Front Yard

Ok here is a look at the front yard as of this morning.

Our front walkway is full of new lavender plants. There are four here and I'm thinking about putting in another one or two. I want SERIOUS lavender going on here; a fragrant, full bed as we walk to the front door is my dream.
In the black pot next to the stairs is my comfrey which I am super excited about. Comfrey is my new favorite. I think she's ready to come out of the pot but it's too dang hot to go dig and clear beds. She is just going to have to wait a little longer! This is my new hosta which seems to be doing quite well in its shady little nook.

We have lots of new rose bloomers. This bush is giving it's first buds this week. So far, they look like white blooms. The next three rose bush pictures are all ones my sister dug out this spring from her yard. Thanks Sissy!
This guy has always been a big reliable bloomer. I am glad we put this one front and center.

These roses are white with just the palest pink edges. Beautiful!

Here is one of my two foxgloves. I *just* moved them about a week ago. I'm sure any sibling can relate; the two foxgloves were fighting for space and neither were thriving. So I moved and separated them. Still no height but lots of width on both!

This last rose bush is from the same lot that came from Cam's work. I was sure this one would die, but look! New buds! I think she'll make it after all!

Our gardens are new and I am learning as I go. Eventually, I would like our front flower beds to be full enough that we don't see any dirt! That's a long ways away though. I love that each day when I do my flower bed rounds each little plant reminds me of our friends and family who have helped us get going here. Everything in the front yard was given to us (except the new hosta) by friends and family! I love those little loving reminders!

Clementine TODAY

Today was a pretty typically busy weekend day for this very busy toddler girl.

We started off with breakfast and coloring. This girl is a coloring machine! She'd color all day if we let her! She noticed the camera and started to ham it up for me:

Lately, she wants the peel all the labels off the crayons.

And color on non-paper things: like her sippy cup, her belly and the table...

After nap we played in the backyard for a good long while. Usually we go to the park on Sunday after nap but it's a million degrees outside; we wanted to stick closer to home. Plus we had the sprinkler going and that felt pretty good out there.

Here she is in her playhouse:

Then she splashed in her water table. She has some floating boats in there and scoop to pour water all about. She's finally getting the idea!

15 seconds after this picture was taken, she crawled on top of the table and laid down belly first. Such a goofball!

All this running around wore our poor girl out! Look how pink those cheeks are in the heat! So we decided to sit in the shade and blow bubbles

A lovely day was had by all...

Backyard and New Pet(S)

We have been spending a ton of time in the backyard lately with the heat and all the fun stuff there is to do out there now. My new hobby is poking at our new pets--all 600 of 'em!
We are growing worms! By "we" I mean ME because Cam thinks this is gross.

This is my new worm bin and it will give me nutrient rich compost and a little something to drink with breakfast called Worm Tea. Just kidding. Worm tea is to pour into the soil--it's the condensation that comes out the bottom there-see the spigot. Eventually, this worm bin will become 5 drawers tall--right now it's only two drawers tall because my worms are new and just getting to know their way around the place. Every few days I bring them newspaper and food scraps and then they eat it up. I really love staring at my worms and seeing how much progress they have made. On a slow day I only go check on them 5-7 times.
Here they are--all 600 worms (I don't think there are really 600 worms in there--probably more like 300-400)

This is the first shelf. See how it's mostly composed? Now the worms are ready to crawl up to the second shelf. Some of them already have but you don't want to see that--it's mostly fuzzy apple cores and coffee grounds...

The worm bin has to sit on the table on the deck because this fuzzy butt likes to sit on top of them. I don't want squished worms! Penny has become quite the outdoor cat these days! Look at her on the prowl:

Onto the veggies: this is what the veggie garden looks like from the deck. I love how full it's gotten!

Pumpkins:

Here's Jack and Penny sleeping in the shade today:

Here are our Sweet 100s tomatoes. There are over 200 on the vine right now--a few have already ripened; Clem ate some right from the vine and was so excited.

Here are our Big Boy tomatoes. We haven't had any ripen yet but they are some serious BIG BOYS! This plant took over it's cage and you can't even seen it through the growth!

We've also eaten some of our zucchini already and have a few more almost ready to go! Our brocolli produced 6 enormous heads already and has been pruned back--our brocolli is SO good! Now we're just waiting for more to spring up!

Here are the sunflowers that are taller than I am. They don't have their faces yet but I am thinking in the next few days they will.

