Kid Camping

During Easter break, I wanted to give the kids the opportunity to plan a camping trip on their own.  They planned the meals and packed it all.  They made the list themselves and they did pretty good.  There were a few important things I grabbed at the last minute, but it is amazing how little we really need when we camp.  Though, we only went for one night, which is a lot different than 6 nights!  We were the only ones there, though one couple came late at night, and left early. We arrived on a Thursday.  Oh, and we only had to travel 15 minutes to the campground :)

Oasis in the brown, dry grass:

Putting up the tent.  We discovered that one of the poles was broken, so one side was limp:

Chopping kindling:

Our own private beach.  But don't worry, they were only allowed to put their feet in if they sat on the shore.

We even made a fire, the first time without The Daddy!

cough, cough:

Finally, dinner over an open fire!

 

Now that's a fire! At least for a little while:

Water girl:

Working together:

Hanging out:

Our Garden is in!

A few weeks ago, I read Square Foot Gardening.  We have a raised bed at the back of our yard, and needed to replace much of the dirt.  I tried to shovel it out, but it was very hard.  Our friends loaned us their electric rototiller and that was such a big help!  Then we carted out several wheel barrels full, and dispersed it around the other garden areas.  We didn't take out 6" like I'd hoped, but quite a bit.  So, on Friday, we ordered some good (hopefully!) soil and they delivered it just a couple of hours later, on our driveway!

 Getting ready:

 

 

The dirt arrives (above)

Then my boys hauled it to the backyard:

(yes, they need haircuts.  tomorrow!)

And then we planted!

Tomatoes:

 

Peppers:

We also planted lettuce seedlings, but the record high temps killed it right away.  Also, we are having trouble with bugs eating the leaves. We did all of this on Friday.  Can't wait to have our own yummy tomatoes. Oh, and we didn't really do Square Foot Gardening afterall.  Our area is so small, we just did rows.  In the corner area, I did plant green beans and radishes in squares, so we will see.  But what I did learn is that new soil is important and will hopefully cut down on the weeds.  And that we don't need to space things so far apart.  Again, we will see how that goes.

 

New Trees!

We already bought two fruit trees to fill in for the one we took out.  We plan to take out the other berry tree for one more fruit tree in the backyard.  I was gone when they planted the trees, so I didn't get any pics of that, but here are our two newest little babies:

Nectarine

Santa Rosa Plum:

There is a little fruit on both of them!

Next, prepare the soil for our veggie garden!

They cut down the tree!

We have four of these trees, I couldn't find the name of them.  I thought they were Chinese Cherry trees, but that is not what I see when I search it online.  They have these little purple berries that make a mess on my sidewalks, and sometimes, in my house!  So we decided to replace two of them with fruit trees.  Here is a picture of the other one we will cut down:

Here are their berries:

I do not want to cut them all down because I love to watch the Cedar Waxwings flying in and eating them.  They are the cutest birds:

The same kind of bird that flew into our front window earlier this year:

I don't like the mess they make after they eat, though!

Bye bye, tree:

After the shovel handle broke, (thankfully, no one got hurt!) the tree trunk was loose enough, and Dad was able to push it sideways, with the help of my "Lizard" and it came out!

We will put a peach tree here, or some other fruit tree.  I can now see how much shade that little tree was giving us on our back porch!

Finished Quilt!

This counts as my learn something new #5!  (Since I am not posting these right away, and sometimes there will be more than one a week, I am just going to number them.  But I will still try for every week)

This was my first time sewing on the border by machine.  My good friend L showed me how.  That is her lovely hand in the picture :)  I had to cut 2.25" strips, sew them diagonaly, which was harder than it sounds, then fold in half and iron.  Then I sewed the whole thing to the front edge of the quilt, but to all 3 layers.  

Here, she is showing me how to sew the ends together once it was all sewn to the quilt.  This was tricky! But we did it!

I didn't get any pics of me hand sewing the border to the back.  Here is the finished border, folded over to see both sides of the quilt:

I finished the border in just a few days. I was able to finish in time to put it on my sleeping Zebra on the eve of his 11th bday.  My daughter calls me the Quilt Fairy :)

National Atheist's Day

April 1

  National Atheist's Day

April Fool's Day

The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God".

Psalm 53:1

11 Years Old!

My middle son turned 11 yesterday!  My Zebra guy.  The middle child of 5.  The middle of 3 boys.  How many people can say that they have one older brother and one younger brother, and one older sister and one younger sister?  :)

Here are some pics through the years: 

4 months

1 year

 

3 years

5 years

7 years

9 years

11 years