Category: Life

Toddler Fun

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This December has actually been extremely dissapointing weather wise. Almost no snow…and we need it now, because we aren’t going to get much in Atlanta. But at least we had a little snow on Tuesday. Before it melted, Peter and I went out and played in it. He liked the sled, but was as much interested in going in Grandma’s playhouse.

Last night, Peter suddenly popped out with “Kangaroo Zoo,” and wanted to go. It’s a local bounce house type play place that we went to early last month. Apparently he remembered, and seeing no reason not to go that evening (they charge less for 2 and under, and I had a coupon), we went. Bringing Daddy along was a great idea. Last time, after about a half hour he was done and he didn’t try any of the bigger slides. This time he went on all but the biggest slide and we were there for over an hour. Pete certainly got a good work-out, he was running around crazy the entire time.

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Christmas Activities

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We went up to Temple Square on a cold night last week and enjoyed all the Christmas lights and a bit of choir music. Always a fun place to go for Christmas.

Last night we made gingerbread houses. You can look at the houses below and guess which one is who’s. My husband, Peter, my grandma and I all made one.

Okay Peter’s was pretty easy. Mine is the one with a mulched landscape. I cared more about my landscape then the actual house, and I think I’m the only one ever who put “organic mulch” down around a gingerbread house. Joe’s is the most architecturally interesting and detailed. His took a while, but turned out awesome. (He’s quite a good artist.) Grandma struggled a bit with hers, but it turned out pretty cool. It was a fun activity to do together.

So there is still lots of packing to do. I really haven’t started and I’m moving in less than 3 weeks. I’m excited. But I really need to start packing.

101 Miles Hiked

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This Saturday we bundled up and went on another hike. With another 2.5 miles, this makes 101 miles for the season. I reached my goal, with a few weeks left. (With busy weeks ahead though, this might be it). We started at Dry Canyon trailhead in Orem and hiked on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail over to the Battle Creek trailhead. It was a nice, easy hike with great views. There was lots of company too-we saw bikers, runners, horses and dogs. It was a cold day, but we stayed warm all nice and bundled. Peter walked quite a bit, although he is a little slower and curious then his parents might like. He was also content to be on daddy’s shoulders (and luckily daddy is okay to have him up there). It snowed a little bit that morning, which was lots of fun. We probably aren’t getting much snow this year so we have to enjoy the little we get now. Now for pictures, which mostly feature one adorable little boy. He’s actually starting to pose.

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Rose

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The calender is more right than our minds. Winter has not come, even though we are anxiously awaiting blankets of snow and singing carols about sleigh rides. It is still fall. This single rose has clung onto fall far longer than the rest of us. Protected by the house, it has not noticed that temperatures have dropped into the 20’s. I never look at this diminutive rose bush in the regular season, but now it is the highlight of the whole garden.

Good Gardens

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Sometimes I get tired of seeing sights like this:

Fruit trees over pruned in late fall

Living in a community that seems to have a lot of do-it-yourself gardeners who don’t care that much often leads to a bunch of boring landscapes and horrible errors. But I wanted to get away from that for a second and show two landscapes recently that are spectacular. I’m too busy wimpy to talk to the actual owners, so just enjoy street pictures. Both front landscape feature an utter lack of front lawn. That’s not what you first notice however (some lack of front lawn yards are pretty scary), but a simple sidenote on the end. The first thing I noticed on both are plant composition.

Landscape 1

They’ve filled this front yard with contemporary style landscape plants. Nothing spectacular about the plant choice, but the overall composition is beautiful. Best part is every inch of space is packed with plants, and none of it is lawn. The only hesitation I have about this is that I hope they picked dwarf cultivars of about all woody material, because if not, this landscape will be pretty overgrown in five years. I took this picture just over a month ago, right when the mums where making a colorful appearance.

Landscape 2

This has a more naturalistic fill, using mainly rocks and ornamental grasses. There’s a little too much Karl Forester, but I still was quite captivated when I passed by this front yard. The grasses combine with the evergreens to create a great look now in late fall. This picture was taken a couple weeks ago, when I was fortunate to catch ornamental grasses at their peak.

I hope this has been a good distraction from pending snow and also presented some better options than lawn for the front yard. Again I want to point out that really what caught my attention wasn’t the lack of lawn in the front yard, it was the presence of a variety a plants and lots of thought behind them.

Stressing

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So never move around Christmas time. I have a billion things on my mind and it’s making me a bit bonkers. I’m trying to figure out Christmas, finances, moving, along with all my regular daily tasks and a two year old. Two-year-olds are very sweet, but at the same time I am tired of answering the question, “What that?” There is also a general lack of cooperation in many tasks.

But there is lots of  good news. We have found an apartment, hopefully. I’m waiting to sign on it until I can see it, but it looks good. Hotels are reserved. I’ve figured out what I’m getting everyone for Christmas, I just need to finish making a few things. And the finances are working out great, in spite of my worrying. And when I get upset and all stressed Peter does the cutest thing. He’ll grin at me (very cheesily and often through tears) in this specific way, and it means I’m supposed to cheer up and smile back. And it does manage to cheer me up a bit.

