Spring is Here (really)

April 17, 2013Leave a comment

It might be cold and sometimes snowy outside, but spring is in full swing.

The first seedlings in my garden are coming up. Every time I plant a seed I feel anxious, not knowing if the seeds I sow will grow or thrive. All the veggies I seeded are doing wonderful. (I did freeze some lettuce transplants though.)

The bulbs in the front yard are blooming. My three year old has preemptively opened some of the flowers. And my toddler likes to sit on them. It makes the bed more interactive.

The garden center is filled with color. We went to buy some transplants and explore, regardless of the snow falling. So many plants were blooming! My son kept asking me what everything is and I realize how out of practice I am identifying plants: I need to study. (We went down to Willard Bay Gardens. It is an awesome place for perennials)

April (Snow)Showers

April 16, 2013Leave a comment

This isn’t what outside play should look like in April:

Wait…this looks better:

dig

Well, all accept toddlers are flower murderers. He is not looking at the flower because it is pretty…he is looking at it because he wants to rip of its head and eat it up.

Baby Animal Days & Biking

April 13, 20131 Comment

We spontaneously went to Baby Animal Days with some of my in-laws. It was fun, but super crowded. I did not expect Disneyland crowds at a farm. PB still got to hold a baby duck, pet an assortment of farm animals, and wait in a line for approximately two hours.

So before, I was never a great fan of billions of people holding baby animals. They must be traumatized for the rest of their lives, or simply just die. But then I had my own kid, and suddenly I was much more interested in making him happy then worrying about baby ducks.

In another unrelated but awesome event, PB got a new bike. This bike:

The bike is wonderful for him. He does not like to actually pedal. So he lets mommy do all the work:

Although pedaling around an extra 100 lbs isn’t easy, I’m super stoked to be able to ride bikes on the wide roads. Except apparently it is still winter.

Sleeping & Ink Pads

April 11, 2013Leave a comment

Lately, life, has been a battle with a small little child. His older brother sleeps at night. C has different plans. But the last two nights he has slept by himself in his crib without feeling the need the involve mommy . This is marvelous. I don’t think anything we tried actually worked. But I’m glad that C started to sleep anyway. He is lots happy now that he isn’t sleep deprived.

Last week was mail week. We mailed letters, read stories, looked for mailboxes and stalked postman. The most successful activity was a mailbox for Peter, hung up in his room. He placed mail in through the slot, and checked his mail far too frequently until a few days later when it fell down.

I also made the wonderful discovery of a free ink pad. I like stamps. They are fun. But ink stains, and I have never felt the need to go buy an ink pad. After a bit of googling, and thinking I came up with a solution: baby wipes and food coloring. It worked wonderfully. It was also basically free, disposable, and doesn’t stain as bad as an ink pad.

Easter

April 9, 20131 Comment

We had a lot of fun with Easter this year. We did Easter activities all week long before Saturday.

Confetti eggs

Math with jellybeans
$easter math$
Learning about eggs

On Friday night we dyed eggs and they turned out very cool. We used a method I saw on a blog almost a year ago and actually remembered. Simply place drops of food coloring on a paper towel and roll. Super easy, not too messy and it makes for awesome eggs. We did get out the cups of dye too.

On Saturday we had an Easter egg hunt in the morning with just the boys. I made my kid wear the bunny ears we made earlier. PB had a lot of fun. I filled some of the eggs with confetti, not candy. C really enjoyed them, and it mean less candy, more play.

The kids were dropped off at Grandma’s and Joe and I did a session at the temple. Great way to focus on Christ and not just eggs. That afternoon we were back at Grandma’s for a cousin Easter egg hunt. My sons had horrible egg finding skills. PB would walk past twenty eggs in the open to get to one he spotted far away. It just means less candy, no complaints.

On Sunday, we had an uneventful almost peaceful day. (Two small boys create a new definition for peaceful.) We went to church, ate our traditional dinner of fish, asparagus and sweet potatoes, and watched bible videos.

Rainbow Week

April 6, 2013Leave a comment

Here are our activities for Rain/Rainbow week. We started to do themes for our play/school and I enjoy it. I don’t think it benefits the kids that much, but it makes play more fun for Mommy. We were hoping for rain and and rainbow would have been awesome…we ended up with a bit of rain and a snowstorm. (I shared these photos before in a previous post, but decided to go back and edit.)

Paper squares. Simple and fun. confetti

We squirted an old piece of fabric with watered down paint. I think Mommy enjoyed this more than PB. It was way fun.

This was C’s first real sensory bin. I was happy to see that he didn’t try to eat all the colored rice. PB had a hard time sharing at first, but he eventually realized it was either play with C or not at all.

PB pointed out that pouring the rice down the stacking cups sounded like rain.

PB enjoyed this simply math activity. At first I didn’t have raindrops on painter tape for all of the numbers, but I was quickly making more so PB could do the whole set 1-12.

We also played outside with an umbrella and hose. Later on we played umbrella tag in the rain. PB or I would have the umbrella and run away, the other person would come steal the umbrella, lots of laughing too.

Pictures of Life

March 28, 20131 Comment

Random pictures of the kids. I keep trying to get good pictures of Curtis but he always goes for the camera the second he sees it out.

Indoor Transplants Part 2

March 26, 2013Leave a comment

This is part two for this first post.

My seeds germinated. I turned on the overhead light just as soon as I saw green coming up. After a couple of days, I went ahead and transplanted the seedlings to containers.This was nine days after I seeded them. My peppers were slow: I did those five days later.

To transplant, I filled containers up with loosely packed potting mix. I poked a hole in each cell where the plant would go.

From the seedling tray, I worked my finger underneath the soil, loosening the roots and pulling the plant up from the bottom. If I would have pulled on the top it rips the plant from the roots. (So don’t do that.)

Then I placed one seedling in prepared container and pressed the potting mix back in the hole.

They looked very wimpy and sad at first. But I kept them moist the light on and in a couple of days they were perky again. I had 100% transplant rate at this point, unless you count the couple that my baby got into and I had to re-plant. Here they are today:

Final steps for transplants:

Keep the light on, about two inches above the plants. I’m actually going to go ahead and double up on my lights because some of the plants are getting a bit long and leggy. I turn off the light at night.
Keep the soil moist, but not soggy.
Fertilize as needed. My potting mix has a bit of fertilizer in it, I’ll probably put on some slow release granular fertilizer I have on hand in a week or so. The nursery fertigates about one a week…and there are organic options too. If the plants ever have yellow leaves, fertilize.
Once a transplant has 5-6 leaves, and the weather is right, it is time for hardening off and transplanting.

Just a little note. I actually did a lot of this process this way because of the supplies I have on hand. If you don’t have anything on hand, you can use different methods, like soil blocking, organic fertilizers, etc. I love to try new more sustainable methods, but it makes sense to use up the materials I already have first. And I’m also a bit lazy.

I just noticed that taking pictures is invaluable. My son ripped out the tags, but there they are, all labeled in the picture.

Family Pictures

March 21, 20132 Comments

Everyone should have relatives who like to take pictures, and who are hopefully good at it too. My sister came and visited. (I loved having her over. She liked it too.) She took the following pictures for us.

The next ones are just playing together outside.

This one is funny to me…in the background is Peter and he is stuck. He was rescued soon after.

Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids

March 18, 2013Leave a comment

I am recommending a book. It is awesome. I have changed what I am striving for as a parent, and I believe I am now closer to how God would want me to interact with my kids. And I’m not a perfect mom…but I do feel like I know more options when it gets rough.

Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids: How to Stop Yelling and Start Connecting, by Laura Markham

The author also has an awesome website and newsletter, here.