A Fantastic Summer Day

Some days are horrible days.  But then, often for no known reason, there'll be a day that's just so good.  Today was one of those days.

It wasn't that we went somewhere really cool.  Come to think of it, we didn't actually leave the house all day!  It was just exactly what I think of as a "summer" day.

I slept in until 8:30.  Aaaaahhhh.  I got out of bed and pulled back my bedroom curtains (yes, I finally put up curtains!) to let the sunshine in.  This is not the start of a cheesy fairytale.  This is actually how my day started.

I came out to find that my boys had already eaten breakfast.  It's a beautiful thing when kids can get their own breakfast.  Nora came out just after me, and she was warm and she was soft.  She snuggled me on the couch for a little bit before wanting breakfast.

After breakfast I sat down by Nolan on the couch.  I thought I'd read my Sunday school lesson while he watched tv.  However, I got sucked into his History Channel show about an island with possible buried treasure, and I didn't read any of my lesson!  How fun to snuggle my babies and daydream about hidden treasure.

Eventually I figured we should do something besides watch tv and play iPads, so we did a little activity I had found on Pinterest.  We made Erupting Sand Foam Dough from Learn~Play~Imagine.  Ours didn't quite turn out as "dough" because I forgot to tell Griffin to shake the shaving cream before squirting it into the mixture and also because we ran out of corn starch.  It was still messy and fun nonetheless.

After they mixed the ingredients and colored sand, we divided the messy "dough" into three foil pans and took them outside.  I gave each child a squirt bottle of vinegar and let them make mini eruptions in their pans.  

That naturally led to playing outside for the rest of the morning.  I weeded my garden while the kids jumped on the trampoline, played on the swings, rode bikes, and made up summertime kid games.  The kids even helped me weed, for a few minutes at least.  Nolan discovered the first sign of hope for this year's garden--the first pods of sugar snap peas!  Peas may be the only vegetables we successfully grow this year since record rainfall keeps my garden flooded.

When I was finished in the garden and the kids were done playing in the back yard, we moved our fun to the front yard.  We played with a bubble gun and some giant bubble wands.  We discovered ant colonies, blooming Tiger Lillies, and unidentified mushrooms (that my brother later identified via text).

"Elegant Stinkhorn"

"Fairy Inkcap"

As we were playing and exploring in the front yard, a girl who lives down the street rode her bike to our house.  She carried a walkie-talkie that her mom uses to check in on her.  She played with the kids while I made Nora's lunch (the boys make their own!).  The kids sort of ate in shifts so someone could stay outside playing with their friend.  While I ate my lunch, I finally got down to the business of reading my Sunday school lesson.

After the kids ate their lunches, they enjoyed homemade popsicles that I made with Jello.  Most purchased popsicles are not safe for Nolan, and the kids really like the Jello ones.

I was able to talk to my sister on the phone and text with some friends.  All while I wore grubby clothes, had my hair pulled back in a fuzzy ponytail, and wore absolutely no makeup.

Eventually, as we knew would happen, the sky turned gray and the wind picked up.  Our little friend's mom radioed her that she needed to come home, and we watched her ride her bike safely home while the cool wind sent us rushing back in the house.

I let the kids play/watch electronic devices during the afternoon storms.  Once I finished studying my lesson, I sat on the couch watching Downton Abbey (or as Jared calls it, "my stories") while I alternately browsed Pinterest and read a novel I borrowed electronically from the library.

Something wonderful happened.  Something that hasn't happened in months.  I got the itch to bake just for fun.  This used to be such a regular occurrence.  Then my life got so overwhelmingly full of responsibilities that I didn't have time to do something just because I felt like it.  Plus I was baking for so many other people's events that I didn't ever have the chance to bake just for enjoyment.

It felt weird to think about baking something just for the fun of it.  Where would I start?  What would I make?  I considered making cut-out sugar cookies and trying some new piping techniques for decoration.  However, that would take hours and I wasn't sure how long this urge would stick around before I might scare it off.  So I searched "summer cookies" on Pinterest.  You know--since I was so happy with the summeryness of the day.  I found some fantastic ideas.

I got up off the stories/novel/Pinterest couch and worked on getting dinner in the oven.  It was a recipe I had found in a magazine awhile back that turned out to be a huge hit the first time I made it (about a month ago).  It was a huge hit tonight as well!  Sometimes just not having to fight anyone over eating dinner feels like a huge victory.

If you're curious about the recipe, here it is:

After dinner Jared took the kids to go play on the soggy playground at the nearby school while I got to baking.  I was nearly giddy.

