gardening

OK...so this was months ago (actually, mother's day to be exact). But I have been wanting to get these pictures up here on the blog. I just ordered another blog book from last year so it has motivated me to keep up on the family journaling. For some wonky reason my comments are gone. I had some problems with spam and I did some things to take care of it and tried to bring the comment option back and even though I have enabled the comments to exist, it isn't working. If I can get a few hours to figure it out, I will. But for now...yayyyyyy for pictures.
And speaking of pictures...loving the new photo collage. My kiddos have been sick today, so I spent some time uploading pics and getting some old posting taken care of.


I just LOVE how Tate is holding onto my arm in this pic. He is by my side or on my hip every moment of the day.
Tyce is the hardest worker I have seen. He will dig right in and help out in every situation. I wanted to have a garden to provide us the opportunity to work side by side and bond together. He has shown how much he loves plants and flowers and I thought he would really thrive at tending the garden.

How did we find time to do this ???

In the last few months we built an herb box and planted herbs.



Moved 8 yards of pea gravel.



Designed and built our own landscape edge.




And re-designed our back yard space so we could hang out with the kids.

fresh from the garden

YUM !!!! So far all we are getting is lettuce in our garden. But that's OK with me. It means fresh salad greens every night. And all the kids like the idea of eating something we have grown ourselves.
I am slowly branching out from the ONE DISH meal (aka casserole). I am able to get a little more time in the kitchen preparing for the family. One of my favorite casseroles is homemade mac and cheese. I hide a little butternut squash in there and always add broccoli if I have it on hand. Working my hardest to serve healthy foods to my family. I even have started making my own salad dressing.

putting in a simple garden

My Mother's Day gift this year was the work and effort it took to put in a garden. I have been wanting one and since we are home a lot right now, it seemed like it would be fun to do. Trying to find just the right place in the yard, digging all the grass out, putting down some good soil...it took a good part of the day.

We didn't go nuts on getting it too big. It was an effort for me not to think too big. =)

It was really fun to work with the kids and grandparents. Tyce is a hard worker. He can out work any one of us.Tate on the other hand...wanders away and finds some mischief to get into.

We planted lettuce, onions, spinach, radishes and carrots. So far the lettuce seems to be doing the best.

Garden update

Last time Chuck was home we spent most of our time working in the garden. We had gotten most of our produce out of what made it. I guess the season is really early because we are so far south (there are times I believe we live in the tropics). We had such a great time watching the garden grow and produce and thrive. And then, as the season became sooooo hot, and the bugs swarmed in, it wasn't such a joy to be out in the garden. It became over grown and full of weeds and ants.

We decided to keep what was still thriving (the peppers) and get rid of the rest and start new. As our biggest goal here was to keep it "pretty and quaint" for perspective buyers. I spent about a week pulling out what was left and when Chuck got home we worked our tails off (in the hot sun mind you ~ nothing that jumping into the pool fully clothed didn't take care of) to get it ready for that last open house.









My idea was to go for a butterfly garden and try and keep our cost down. As for the butterflies, we got to see one come to life (see his chrysalis on the fence). When he came out we watched him dry his wings while we worked that morning. It was just beautiful.









We are so careful not to spend money on a home that we are just getting ready to sell anyway. I was able to move some plants from other parts of the yard and fill the beds with mulch. It looks clean and cared for, yet low maintenance. I also had the idea to sink these logs/stumps into the ground for a climbing area for the kids. Again, just using what we have and reusing as much as we can.









On a totally different note, Big Daddy and Sandy came back again today to see the house again. Looks like it is at the top of their list. They spent a lot of time here (we were out for the day) and they were having fun imagining what their stuff would look like here. Thanks for the prayers. Keep praying he gets that job.

Renewed HOPE

Sorry I was a little down in my last post. There is part of me that badly wants to share my struggles and pain and then there is part of me that would rather just ignore those feelings and not think about it. The change in weather has that crazy effect on me (like I am an animal or a group of grade school children that act out when it rains).

I wanted to share some of my renewed hope. I mentioned before that I am choosing to focus on the positives of my life. I am fully aware that lots of families live without 2 parents in the home and I have the hope that this is only for a season. I have such respect for those military families and single parent homes. I bet there is more relying on God in those homes than I can even comprehend.

To share the little things in life that bring joy...the growth in the garden. Remember when we dug and worked and weeded and planted? And then that post about not sure if we could harvest what we started? Well the garden has exploded. Growth everywhere (even weeds Ginny). I am amazed at the whole seed growth process. Talk about a spiritual lesson. I can do my part on those seeds and plants (watering, weeding and such) but the growth ultimately is up to God. I can NOT make those seeds sprout and produce a plant. And how come some of the plants do well and others do no? That is up to the grace of God. There is no point in me getting worked up about controlling those plants. They will do what they are going to do. Get over it Cris (and learn this lesson in your own life too ~that is me talking to myself).

In due time, if it was meant to be, those seeds will turn into the plants which produces the fruit. And just enjoy the process. Step back and look at the big picture (again...me talking to myself). Enjoy the beauty of the growth and the outcome of the mature plant. I desire to not get caught up in the details of life that I miss the growth process. And LOOK...we get to harvest some of these seeds that we planted. {Clover got to enjoy those radish tops}.

...how does your garden grow?

(you can click on the pics to make them bigger, as if you didn't know that already)

I will apologize right up front for the excessive pictures on this post. I had such a hard time choosing which ones I wanted to use. I know, I know...less is more, but I thought more is more.

We like to spend our time in the garden in the morning and evenings when it is shaded. The garden does get plenty of sun in the afternoon. I added the sun umbrella for the sand pit so the girls could play out here (plus, it looks cute).

Our radishes came up first. And now that it has been a week and a few days...everything has come through the ground. Ohhh, so fun to check it out every morning to see what has grown bigger.

Out of respect for our lovely rabbit, we didn't plant tomatoes (the stems and leaves are toxic to bunnies). We do like to bring Clover out into the garden everyday and let her run around and get exercise.

You can see we added another bench (made by Chuck) and we brought in pine straw to line the paths around the boxes.

Planting seeds we may never harvest

As you noted from my last post, we are moving on from this great "dream" house of ours. It is bitter sweet. We have fixed it up, not to turn it around and sell it right away, but to stay here. That is the bitter part. We have invested our energy to make it the best we can. When we started thinking about moving on we didn't change our desire to make this home the best that we could. We have spent hours working to hopefully bless the next owners.

We have recently turned the garden from a scary overgrown patch of weeds and dirt (with a frightening garden gate, I might add) to a quaint country garden. The girls have really enjoyed deciding on what seeds to plant and preparing the soil. The best part was putting the seed in the ground and caring for it tenderly. Tally mentioned that we may not be here to see the veggies and flowers grow.

She is hopefully right (our prayer is that we sell in the first month). We may never see the "fruits of our labor". We may never bring in the harvest. The same is true about investing in others. Think of all those who invest their time and energy in someones life and never see that person come to know Christ. For now, we have been called to plant the "seeds" and I will leave the growing and harvesting up to God.

In the mean time, we need to press on with integrity and trust that God has all the details of this move in His hands and we trust Him to bless, when He see fit.