Halloween 2011

My little Bride of Frankenstein!

She looks great, doesn't she?

Glow stick men

Ben didn't want to dress up.  He stayed in with me to help hand out candy...

And play the iPad :)

This gives a lot better look at the stick figures... Don't mind the dorky laughing in the background! :)

Harvest Time (by Eric)

Well its time to see what the garden has done..

And the results of this attempt to figure out how to garden well...

There was over a pound of carrots.

The peppers have also produced about a pound so far.

Becca thinks the taste is off a bit.  We are wondering if despite of the size if they hadn't completely matured yet.

Then we checked the potatoes...

I have never grown potatoes before it was kind of cool to dig one up and see how it works.

Given the smaller size I figure it was too soon, so I left the other two alone..

Live and learn I guess.

The cherry and grape tomatoes are riping a few at a time.

Becca and the kids all say they are yummy.

They eat them all before I get a chance.

The bigger tomatoes are cracking before they mature. So they get tossed

I am adjusting the water to see if I can save the up and coming fruit.  We will see how that goes.

More Gardening (Eric)

Well the garden is going good.  

Here we have the tomatoes.  They are really taking off.  

You can see some of the growing fruit here.  In a couple of weeks we should be able to tell you how it tastes.

Next we have carrots

And then the potatoes

And then the peppers

The pictures don't show you that they smell like pepper already which is cool 

Here is a closer up view of the growing peppers.

Unfortunately the squash, and onions didn't seem to take. With that failure, I then tried sprouting them first.  But on the one day we went really hot I left them covered up and they cooked.   

Sigh...

Lets see if the third time is the charm..

Of course I am not doing this alone.  I have some help.

Robby and Rylan doing some weeding by the carrots

Then there is Ben... Clearly the happiest worker

I mean... Water and dirt = mud what is not to like?

Right?

Then we have the strays...  Don't know why some one left two little kittens on our doorstep.

Not really a big fan of them...

But they are willing to work in the garden

See! 

No weeds were they tread.

Now to the bad news.  Apparently the Gnome gained a taste for gravity challenging stunts.

Personally I think he read too many Douglas Adams books.

That is not how you learn how to fly.

He was not the 6 million dollar Gnome though.

After his fourth attempt I lacked the tools and the technology to rebuild him.

So instead of being better, faster, stronger. He is now garbage.

But every garden needs a Gnome.

So Becca went and bought me a new one.

(yes she is supportive of my little insanities) 

Of course I could not let him roam around naked, because the neighbors might call the police.

So one paint job later...

He now monitors the water supply to the garden

Hair cuttin!

I found a lock of blonde curls on the floor... with the explanation "I didn't have anything to put in my backpack."  This is the first time that she has cut her own hair.  Now we just have some really short bangs!

Garden (By Eric)

Yeah... yeah... yeah.  I know this is Becca's blog, but I am posting here anyway.  A few weeks ago I spent my Saturday in a gardening class.  Inspired by the class, I decided to try once again to get a garden going.  So now nearly two weeks later it is set up and ready.

20 feet by 5 feet

With the help of the kids its been dug up, weeded, fertilized and planted.  They helped plant carrots, onions, cilantro, and zucchini seeds.

The White PVC pipe is the watering system

 The watering system is on a timer.  It takes about a minute to water the garden.  When the summer heat kicks in we will boost the number of watering times.

We expect the seed to sprout in about a week.  Once they do we will transplant Tomatoes, Peppers, and watermelons, which started off in a more controlled environment.  (The future locations are marked with the stakes in the first picture.

Waiting for Transplant

When shopping for the remaining plants Amelia talked us into getting her some flowers.  So we will be moving them over to a pot soon.

In the background you might notice wood stacked against the wall.  That is for the trellis I will be building over the next week.  This will be the support system so the tomatoes, and other plants can have support to grow up off the ground.

As for the gnome.... well I got him as a white elephant gift some eight years ago.  He has stood in every garden since then.  When I went to get him for this one he was very sun faded and Ameila had broken the legs off.  Needless to say the legs have been glued back on and I repainted the green on the coat and hat and black on the boots.  Once he dries I'll touch up the beard, mushroom, grass, etc.

Bump on the head

So Ben got to take a little trip to the ER yesterday.  Amelia was pushing him in the stroller at a morning meeting and she tripped and Ben & the stroller did a faceplant into the pavement.  He was crying but Amelia was crying even harder.  Ben calmed down after a few minutes and seemed to be ok for a while.  He did throw up though a little later and so I called the doctor.  They told me just to take him to the hospital so they could do an x-ray or scan if they needed to, so off we went.  He does have a mid concussion but all they did for us was give him a popsicle and sent us home with instructions to come back if he continued to throw up or if he were acting abnormally.  All is well with him though, we haven't had any more problems!

OUCH!

Crazy Hair Days

Just wanted to show off how gorgeous my baby boy is!