I chose a recipe that was new and summery without being too fussy or time-consuming.  I made Pina Colada Cake Mix Cookies from Eat At Home.  When I made the frosting for the cookies, I chose to make it a bit thin, more like a glaze.  I turned each cooled cookie upside-down and dipped the cookies into the glaze (rather than spreading the frosting on top of each cookie).  It was faster this way, and I liked the effect of the thin coating of pineapple-coconut glaze.

Jared LOVED the cookies and even called them "dangerous."  I liked them and would make them again, but I would probably make a couple tweaks to the recipe to amp up the flavors.  But that didn't stop me from eating more than just one or two.

My kids came home fantastically muddy from playing at the school, and then they all showered and came out soft and tan and smelling good as they told me tales from their adventures with Dad this evening. 

This really has been such a fantastic day.  This, to me, is the quintessential summer day.  Some playfulness, imagination, laziness, inventiveness, productiveness, togetherness, aloneness, eatingness.  Ok, now I'm just making up words, but you get the idea.

Oh, AND I wrote a blog post.  So really this day was unbelievably good!

Jessica

Lately

Sometimes I really don't know how to answer a question like, "What have you been up to lately?"  My brain flashes scenes from my most recent days and tries to sort through the images to figure out what's worth sharing.

Not sure what I mean?

Allow me to share with you some bits from my week so far.  And, yes, it's only Tuesday.

Sunday morning started out as a typical Sunday morning does for us.  Jared and I woke up before the kids and both worked on getting ourselves ready.  Then began the process of ushering the children along from one task to the next to try to get everyone ready for church on time.  Only our "on time" is earlier than other people's because we have to get there early enough to drop off three children, make photocopies of my lesson for my class, and get Jared up to his post running the computer about 15 minutes before church starts.

The church service was great, and I was delighted to chat with church people before and after the first service.  Then I taught my Sunday school class.  We had two visitors, who sat right by me, causing me to temporarily get nervous and flustered.  I think the class went well despite my nervous chatter.

After my class (and the second service) was over, I needed to pick up the boys and wait for Jared.  He teaches the preschool class at church every other month and has been doing it for nearly ten years now.  This is his month to teach, so we had to wait for all of his kids to get picked up before he and Nora could join me and the boys.  We needed to rush home to change clothes and pick up a list of things to take to a family reunion 45 minutes away that started at 1:00.  We pulled out of the church parking lot at 12:17, so we knew we'd be late but that's sooner than we usually get out of church. 

We had no idea what was about to happen.

We drove toward our neighborhood, asking the kids about their classes and filling each other in on our own mornings.  We turned onto our street and got to the stop sign about a block away from our house.  The intersection was blocked off by two police cars.  Then we saw an ambulance.  Then we saw several fire trucks.  They were mostly parked in front of our house.

My stomach lurched as I realized...I think our house burned down while we were at church.

Jared thought quickly and found an alternate route to get to the other end of our street.  We had to park at the end of the street and walk to our house.  In the process of parking and walking, we realized it was actually the house directly across the street from us that had burned while we were at church.

Taken from our garage

Taken from our front porch

Taken while walking back to our car

Taken the next morning after emergency vehicles were gone

Our next door neighbor had seen lights flickering in the main floor windows (possibly flames or possibly electricity flickering) and then saw the garage explode.  He called for help.

The family who lives in this house (including five children) was out of state visiting family, so no one was injured.  Even their dog was safe with a neighbor.

We spoke to our neighbors then to some of the onlookers standing in our yard.  Then we had to rush inside to change and prepare for the reunion, even though I couldn't focus on anything other than the commotion outside.

We rushed to the family reunion and obviously got there late.  We picked through the food that was still left (we were SO hungry!) and tried to relax and enjoy seeing everyone. 

Jared's cousin had a new baby whom we saw for the first time.  Here, she's talking to her grandpa (Jared's uncle), who has battled severe health issues for the last couple years.

We were at a park, so the kids played on the playground equipment.  They also ran to the nearby water tower and struck this pose:

Griffin won the "guess how many candies are in this jar" game, so he got to keep the jar of gumdrops.

Jared's aunt and uncle won a bag of gummy worms and shared them with my kiddos.

After the reunion, we went to Jared's dad's house to swim for a couple hours and eat dinner.  We scarfed down a somewhat rushed dinner, and then Jared and I went to my brother's church for a once-per-year gathering in honor of a ministry run in part by my high school youth pastor and his wife.  We heard an update on the ministry, hugged and chatted with old friends, visited with my brother and his family, and then had to get back to Jared's dad's to get the kids and go home.

