a random collection

Homeschool has begun for this year. Isaiah is in 1st grade and Lydia is in Kindergarten. One day down, 174 to go. This is a marshmallow igloo. Because it starts with the letter "i".

Check out this haul from our garden yesterday! Tomatoes, 2 baby bell peppers, 4 aji crystal peppers (hot peppers), a small watermelon and a bitty pumpkin. This was so exciting! The most I have brought in at one time yet! Oh! and Nathan brought in 16 eggs from the past 2 days!

I made a bunting! I have been wanting to make one forever, and finally just did it. I made a freehand cardboard triangle template, cut around that about 10 times on 5 different fabrics with my pinking shears. I pinned those inside double fold bias tape and then sewed on. I did not measure or iron anything! Myfavorite kind of sewing project, no measure, no iron, quick, straight line sewing that turned out super cute!

Hope you enjoyed this random collection from the past week!

garden update: 90% off

First, our local dollar store had some garden stuff 90% off! I got 9 (small) bags of this soil for 15 cents a bag.
Some seed starter trays for 40 cents each, the little trays on top for 30 cents each. Those on top include seeds and dirt.

Some herb garden kits for 60 cents each! One of them is planted and just sprouted by my window in the kitchen.

Some of my favorite flowers growing on my front porch.

Our two raised beds are doing just okay. The tomatoes are doing pretty well, and cucumbers, but the beans produced nothing. We are getting ready to pull everything out of the garden on the right to plant for the fall. We are planning to plant lettuces, spinach, carrots, and maybe cabbage.

Our corn grew really tall, but we got no edible corn. The chickens got a few ears and all the buckwheat that I harvested and raccoons got the rest. The buckwheat was so pretty we will definitely plant that again. We ate our first bell pepper last week and I canned 11 (almost 12) pints of crushed tomatoes last week. I don't know how much more I will get to can, but I hope to get at least that much more. I would love to do spaghetti sauce too, but the tomatoes are coming in sporadically, so we'll just see.

Our chickens started laying eggs about a a week and a half ago!!! I absolutely love having our own eggs again. They are still small, but hopefully we'll be getting them by the dozens soon enough. If each chicken lays one egg a day, we'll be getting a dozen a day!

If there was one thing we learned this year with our garden it was : PREPARE THE SOIL!! Even the raised beds could have used more compost or manure. Next year we'll know better. That is something I love about gardening, the learning and changing--how the mistakes are made okay with the knowledge gained from them.

Hope you guys have a happy Friday!

original artwork thursday

Finally picked up the paintbrush after a busy summer. I think I got a few good ones, and a few that are just okay. (I don't show you guys the bad ones!) There are more, but I'll save those for another week :) Let me know what you think!

2 years

As unbelievable as it was to me, my BABY turned 2 last month. We had birthday pancakes and a fun day at home on the day of, and then the weekend after we had a pool party at my sister-in-law's house. It was so much fun and so laid back.



The cake was really the only part of the party that involved any work, but it was so much fun! I had seen rainbow cakes on MckMama a while ago and wanted to give it a try. Then I had the idea to put a marshmallow rainbow on top. I think it turned out really cute!

The trick to a great tasting rainbow cake is putting vanilla pudding between the layers. I found that tip after a google search (can't remember where). It makes the cake really moist without so much icing between every layer.

Look how big she is! She loves to swim, ask questions, color, play with baby dolls, and wrestle and fight with her brothers and sister.

She wrinkles up her noses when she thinks something is funny. She wants to take baths all the time. She is so smart and funny! Her hair would forever hang in her face if I didn't put it up in a top-knot. She loves to make huge messes involving make-up, crayons and markers, and dumping out the first aid kit and emptying the medicine cabinet. (after first climbing up onto the bathroom counter, of course.) She can count to ten. Her favorite songs are twinkle, twinkle and happy birthday.

I sure do love this kid.