Today was our first day of school! We're homeschooling, so even though Noah wouldn't quite make the state cutoff this year, we're calling it Kindergarten. K4 actually, because I don't know yet if we'll do a K5 year too or move right into first grade. We'll just see how it goes. Our first day was wonderful though! Noah has been looking so forward to his first day of school, I really hope I made it special for both kids (we're calling Josie a preschooler this year). I've been researching curriculum and organizing like mad the past few weeks (I even have my own laminator now!), but I figure I'll have plenty of time to write about how we run our school days as we go. We only get this first day once.
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I look forward to all the memories we're going to make learning together:
Today we made First Day of School cupcakes!
I received What's New, Cupcake? for my birthday this year and I thought the apple cupcakes would be perfect for today. They're made by combining donuts and cupcakes... what's not to love?
We baked and frosted and sprinkled and decorated...
...and voila! First Day of School apple cupcakes:
Just in time for afternoon snack:
While the kids played out in the backyard, I finished making the rest of the cupcakes and cleaned the kitchen... I'm not sure which took longer!
I think it was a great first day. I'm looking forward to a wonderful year!
This past weekend we spent a lovely afternoon in Forest Park enjoying a yummy picnic on beautiful Art Hill.
After lunch Hubby and I were able to relax a bit while the kids ran and played:
Our Itty Bitty:
When the kids were worn out, we cooled off with a visit to The St. Louis Art Museum. Sundays are Family Days at the art museum with a craft for the kids and a family tour of a different exhibit or theme every month. This month the tour covered Medieval Treasures which really fascinated our son. He's already asked to return again soon.
The current exhibit is The Mourners: Tomb Sculptures from the Court of Burgundy (which we were able to see for free as part of the family tour). So this month's craft activity was carving your own sculpture using a bar of Ivory soap and the fun little tools they had on hand.
Hubby and I wanted to carve too! (he's uber-talented by the way):
Little Man's completed masterpiece (it's a car):
It was a great day and our first visit as a family to the art museum was a hit. I look forward to many more!
FINALLY! We have a decent zucchini. After weeks of watching tiny zucchini and their flowers wilt, we finally have success. I'm still really new to this whole gardening thing, but after searching the web it seems that our problem is probably one of pollination. I never thought I'd say this, but I think we need more bees! In a desperate attempt to get my veggies growing I even tried to pollinate the plants by hand, but found that often the male and female flowers weren't open at the same time. I'm hoping now that the pollinators have found my zucchini it will continue to produce. The ridiculous heat has been hard on our garden the past few weeks. I'm trying to plant for continual harvests, but not much will sprout right now or survive the heat despite daily waterings.
At least my favorite garden produce is doing well... we get a good handful of ripe tomatoes every day now. My kids have never been that found of tomatoes, but they love to eat them right off the vine! We planted from an heirloom mix so I wasn't entirely sure what varieties we would end up with, but I think we have Gold Nugget, Yellow Pear (the kids' favorite), Sundrop, and Brown Cherry. I'll definitely do this with the tomatoes again next year. It was great fun trying to guess what they were going to be along the way!
Well, I'm clearly no good at keeping up with this blogging thing... I've had plenty to write about, I just haven't done it. I hope to get better, really, I do!
We made a few changes to the kids' rooms in the past few weeks. The Little Man started asking for a bunk bed, but that didn't really make sense in our situation since he doesn't share a room. But I was pretty ready to get rid of his big ol' Little Tykes car bed, so we ran with the idea. I spent a few weeks shopping on Craigslist and we took Little Man to go see a loft bed I found for sale. I figured it would be difficult for him to part with the car bed, but I think the cool factor on the new bed made up for any misgivings. Once we were sure it was what he wanted, we packed it up and brought it home. And sold the car bed on Craigslist of course.
I love that he has this great desk area now. This is where he creates his Magna Doodle masterpieces:
And my favorite part of the bed is the area created underneath... a perfect little reading nook complete with a light installed by Daddy and a curtain I made so that he can close the space off when he wants (perfect place to hang the Glow Station... a toy I highly recommend by the way!):
We took this opportunity to also move our Little Lady out of her crib. I can't believe the crib days are behind us already.
Fit for a princess indeed:
We knew a vegetable garden was something we wanted to have, but we hadn't quite made the time for it yet. This spring our 4 yr old son started asking if we could plant some stuff so we decided to go ahead and jump right in. Now, I've never had a garden so I consider myself lucky to have stumbled across the book Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew. This square foot gardening seems to make a lot of sense for the home gardener and has quite a following.
Nearing the middle of spring already, my awesome hubby wasted no time and got right to planning and constructing (with the Little Man's supervision, of course):
Ready for square foot markers (like Mel says, it's not a square foot garden without 'em!) and some organic, non-GMO seeds for sowing:
Plants started to sprout in the fabulous soil mix in no time at all:
One month in and we've already had several dinner salads. Seen here is a yummy mix of leaf lettuces, baby spinach, beet leaves, nasturtium leaves, flat-leaf parsley, basil, and radish:
Not bad for a few weeks and our first attempt, right? We've got lots of stuff planted out there, I can't wait to see how it all turns out! Most suprising to me is how much I'm actually enjoying this gardening thing... it's the hobby I never knew I wanted!
We had such a lovely evening at home in the backyard this week. We finally put the firepit we got on clearance last year to good use and roasted hotdogs over the coals for dinner... they really are best that way! But what campfire dinner is complete without the requisite marshmallows? This was a first for our kids, so we did it up right with the graham crackers, chocolate, and all. Let's just say the evening met with their approval. Mine too... it was a wonderful evening!
Getting a little help from a steady hand:
Mmmmhmmmmhmmm....
Big bite, little girl!
A great evening was had by all:
There have been many things I've thought would be fun to write about, but I've been putting it off, dragging my feet, and agonizing over a name. For some reason the seemingly simple task of titling a blog has daunted me. But of course I need look no further than my children for inspiration. The sprouting weeds already threatening to take over the yard and flower beds this year reminded me of last spring when my son was 3 years old and learning the names of some of the flowers in the yard. He proclaimed the yellow, persistent weeds (ahem, flowers) to be candelions. I loved the name then, I love it now. I mean really, what could be better than dandy lions, except for maybe candy lions? I'm often treated to a freshly picked stem that I'm expected to tuck behind my ear or occasionaly suprised by one left for me on my dresser. A wilted weed to some, but a beautiful hand-picked flower to this mama. Now this spring, my son is of course one year older, one year wiser and (somewhat to my dismay) he now correctly identifies these plants as dandelions... but I still have jungle beans. And jungle beans are WAY cooler than jelly beans will ever be.
