Turning Over a New Leaf*

{*I know, I know, but I couldn’t resist the pun.}

When we bought our house way back when I had dreams of tending a bountiful garden but except for a few half-hearted attempts at growing tomatoes I never really did anything. But this summer is going to be different! This time around I’m not going to give up and let the weeds overtake everything. Serious Faith is serious! and all that.

So I planted this pot of herbs for our patio. It has rosemary, mint, purple and sweet basil, oregano, and cilantro in it. In the past I’ve had horrible luck growing cilantro and rosemary so we’ll see how they do this time.

In our garden plot I put in some strawberries, onions (Walla Walla and scallions), tomatoes, cauliflower (I was curious to see what it looked like as it grows), zucchini, beets, spinach, and two lettuce mixes. I’m especially excited about homegrown tomatoes; they taste so much better than the store-bought ones.

Did you know that tomato cages come in fun colors? They cost a bit more than the normal ones but they were so cheery that I couldn’t resist.

I’m pretty sure that being so stylish is going to help my tomatoes taste extra delicious. 🙂

Letter to Mimi: Month Four

Dear Mimi,

You’re a lot more coordinated with your hands now and like reaching for toys and cramming them in your mouth. You have a little squeaky giraffe toy and until recently you seemed fairly indifferent to it. But now you like to clutch it when you’re in your car seat and chew on its ears.

You seem so eager to move around on your own. Instead of chilling in your swing you now prefer wiggling around on your play mat. You like grabbing your feet and rocking back and forth and seem to be this close to rolling over.

You continue to be entranced by your big brother. You love watching E bop around and he loves goofing off to make you laugh. You are such a happy baby and bring so much joy into our house.

It’s hard to believe you’re only four months old; it seems like you’ve always been a part of our family. We love having you here and hearing your sweet laugh.

Love,

Mama

Sneaky Cupcakes

So this is what I’ve been up to lately:

My friend Stephanie and I held a baby shower for one of our neighbors on Thursday which kept me pretty busy this week.

It seemed cruel to bake five dozen mini cupcakes if E (and I) couldn’t eat any of them so I made these dairy-and-egg-free chocolate cupcakes. I was a little worried that people might taste the difference but they went pretty quickly and a few people without any dietary restrictions (“Normies,” we call them) even asked for the recipe.

So, success!

Hooray For Tuesday!

I can’t remember the last time I was this happy to see a holiday weekend end. N has been out of town at a music festival since Friday but is coming home tonight. I originally had all sorts of grand plans for when he was out of town: the main thing I wanted to work on was piecing my rainbow quilt. But I came down with the bug that E’s been fighting for almost two weeks and consequently got nothing done. Instead I moped around the house in a fog and went to bed early every night.

I did get to see a few friends but other than that we just stayed home. With E being cranky and me not feeling well there were more times than I care to admit when my patience wore thin. But happily there were some lovely moments too. Exhibit A:

Anyway, we are all really looking forward to having N home tonight. E cried and cried when we dropped N off at the airport and has asked when his dad is coming home every day. I’ve really missed spending time with N and chatting with him about our days every evening.

Grand Plans: Rainbow Zigzag Quilt

I’ve given in–I’m going to try quilting! I’ve been collecting pictures of quilts I like over on Pinterest and I’ve decided to make a zigzag quilt using this tutorial from A Quilt Is Nice (which is a great blog by the way).

Photo from A Quilt Is Nice

Nettie has made a couple rainbow quilts lately that I’ve really liked and I think this zigzag pattern would look great in a rainbow palette. So I went shopping with my friend Stephanie and picked out a rainbow of fabrics which was really fun.

I’m still not sure about the orange on the right but we’ll see. The bottom fabric is for the binding around the edge of the quilt.

Now the question is which pattern should I use? I have two fabrics in each color–should I repeat through the rainbow twice or should I arrange the colors in a mirror image?



Hmm…my first instinct was to go with A, but B is growing on me and N says he prefers that one. It’s too bad Mimi is too young to tell us which one she prefers since this is going to be her blanket. 🙂

How about you–which do you prefer? Weigh in on the debate of the century!

***Update: See my finished quilt here!***

Garage Sale Finds

Mimi and I hit up some garage sales on Saturday morning and scored a couple of great deals. First off is this Pottery Barn kids crib set:

Isn’t it cute? It’s well made and in great shape. The bumpers were marked at $15, the crib skirt at $6 and the sheets were $1 each but while I was looking at them I overheard the owner tell her friend that they better start slashing prices. I asked her about the price of the set and she told me to make her an offer so I asked if she’d take $15 for the lot and she said yes. (I just checked and Pottery Barn sells these sets for about $170 new–score!) I especially like the embroidered accents on the skirt and bumpers.

The other thing I bought was this bolt of designer fabric.

I read a local interior designer’s blog and when I saw that she was having a tag sale on Saturday I wanted to check it out. It took Mimi and I longer than I wanted to get out of the house (as usual) and so when I arrived the sale was already pretty picked over. But then I saw this bolt of fabric and it felt like it had been set aside just for me. The colors are exactly what I was trying to find for a window treatment in our living room. There are 7 yards of fabric and I paid $30 total for it. So it wasn’t dirt cheap but it was still a good deal.

Now the big question is what type of window treatment should I do? Curtains? Valances? I really have no idea.


What do you think would look best?

Tracy Aviary

Thank you for all the supportive comments here and on Facebook! You guys are seriously the best. I’m out of my slump and feeling more upbeat about the whole food-allergy thing.

I wanted to post these pictures from when I took the kids to the Tracy Aviary a couple of weeks ago. We went with N’s sister Miranda and my cousin Youngshin and her daughter who are visiting from Korea.

The highlight of the visit was feeding the conures. You can buy tickets ($3) and go right into the birds’ cage and feed them apples from your hand.

E was very excited about the prospect of feeding the birds but, predictably, once we were inside it was a little much for him.

The aviary was doing a lot of construction when we were there in preparation for the summer crowds which was a bit of a hassle to deal with. But all of the exhibits were open and it was nice seeing the birds. Hand-feeding the conures was definitely my favorite part. If you want to feed the birds you need to purchase tickets at the front gate when you come in.

Speaking of Food Allergies…

Even though E has tested negative for it up until now, it turns out that he is also allergic to shrimp. We found this out when we um, had shrimp for dinner last night. He threw up several times and got hives but after some Benadryl his reaction calmed down.

Finding out that he has another food allergy in addition to milk, eggs, peanuts, and nuts hit me kind of hard. Not because a shrimp allergy is especially difficult to manage (it’s a cake walk compared to milk and eggs) but because it made me despair that E’s food allergies are ever going to be getter. It seems like the odds of him outgrowing them are getting worse and worse.

I try to keep things in perspective–I’ll take food allergies over the host of ailments other kids and families struggle with (bone cancer anyone?), but I have to admit that despite all that sometimes I get a bit discouraged.