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!

Puddle Jumping in July

We are in the eye of the storm known as "Terrible Twos" around here. This has been an extremely difficult phase for all three of us; but we know that like all the other phases this will pass over soon (although the Terrible Twos have settled on us rather early--she is only 20 months after all! We're hoping this means this phase will also be over earlier!)

After a very rough night last night and several sweaty screaming tantrums (a sidenote about tantrum throwing: we have thankfully gotten past the biting tantrums. Today Clementine grabbed my arm in frustration and I thought "Oh, here we go," but instead she grabbed hold and licked my arm from wrist to elbow!) this afternoon, I knew we needed to mix it up a little bit around here. So we went puddle jumping on this rainy July day! She pretended to be aloof at first, but I could tell this was going to be exciting.

We found a perfect practice puddle at the end of our driveway. Clementine was excited because there were bubbles in the water. She started out just toe tapping. But then we really got going; we were stomping, Riverdancing and jumping in this starter sized puddle.

This got her good and warmed up. The clouds parted momentarily as she cracked a smile for me!

We found a delightfully deep puddle at the end of the street. This one was perfect for jumping and stomping.

At the end of the cul-de-sac, Clementine set off to discover untouched bodies of water. She has the jaunty little walk of a determined explorer!

When we were good and soaked we started heading back to our house. Clementine realized the fun was over and decided to sit down on the sidewalk and ignore me. This is her new move: ignore mommy, refuse eye contact, and, if necessary, go limp like a noodle.

Luckily, this situation didn't call for noodly appendages. I think she was wet and uncomfortable enough to find motivation to walk on her own back to the house.

Sure enough, this puddle jumping adventure did the trick. The rest of the afternoon/evening went without a single tantrum. We snuggled together until warm enough to play and color.

July Catch Up

The first week of July brought 80 degree weather and a flurry of activity around the house!
My broccolli LOVED the hot weather! This guy in the upper left hand corner has always been the fastest growing. Since I took this picture 4 days ago, he tripled in size and we plan to eat him for dinner! There are tons of other broccolli heads just about ready to go, too! In other yard related news, my mom and Cameron (I documented the progress) took out half of our wisteria (or some kind of blooming vine) that had taken over a corner of a yard--and a corner of our neighbors' yard--and we feared may take out our shared fence. Here's my hard working man:

When my mom came to visit, she brought with her an outdoor play cottage for Clementine (just like the one Clem has at school!) and a water table.

Clementine loves her cottage, as you can see in the picture! It has shutters and a doorbell and is so much fun!

Clem and Yaya also spent a lot of time in the backyard blowing bubbles! Clementine's new favorite word is "bubbles"--she spots them everywhere! She doesn't quite get the concept of blowing toward the wand but she likes to watch.