Starting From Seed

Around the time I planted all the vegetable plants outside, I also planted some seeds inside. I bought a seed tray and planted a variety of lettuce, spinach and onions. I'm afraid I failed at my first attempt to start plants from seed. I thought it would be easy, especially since I have so many resources on the Internet. Well, I think I know why nothing sprouted. I read that the seeds should be soaked in water and placed away from direct sunlight. So I basically had all the little seed pots resting in a pool of water. I waited and waited.... and waited... and waited... nothing sprouted but a couple of onions. After more research, it seems that is the exact opposite of what I should have done.

So I'm on my second attempt now. This time, I dampened the soil (no pools of water this time) and placed it in direct sunlight. Guess what I have less than one week later? A TON of sprouts! Yipee!

I have a lot of lettuce now. I actually planted a few seeds in each pot this time, because I wasn't sure if they would all sprout, but lo and behold!



These are more onion sprouts.



I have one lone spinach sprout. Hopefully I'll get more of these. One is better than none!

Little Bird Cake

I recently made a cake for a little girl's first birthday. Actually, I didn't make it alone. I had the help of three other friends who wanted in on the action. The cake was lemon with lemon cream cheese frosting. They decided not to cover the whole cake with fondant, like I normally do. So we just used fondant for the decorations. The cake was bird themed. It had a mommy and daddy bird on the side, and a little baby bird next to the nest on top.



The little birdie on top was made by Danielle, the nests by Rachel and the flowers by Rachel and Stacy.

Evelyn's First Birthday

This is a great birthday girl smile.



Our good friend's baby girl, Evelyn, is now one year old. Wow, time goes by so fast! I remember when they told us they were pregnant and I was so happy I squealed and danced around. That little girl is now walking, talking and batting her beautiful big blue eyes at everyone.

I had the privilege of making her cake for the party. I'll post about that soon. For now, I wanted to share some photos from the party.

Here I am with the birthday girl.



And here she is with her mommy and daddy.



My husband and son, supporting their team.



And many more friends...










Evelyn liked her cupcake. It was lemon cake with lemon cream cheese frosting.

Gabriel rolls over

Gabriel first rolled over around 11 weeks. Since then he's rolled over several more times. This time, we finally got it on camera. If you listen closely, I think he also gave a laugh.
He's just so cute!!

My First Loaf of Bread

For a while I've had this book called Artisan Breads at Home. I want to be able to bake my own bread, but have been pretty intimidated by the whole process. My mom makes amazing bread from scratch. She actually grinds her own grains! I don't plan on doing that much work, but I want something more hands on than a bread machine too. Well, I finally just did it. My first loaf of bread was an oatmeal bread. I, of course, ate it right out of the oven. It was filling the house with its wonderful aroma while it was baking. When I took it out, I only let it rest long enough to be able to handle it. Then I cut into it and watched the steam escape. Mmmmm. Doesn't everyone love bread straight from the oven? I know I do!

The baker at work...


The helper helping...


The final product!

Gabe and Tabe

Ever since they were in their mommy's tummies, Gabriel and Tabor have been good friends. Even now, they love to hang out.

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Devastation Comes by the Name of Cutworm

Every morning I go out to my garden to check on the plants. One morning I was shocked to see my precious little tomato plant lying sideways on the ground! It looked like a bug ate right through the stem of the plant.





I am so sad! I did some research, and I think the culprit is a bug called the Cutworm. I read that a way to prevent them from destroying your plants is to put a paper cup around he base of your plant. This prevents them from crawling up and feasting during the night. So now my tomato plants are sporting disposable coffee cups around their base.

Mother's Day Picture

Gabriel dressed up and took me to Mimi's Cafe for lunch. So sweet!

More Garden Beds

Richard and I finished making the other two beds, and planted a few plants in them. I forgot to take a picture after the soil was in, but here they are. Aren't they beautiful?



I am also growing some plants by seed. I know it's late in the season to start seeds, but I wanted to give it a try anyway. I planted all my seeds in this tray, and I'm keeping it wet and placing it in a sunny area. The seeds I planted are for a variety of lettuce, spinach, and onions. I can't wait to get some sprouts!

Prayer for Gabriel

Gabriel has recently gone through a tough time. He would wake during the middle of his nap screaming and crying. At first I thought he was going through a growth spurt and just wanted to eat. I later realized it wasn't hunger, it was pain. He would stiffen up his body and try to grab his stomach. I tried burping him, and I tried giving him gas drops, but neither of those things worked. When I tried to feed him, he would fall asleep because he was so tired from not having full naps. This went on for several days.

I decided to take him to the doctor and weigh him. Since his last doctor visit, which was 15 days prior, he had only gained 6 ounces. The average weight gain for a baby his age is an ounce per day. Since I didn't have an appointment, I couldn't see the doctor, but was able to ask the nurse about it. I explained Gabriel's problems and started crying in the middle of the waiting room. The nurse told me it sounded like I was eating something that was bothering him. Babies often have problems when their moms eat things like onion, cabbage, tomato, broccoli, dairy, or citrus. So now I'm eating a very bland diet. After a couple weeks of eating "safe" foods, I'll start to introduce some of the questionable foods again. This way I'll be able to determine what the problem was.

Gabe is doing much better during his naps now. He sleeps all the way through. In fact, sometimes it's hard to we him up to eat. I guess he's catching up on sleep. I want him to catch up on eating too! I plan to weigh him again in about a week to see how his growth is. We could use your prayers! Please pray for Gabe to be healthy and strong and continue to grow at a steady pace, and for me to have some relief from the stress that comes with an unhappy baby. I'll keep you posted on how he's doing.

The Beginnings of a Vegetable Garden

This year Richard and I decided to make a vegetable garden. It's my little project... Actually, it's not so little. We built three raised beds, which took a lot of work. It started by digging up all the weeds and grass in the middle of the backyard.



Then we purchased lumber and started building our beds, placed the beds in their spots, and lined the bottom with cardboard. Having cardboard at the bottom keeps weeds from growing. This is our smallest bed, which is 3'x3'.



For the soil, we used a combination of compost, peat moss, and vermiculite.



My mom told me about this great gardening idea called the square foot garden. It's for people who want to max out their garden in a small space using raised beds. The idea is you section off your garden into squares that are one foot wide. Each plant has different space requirements within the square. For example, you can grow 1 tomato plant per square, 1 pepper plant, 9 green onion plants, and 16 carrots. If you're interested in the square foot garden, I recommend looking at this site. It contains a lot of information and I now follow the blog. Some plants require multiple squares. Squash needs 9 squares. That's the size of my small box, so we planted a yellow crooked neck squash plant. He needs a name. How about Yellow (I'm so creative ;0) )? Meet Yellow, my first garden plant!



Stay tuned to see how Yellow does this season...