Saturday, June 19, 2010

Garden Progress

I just wanted to update our vegetable garden progress...

Mia was thrilled to discover 2 small tomatoes on our tomato plant These cucumbers seem to be growing SLOWLY, but they are getting slightly bigger
These were the zucchini plants the first day we put them in (5-27)
And how they look today about 3 weeks later (6-18)
I have started to tie these to the trellis in hopes of encouraging them to vine up.
Mia and I dug out the old beans since they were just stems with no leaves and replanted. I plan on enclosing them in chicken wire once they start growing in again.
No carrots popping out yet! Where are they???
Pumpkin starting to look slightly more hearty

Happy 60th Birthday Mom!

On June 16th my mom turned the big 6-0. We put together a slideshow to help her take a trip down memory lane. I was waiting to share this until she saw it at her surprise party yesterday. :) I also have pictures to share but that will come in another post. Until then, check out the slideshow here...



Happy Birthday Mom! We love you!

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Cavalcade of Planes 2010

A couple of weekends ago we hit up Bolingbrook's annual Cavalcade of Planes at Clow Airport.    You can see pics from our previous visits back in 2008 and 2009.   My mom joined us and as always, it was a great time with lots to see and do.

Right after getting there, we saw parachuters jump from a plane
Cort, my mom and the kids
One of the many planes taking off that day
Mia testing out one of the planes
Cole's turn
Sitting in the back of a helicopter
Cole was having a blast!
Mia copiloting the helicopter
Cole peering out at Cort
Cort and Cole
Mia and "Coastie"
Cole was not a huge fan of Snoopy. Disney should be interesting. :)
Mia liked him though
Family picture
Plane taking off
One of the things I love about the Cavalcade is we always run into lots people we know.  I didn't grab pics with everyone, but here are a couple..

Mia and Ava
Mia and Payton
Mia running around "dancing"

They had a little station set up where they were taking pics of the kids in one of the planes and you could pick up the pictures later.  I absolutely LOVE this one of Cole. He just looks like such a little man here and looks so happy to be in the plane. :)
And Mia's...

See you there next year! :)

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Visit to Blackberry Farm

Today Cort and I packed up the kids, dropped Mia off at summer camp (for her 1st day of swimming-fun!) and took Cole to Blackberry Farm.  Blackberry Farm is a little pioneer village with a lot of fun things to do including a train, a tractor/wagon ride, a carousel and pony rides.  We had went with Cole last year, but he was still pretty young to enjoy it.  This year he LOVED it.  We did a steady rotation of the train, carousel, pony, and wagon ride with the farm animals and corn table thrown in.  I think the chance of rain kept a lot of people away, so we had the place to ourselves and didn't have to wait for anything.  I am loving summer!

On the train

Cole really loved the carousel

Riding his pony "Misty"
Petting Misty
Back on the train
With Daddy
Cracking up
Cole thought it was hysterical going through the dark tunnel.  I pointed my camera toward him while we were in there and died laughing when I saw this picture :)  I think it is hysterical he was sitting there with a big grin on his face in the dark. :)
Right after we got out of the tunnel signing "more"
Back on the carousel
Love the seriousness of this one
But not for long...
Mommy and Cole
Visiting the goats
This duck came running over to me, I think he thought I had food for him
I think I have decided to fill our water table with feed corn.  I think Cole would have stayed at this table all day if we let him. 
Cole has still not transitioned fully to just one nap a day, so he starts to get tired mid-morning.  When he gets tired he rubs his hair and sucks his thumb-so cute!
Back on Misty

Monday, June 14, 2010

Our Vegetable Garden

The last summer or two I have wanted to plant some vegetables, but it just never happened.  This year Mia has been VERY interested in flowers and anything that grows in general.  This was the motivation I needed to get something planted.  First though I needed to figure out where we were going to do it.  I am not known for my green thumb, so I wasn't really feeling like digging up a portion of my lawn.  The left side of our house has been a sore spot for awhile.  We had some bushes there that had been fried by the sun and we had recently dug them out.  There was a huge bed there that was nothing but dried, cracked dirt and was a bit of an eyesore.  I decided that would be our new vegetable garden. :) 

Between battling the business of summer and the rain we have had, the garden has progressed in steps.  We finally now have everything in.  Here are some pics of our progress...

5.27.10--Planting of Zucchini and Cucumbers

Mia with the zucchini plants
Look at that lovely dried out dirt :)
Mia has been very interested in worms lately (which is an improvement upon her being terrified when they were all over the driveway after a rain). Here she is with one of her "worm friends" on her shovel.
Zucchini and cucumber plants in
Tiny cucumber plants
Tiny zucchini plants

6.5.10--Adding the trellis for the zucchini, bean tower for the beans, and planting the beans

Because this area is small, doesn't have a lot of space and I wanted to plant a couple of different things, I decided to try and vine both the zucchini and cucumbers.  I had found several links online when I had googled it where people had successfully grown their veggies on a trellis, so we will see! 

A look at the whole garden-thanks to Cort for edging it too!
The trellis for the zucchini (which are growing well), still need to get one for the cucumbers
Our tomato plant
(Bush Early Girl for a certain someone who is ready to see things grow NOW)
Bean tower for the Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans

6.11.10--Garden Complete!

We added in a trellis for the cucumbers as well as adding some mushroom compost to keep the dirt from drying out so easily.   The beans have been sprouting up like crazy.

Zucchini plants growing larger, I added some cable ties to start guiding them toward the trellis
Tomato plant with 2 flowers on it (hard to see)
Cucumber plants are growing slowly, but making some progress
Beans! 
Sadly as I write this, they no longer look like this as some creature made his way in and ate the leaves off of all the stems.  I am a little perplexed about what it might be as I am pretty sure there is no way a bunny could have gotten in since it is locked down like Fort Knox.  :)  Maybe birds or chipmunks?  I told Mia we would replant and try to put something else more secure around them or on top like chicken wire.
We also put in some carrot seeds and a pumpkin plant.  We did this last minute as my sister's husband Mike was nice and had come and put in some plants for us which the bunnies promptly ate up, so we had an empty space again.  :(  There are some bulbs there though that should come up next year.  I will probably need to fence at least the carrots once they start coming up.

I am so glad we decided to do this. Mia has had so much fun helping me out wearing her princess garden gloves.  :)  Cole and Cort have had lots of daddy-son bonding time as they bike around the neighborhood and go to the park as we work on the garden.  Both of the kids love to check the garden each day to see the progress.  I just hope we are able to grow SOMETHING this summer and we can battle all the creatures living in our yard. :)  I will continue to update as the summer goes on.