We had rushed to church, rushed home, rushed to the reunion, rushed through dinner, rushed to the ministry event, rushed home for a late bedtime.

For those of you who give me a hard time about not attending our church's Sunday night service, please reread this post.  This is my life.

Yesterday (Monday) was a much slower pace but still filled with drama and excitement.  First of all, the church my sister and brother-in-law just left (my brother-in-law was the pastor) basically suffered a split Sunday night.  Yesterday was filled with the fallout from that.

We got to spend the day at my friend Angel's house.  She's not only a close friend of mine, she's also my sister's sister-in-law (their husbands are brothers), so she's family to me too.  Her daughter Sophie is a little older than Nora (she's actually Griffin's age), but the girls love to play together. 

The kids all played together while Angel and I discussed recipes, decorating, etc.  She fed my whole family lunch, and everyone had a fantastic day together.

Oh, and Nolan got stung twice right below his eye by a wasp.  First time any of my kids have been stung.

A little ice and a little time helped the swelling go down. 

The girls wanted to spend the night together, so we took Sophie home with us in the afternoon.  When we got home, I wanted to go check on the garden and found that it was flooded from some rain we got in the morning.

Even though I was ankle-deep in water at times and my flip flops kept getting stuck in the mud, I managed to gather some decent produce for the day.

I incorporated the veggies (not the jalapeno) into side dishes for our dinner.  After dinner the kids played together so well that I was able to work on my current sewing project.  I'm making crib bumpers for one of my college roommates who is 10 weeks away from having her second baby boy.  While I was sewing, I received a text message from my other college roommate saying she's pregnant with their third baby!

The girls were having a pretend tea party that turned into filling the teapot with water and drinking tiny teacups of water.  Griffin joined the party.  Then I made them little tea sandwiches and snacks, and we eventually made hot cocoa with tiny marshmallows.

Nora and Sophie wanted to sleep on Nora's floor, and they built a fort over their sleeping area.  They went to bed very easily and were so cute.

That's two days of my life.  This entire ridiculously long post is just the last two days. 

Someone recently asked me for a favor and said, "Everyone else works, so you're the only one who has the time."

I'm not offended by this comment because I understand what was meant.  Some days I do have schedule flexibility that other people don't have.  Some days I get to choose how our day will be filled.  But then some days we have to be late to everything, think our house burned down, and are slaves to a schedule that doesn't end until about 10:00pm (at which time we begin chores like tidying up the house and folding laundry).

So now if you ask me how I've been lately or what I've been up to, and my eyes glaze over in a blank stare, you'll know why.

Jessica

Zucchini Bites

Last Friday I harvested the first zucchini from my garden!

I wanted to incorporate the zucchini into our dinner that night, so I made Zucchini Bites.  I got the recipe from Stockpiling Moms, but it looks like the recipe may have originated on The Curious Country Cook.

I grated my zucchini (which felt kinda cruel after all that work to grow it) and squeezed out as much moisture as I possibly could.  I used one cup of zucchini to make one batch of Zucchini Bites, and I put the other cup or so of shredded zucchini in my fridge.  It kept beautifully in the fridge and I used it to make another batch of these little guys to go with our dinner last night. 

My kids don't like zucchini (little do they know how much we are going to be eating it...), but they seemed to like these Zucchini bites.  There's only one egg in the whole batch, but Jared said they seemed "quichey."  Apparently that was a good thing because he gobbled them up.  I used Parmesan cheese and Italian breadcrumbs (I didn't have any plain on hand).  These were a hit!

I'm sure we will be trying many, many more zucchini recipes as my garden flourishes!

Jessica

My First Garden

This year I planted my first ever garden!  Didn't the post title sorta give that away?

When we moved into our new house, it already had a garden area marked off in the corner of the back yard.  I've grown tomatoes for a couple of years, so I figured I'd try expanding to other vegetables.

My dad wanted to plant a vegetable garden this year too, so I have really enjoyed talking about it together and having his help as I muddle through this process.  In fact, he's probably the only person who will actually be interested in this blog post, but I'm posting it anyway. :)

I did most of my planting in May, but the soil temperature was too cold for cucumbers, so I had to replant those the day before we left for vacation.  I was super nervous to leave my garden for a whole week.  The day before we left, I spent FOUR HOURS out in my garden getting everything pristine.  I pulled every thing that even thought about being a weed.  I made sure every plant was sufficiently supported and anchored.  I asked our next door neighbors to water the garden for me, and I just assumed I could tackled the weeds myself when I got home.