And one click shopping is not cool. You have no time to think through the purchase, it’s just suddenly done. Very convenient, but I don’t know if that is such a good thing. (What I did buy doing that, I did actually want. It just surprised me how quick it happened.)

Landscape Bids

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I was recently asked to look over a few landscape bids for a friend of mine. The project was mostly a large stretch of  lawn. I was a bit taken back by some of the practices that they listed.

Bagged lawn clippings: All that specified how to do lawn care maintenance mentioned that they would bag and take away all the lawn clippings. It was stated like this was a good thing, preferable to other methods. Oh my. Basic good garden techniques: leave the clippings. They basically add the equivalent of a pound of nitrogen a year. As long as you are cutting the lawn regularly and using a good mulching mower they aren’t a mess. Even then, they disintegrate within a couple days. If anyone out there is still bagging, please stop. Your lawn will thank you.

Lawn spray program: This is included a four step fertilizer program, complete with weed killers, pre-emergent, grub killers, etc. Never mind that there isn’t actually any crabgrass or other annual weed problem in the lawn to necessitate a pre-emergent, or any widespread grub or insect problems.  As mentioned earlier, bagging clippings would add a pound of nitrogen, meaning one less fertlizer application is necessary. I still thing four step fertilizer programs (as seen advertised by fertilizer companies) is excessive. We’re not talking about a sports turf or heavily used lawn. Most of the lawn is hardly used. Two, maybe three applications a year would be sufficient to maintain a green healthy lawn. And wouldn’t it be great if one of those applications was actually a layer of compost? I also don’t like that the chemicals are going to be poured on, without monitoring for possible weed or insect problems that might be present first.

Those were my two main problems. I wish all companies would include more detail on their bids. Saying that the lawn will be maintained doesn’t give me much confidence that the company will actually be there no less than once a week making it look great. It was also interesting to see the bidding price. Anywhere from $8,000 to $1,500. The lowest was underbid, I’m wondering how they stay in business charging so little.

If you are thinking of doing landscaping, seriously consider looking into buying this software. It makes the whole bidding process a lot more manageable, and includes information on sustainable practices.

Big News

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So this past week we had our twenty week ultrasound. The baby is healthy and normal and we found out that it was a BOY. It is ultimately what I wanted so I’ve very happy. Peter gets a new brother! He moves around quite a bit and I already feel big and uncomfortable at times. I still have four months, including a cross-country move!

Peter is very cute and seems to understand perfectly well that there is a “baby in mommy’s tummy.” He says that a lot, sometimes very randomly. We’ve been going to toddler gym at the local rec center where they do exercises and other activities. He loves that and will either want to go to toddler gym, nursery, or Grandma Claire’s about every day. We’ll do each about one a week plus story time. That kid loves to read. He’ll read with me for over a half hour. But according to him, he still likes Sesame Street better.

It also snowed and stuck for the first time. It was fun going out and playing with Peter. He wanted to dig in the snow and got out his trowel to do so. Here’s a bunch of random pictures from the last few weeks:

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Purse from Pants

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So now that gardening season is over, I’ve enjoyed starting some new craft projects. I only have a large diaper bag and wanted a smaller purse that I could take to smaller outings. I cannot bring myself to spend money on this sort of thing, so I made one. I created it out of the bottom of a pair of worn out pants, an unwanted t-shirt, and fabric scrap so it cost me nothing.

To make it, I cut off the bottom of the pants to the length I wanted. Then I cut out a flap on the front so it folder over like a messenger bag.

I then sewed up the bottom and hemmed the unfinished sides. The handle was created from a similar project I did earlier, making a headband out of a t-shirt. There’s a good tutorial here for that. I sewed it on the inside of the bag. I then created a rolled flower for the front flap using this tutorial, and glued it on. The front flap is held down with Velcro I had. This is what it first looked like after all that:

Major problems. I didn’t have thread that matched and hated the results. So I unpicked the seams I hated and also rounded the corners a bit and re-sewed it all with matching thread. (Oh, and my machine which is a little bit broken was given me angst. I went to my mom’s and used hers. So much better.) Here’s the finished purse.

I love the results and have used it a few times already. Next time I would probably make the front flap fold down a little further, but otherwise it’s great.

 

 

 

 

Fall Snow Walk

It snowed yesterday, big white flakes that didn’t stick. In honor of the snow we dug out the boots and mittens and took a walk. (The boots were completely unnecessary. But little toddler loves them and we are moving to Georgia in January so they might not get much use this year.) At first, toddler was a bit weary about the snow…

He soon realized the beauty of it though.

I had been eyeing the rose bushes to the side of the house. They seem to have no idea that winter is very shortly coming, and continues to push up new flower buds.


The leaves are just starting to come off the trees, which I think is extremely late this year. They are still lots of fun to jump in.

Asters and mums are out and very lovely. Not my favorite plants, except in late fall when everything else is fading away.

The winter side of things is starting to become  noticeable too, like these berries on a cotoneaster.

Even the juniper is already starting to have a purple hint to it.

I’ve been trying to work on my photography and liked how the pictures turned out on this walk. Hope you enjoyed them too.