the money we put into phone insurance but such is life. 

On to a much better topic! Today was a great Momma day. I didn't get to shower, or really get dressed out of lounge wear. I didn't get all of my laundry done for the week. I didn't cook a week's worth of meals today. Really, I did not do much, if we consider chores "doing." But I was awoken an hour and a half earlier then normal by the baby (don't gasp, but it was 7am). So we grabbed the last half hour of Sesame Street, that he has no interest in but I like to use it to gauge his awareness of people's faces, kids, and music. We then had breakfast of mango applesauce, I had greek yogurt with Dove chocolate chunks in it. Baby then got dressed while I threw on my peasant skirt from yesterday and a clean top.

 Since there was no school, my nephew was dropped off so we lounged in front of the tube for a while until Lil Cap wanted to nurse and then he fell asleep for twenty minutes until I tried to put him into his crib. He woke up but I wanted to at least load the washing machine, so I figured that he may fall back asleep. No such luck but he stayed quiet and cooed to his stuffed animals until I went in to get him. He was happy and no crying!!!

Then the three of us played on the living floor with Cap's new wooden blocks ( where I spelled inappropriate things to take pictures of to send to Hubby, I gotta keep myself amused!) and while the two boys played, I swept and mopped the kitchen. By mopped, really I mean I used my new steamboost Swiffer sweeper, which I highly recommend. It is pretty much amazing, with three kids and three dogs, the floors get rough but this thing got them clean. Find a coupon and go get one! 

After Nephew left (all the Whovians can now giggle), I called my grandmother to chat her up about her new apartment and so she could talk to the baby. While on the phone, I scrubbed and filled up the kitchen sink and gave Cap a bath. He loved it and was able to look out the window at the six inches of snow we got. After wearing himself out in the bath, Cap nursed and fell asleep for two and a half hours, so I could sweep and mop the dining room, scrub the counter tops and clean up. Oh, and eat a meal, a hot meal in its entirety. It was awesome. Hubby came home and he got to eat a hot meal, in its entirety as well. The entire day we had Pandora playing Sublime, Alanis maybe a little Nicki Minaj. We jammed out to Teach me how to Dougie and Jagged Little Pill. I love that Cap loves to dance, in his own little infant way and he loves when we have dance parties in the kitchen. Last week, for an hour, we played the Harlem Shake, the Cupid Shuffle and other miscellaneous songs until we were all sweaty and tired and Cap loved it. 

It was a great day. I wasn't worn out and cranky, the baby wasn't worn out and cranky and Hubby got home safely. Thank goodness for good days!

Hanging out in just a diaper, eating his weight in oatmeal mixed with bananas

Thrift 2014: Score 1

Hubby was able to get out of work a little early this past Wednesday so I gave him a heads up that we would potentially head to the thrift shop, since I haven't been since November. Unfortunately, or maybe rather fortunately if you talk to my wallet, my father also had to go grocery shopping so he came with us. While neither he nor Hubby rushed me, I felt guilty walking through every single aisle like I enjoy doing so instead of getting a couple pairs of jeans (I am still in an odd shape from baby...how much longer can I use that?), I ended up browsing pretty quickly and was happy with the few things that I did manage to grab. 

Gap trench coat $6.99

D-signed size 7-8 girls jeans 3.99/ half price 1.99

D-signed I have only seen at Target so far, and these are in great condition, a request was made to widen the bottoms of the super skinny jean though

All in all, I spent a little over $11. I was proud of my little shopping trip (I am pretty sure that I did it in under 15 minutes but don't ask my Hubby), I got great clothes in great condition for less than half of retail price. I am in love with my trench coat already and I can't wait to pair it with skirts when it warms up!

Dropkick Murphys tee for G, he doesn't know who they are but Hubby and I are both big fans so it works 1.99