Raised Beds

Yesterday Colin was determined to get the garden in (which is good, because our grocery budget is killing us!). All the kids jumped in the truck and went to get a load of new soil and upon returning, shoveled it into the wheelbarrow.After turned compost and new soil into some of the beds, they began planting peppers, zucchini, watermelon, lettuce, etc. I love that Sissy chose to wear a white outfit while gardening.

Hopefully in a couple of weeks (weather permitting), we will see some sprouts! Currently we are able to eat chard out of our garden - something that grows plentifully with very little attention.

March Gardening

With the rising cost of groceries hitting our budget hard (I find myself saying "Babe, this food budget isn't working anymore..." every couple of weeks or so), we have decided to get a bit more serious about growing our own food. Since it was unseasonably nice yesterday (which is code word in Oregon for "not raining"), Colin spent the day with the kids working in the garden. He planted spinach, lettuce, beets, carrots, onions and leeks. Later, we will be planting our usual warm weather crops.

I snapped some pictures of the kids - for some reason the boys thought it was appropriate to be doing karate for the camera:I love this picture - Samuel eating old spinach - look at his face!

This was Juliet's contribution - causing mayhem, of course.
Jude: "Here! Try some, Mama!" I politely declined.


And my muscularly husband working hard. My contribution was taking pictures - that counts for something, right?

Micro Greens, Baby.

Our garden is beginning to bud with spinach (above) and lettuce (below). I like to wait until these bad boys are full grown to make a nice leafy salad, but you never know what Jude does while wondering through the garden...

So, to those of you scared to start a garden, I encourage you to throw some seeds in the ground and see what pops up in a few weeks. I am still waiting for my kale (my all time favorite veggie) that I inexpertly poked in one of the raised beds a few weeks ago.

And here's my other little sprouts - Juliet took a little car nap while I was driving Samuel back home from school today.
Look at her face - she knows she shouldn't be playing with my cell phone. (Don't mind my piles of clean clothes - I ignore them for as long as possible and do other things instead - like blog.)
This is Jude's face whenever I pull out my camera.

More Gardening.

Sometimes I peruse my pictures in Photoshop and realize I've missed posting/editing some pretty cute ones. This particular batch is from March 24th when my brother came over with Ella and we all were out in the garden planting and playing with dirt. Ella and Juliet ate some dirt (good iron, right?) and the boys planted.

Jude found this worm and got very excited.
Got dirt?
Sometimes its fun to just crawl in the beds.


This is my favorite - snot + drool + dirt = mud. Ew.
Tasty treat.
I think they were inspecting a worm - cute batch of cousins, huh?
It's rare I get Samuel sitting still, so I had to post this one.

The Latest With Us

Here's some pictures from the last week.

Juliet is extremely busy still - she found her car seat in the kitchen and had fun rocking back and forth in it: This is so typical of my kids - Jude strapped this Power Ranger from my coat. He was "in jail".

The boys brought this little rocking chair down from the attic and Juliet learned how to get in and out of it and rock really fast.

Auntie Joy brought Juliet a dollhouse - yay for girl toys!

She also got a doll stroller, which Jude quickly took a liking to.

Then the boys pushed Sissy around in it and called her "Dolly".

Samuel took some tight corners and went super fast with her. She loved it!

Gardening has begun - Joel is helping us get our garden together for the season. We will pay him handsomely in zucchini.

And here is Colin's truck, fresh from the auction lot.

I am on the lookout for a serger - if anyone has a Juki or Bernina serger they would be willing to sell, let me know!