This is our newest flower bed I wrangled up. This is right outside our bedroom window. Cam's work had a huge truck load of roses to get rid of. We took 5 plants. Here are three that we are bringing back to life--they were mostly dead and root bound when we got them. The one in the middle is already bringing up buds!

The rocks lining this rose bed were all ones I dug up when planting here!

This lilac wasn't doing so well a few weeks ago. Turned out I was over watering! I've learned my lesson and she's doing better! I can't wait till we can open our bedroom window and smell the roses and lilacs!

I was sure this hydrangea wasn't going to make it. I bought it when we first got the house in April and moved it three times since then. It took forever but she's sprouting some pink buds finally!

And this hydrangea has always done well but started with blue flowers--the flowers have been fading lighter and lighter--now I have a ton of white/light pink flowers on there! Must have something to do with the acidity in the soil or something...

So, this is an update on the backyard, veggies and worms. The front yard needs some TLC but I'll post pictures of the growth up front pretty soon!

Clementina, Full of Grace

Clementine inherited my natural elegance and grace. Only we can go from standing perfectly still to flat on our faces without warning.

(She was fine, she bounced right back up after this. I *did* put the camera down to go help her--this time)

(Sorry it's sideways--I can't figure out how to fix that)

Soakin Up the Sun

We have been super busy these days soaking up all the sunshine July has had to offer! It's been a sweaty few weeks around here but we've been busy and having a lot of fun.
Wherever we go, we head out with sunscreen and sandals--or we decide to let our toes air out: I have a serious obsession with this girl's toes! How can they be so cute???
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Last week Clementine and I went to a Friday afternoon concert on the lawn at the library. We packed a lunch and found a shady spot on the grass. It was so much fun dancing to the music and munching on our picnic!

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Of course, we practically live at our favorite park even when the weather is bad. Now that the sun is shining we're there even more!

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A few weekends ago I dragged Cam to the Highland Games in Mt. Vernon. It was the hottest day we've had so far this month. Needless to say, we kept this adventure short and sweet!

Clem wasn't so sure about the bagpipes (I love bagpipes) but I think she liked this enormous drum. Or maybe it was the men in kilts.....

One thing I *KNOW* she liked was watching the animals. There were pony rides there (she was too little to do that this year, but she watched!), sheep being shepherded by real sheep dogs (this was hilarious and reminded me of that movie Babe), highland cows and a booth sponsored by the Humane Society with adoptable dogs and cats.

Here are the Highland cows that we just felt terrible for. Did I mention how hot it was?? It was very very hot. And these guys are so furry! They didn't seem too bothered by the heat.

A Sure Sign of Genius

This little girl loves her binky. When she was three days old, we went to the pediatrician to have her jaundice levels checked. As she rooted around for my collarbone to suck on, the pediatrician laughed and said "She's going to be a binky baby!" and she was right. From the time Clem was three days old, we have been on constant binky patrol: looking for clean binkies, extra binkies for the diaper bag, lost binkies, sterilizing binkies...and we promised ourselves by the time she got all her teeth in, we'd start weening her off that crutch. I thought it would go terribly, and when we tried cold turkey it did go pretty badly. But then I started asking Clem to give up the binky. When she woke up in the morning, I'd ask for the binky and 99% of the time, she'd hand it over. If she needed a binky at a transition time (especially after school and into the carseat) I'd ask her after 5 minutes or so if she was done with it and she'd nod and hand it to me.

Since this is a time thick with frustration and a few tantrums here and there, there are times that Clementine goes to the shelf where we keep them and asks for a binky. I always give it to her but ask for it back in 5 minutes.

She knows when she needs it and knows when she doesn't!

We've always maintained that this kid is a genius. I'm pretty confident that weening herself from binky is a sure sign of her genius. We still use binky at bedtime (but not at nap--isn't that funny??) but we are so thankful that this little bug has made it so easy to break the binky habit.

Long Lost Spaghetti Pictures

Eating spaghetti with Clementine brings us so much joy. She loves spaghetti and we love watching her love her spaghetti.
These are older pictures from March (see the highchair?) of Clementine eating spaghetti. I don't know how much spaghetti she actually consumed rather than wore.
She's worn about from smearing spaghetti on her forehead, face and upper torso.

These pictures are only a few months old and already Clementine looks so much younger here! Her hair is much longer now and her cheeks are losing their baby fat (somewhat). Thankfully she still eats spaghetti with gusto like she always has!