When we returned home this past Saturday evening, I was anxious to go out back and see how my precious garden was doing.  I was quite surprised by what I found!

My city had received 4 inches of rain during our vacation!  My neighbor took a picture of the garden on his cell phone (and by cell phone, I mean his little flip phone with a tiny screen and no keyboard...it may actually be a Jitterbug).  The garden was completely flooded with water, to the point that only one corner of the wooden border was visible.  If I had been home, I would have PANICKED.  I probably would have run out with a bucket to try to bail out my garden!

The excessive rain had apparently kept the weeds at bay because there were very few.  All of the plants had grown so much just in one week's time.  My newly planted cucumbers were sprouting, but not all of them are coming up.  I don't think they like that much water.

I went out on Father's Day (our first full day back home) and took some pictures of the garden.  I'm that nerdy and excited about my garden that I've been documenting it by photos.  Laugh if you want; I'm gonna have homegrown veggies.  It's time to prove that I can keep something other than children alive.

So, here are pictures of my blossoming garden!

The whole garden in the corner of our back yard

I'll start at the back of the garden and work my way forward.

The back row is sugar snap peas.  They are growing up a couple of metal trellises.

They grow so quickly.  The top of each plant sort of unfolds a bundle of leaves and long grabby things (technical term, anyone?).

The little grabby things will wrap around anything they touch.  Often times the pea plants end up wrapping around each other.

What they are supposed to do is wrap around the trellis for support.

So far the peas just keep growing and climbing, and I haven't seen any signs of actual pea pods.  I did notice these little buds on one plant that I'm hoping may become pea pods?

In front of the peas, I planted three zucchini plants.  Only two came up, and one is gigantic while the other one seems to be lagging behind.  Also, I ordered zucchini seeds but the packet that arrived said Summer Squash.  I believe zucchini are a specific type of summer squash, but I may have that wrong.  In the meantime, I'm never quite sure if I should refer to these two plants as squash or zucchini.

The plant in the picture above is the giant squash plant.  The other one just looks like a smaller version, and it doesn't have any blossoms yet.

This one has one more mature blossom:

I didn't notice this when I was outside taking pictures, but when I looked at the pictures on my computer, I saw that under the blossom is an actual zucchini!  How exciting is that?!

There's also another newer blossom:

And several little buds:

The other side of the squash row contains two smaller rows of garlic.  This wasn't in my original plan (mostly because I didn't know you could plant garlic), but my dad gave me his leftover garlic after he was done planting.  I figured it could have a place in my garden, too.

Two of them are Elephant Garlic.  The size gives you a clue about the name.

The others are different varieties of regular garlic.

I'm trusting my dad to walk me through how to harvest and prepare the garlic because I have no clue.

I planted a row and a half of carrots.  Ah, my poor little carrots.  Not too many of them came up.  My garden is FULL of rocks, and I spent days trying to clean out all the rocks, paying special attention to the areas where the carrots would be planted.  Alas, we will not be Bugs Bunny's food supply any time soon.

The next row of the garden starts with two unidentified bean plants.  Griffin planted these seeds in his class at school, and we got to bring them home on the school open house night.  I was happy to make room for them in my garden but didn't have a clue what they were!

First they grew little flowers that reminded me of Snapdragons (which make me very happy).

After vacation we discovered...beans!

Do we all agree that they look like green beans?  Do we think they are ready to pick and eat?

Next to the beans I planted two jalapeno plants and two plants of Hungarian Wax Hot Peppers.

First, the jalapenos:

They're not doing much yet other than growing little buds and flowers.

The Hungarian Wax peppers, however, gave me quite a thrill because there was a whole pepper when we came home from vacation.  It was the first actual food I saw growing in my garden.

Now I have to figure out how long to let that pepper grow before I pick it.

The other Hungarian pepper plant has little buds and tiny peppers starting to grow.

At the front of the garden I have planted four tomato plants of various varieties.

Two of the tomato plants have little yellow flowers.

And finally, we have the new cucumber plants.  I planted four mounds of cucumbers, with 4 seeds in each mound.  One mound is showing nuttin'.  Here are the other three.

I'm hoping these little brand new plants will thrive so we can have fresh cucumbers and make our own pickles!

I can't wait to have actual vegetables!  This will end my life-long streak of killing all plants!

Jessica

P.S.  New garden + new camera = I'm one happy girl!