On the Fourth

I hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July.  We had a packed day!  Ada and I left the house super early (as in 6 am early) with my sister to go pick strawberries.

Ada was awesome.  She helped me put berries in the tray, picked a bunch on her own (ripe ones!), walked up and down the rows while we continued picking, and only ate 2 strawberries before we paid.  Not bad for a two-year old.

With my sister's help I ended up with around 15 pounds or so of berries.  The season's canning and freezing has begun!

Then we had family over for lunch and general hanging out.

This girl SO loves watermelon.  Pretty sure she ate at least 5 slices.

 After lunch the kids ran through the sprinkler.

Ada liked the sparklers last year, but this year did not like the fireworks in the yard as they are "too loud".  To cap off the afternoon we had root beer floats.  Ada was not interested in the root beer, but demanded to have her ice cream in a cup like everyone else. :)

Hoping to get my pics from Vegas up soon...

Wow

I'm in Las Vegas. All week.

You might be thinking this is going to be a post on all the great sights I'm seeing. Sorry, I'll write that post when I get home.

For now, my thoughts are too jumbled, my brain overloaded. I'm here for work, and the days are intense. I thought I'd spend time in my room each night having some alone time, reading or sewing. Instead I've been staying up way too late essentially doing nothing. Tonight I realized that's because there are so many things I'm thinking about related to work that I just need a lot of time to decompress at night. I really hope my brain is up to the task of staying focused for another nine hours tomorrow.

I brought along a new sewing book to read on the trip. I finally cracked open the cover tonight as a bit of escape from thinking about work. First page, second paragraph, I read the following: "Sewing can be such a balm for the busy soul, as long as you take the time to enjoy the process of creating and don't rush yourself to quickly churn out finished products." I had to stop reading right there. Too close to so many other thoughts that have been churning in my mind recently. Guess it will just have to wait until I'm back home and can re-focus.

For now I think I'll veg out in front of the tv, and then actually try to get eight hours of sleep.

IT'S HERE!!!!

My birthday present is finally here!

Good thing there are leftovers in the fridge, cuz ya know what I'll be doing tonight instead of cooking dinner...

Around the Web

It's cold and rainy today and we're all a bit under the weather.  So we've been sitting inside reading, watching movies, and snacking (some of us still in our pj's...).  Thought I'd take a break and share a few things I've been checking out online this week.

Favorite blog post of the week: Posie Gets Cozy's Man Sampler

Ali Edwards' newest Memory Keeping Q&A series

Sneak peek of Studio Calico's June kits

If you're looking for some quilting inspiration, check out the Bloggers' Quilt Festival, going on through the 20th.

And last but not least, people healthier and far more productive than I've been this week have been sewing awesome clothing for their children as part of the Kids Clothes Week Challenge.  One of these rounds I swear I'm going to participate...

What have you been checking out online recently?

A Good Birthday

Sunday was a big day, with three celebrations - Mother's Day, and birthdays for me and my sweet girl.

She was super excited to open her presents:

The things on sticks include a broom and rake for using outside.  She's been really into "dusting" the garage floor just lately.

Her big present was a kitchen.  The kitchen at daycare is a favorite so she was pretty excited about having one of her own.

She did a great job helping Papa put the kitchen together while I made some blueberry pancakes for brunch.

Normally she loves pancakes, but ended up being too excited to actually eat much. :)

She spent most of the day playing with her new kitchen - baking cookies, making soup, and of course making sure to give lots of helpings of each to Mama and Papa.  She even washed the dishes. :)

We also Skyped with Gramma and Grandpa so they could see Ada open her presents from them.

A new dress Gramma made her; perfect for the 4th of July.

And this sweet backpack.  She totally knew what a backpack was and put it on right away.  Looking all grown-up, she headed for the door and told me, "Gotta go now.  Gotta go to school." Woah. Totally not ready for that and nearly brought tears to my eyes.  Please don't grow up quite yet sweet girl.

To top off the day, we blew her mind by introducing her to ice cream cake.  She couldn't wait to eat cake, and she's definitely inherited Mama's love of ice cream.  It was perfect; she loved it.

Don't worry; I had a good time too. :)

Ready

All ready for the big day.

She has no idea there are presents coming; all she's requested is that we eat cake.  Don't worry sweet girl, there will be cake.

Waiting...

Yup, waited until the last minute to make my list online for tomorrow's plant sale and it is taking FOREVER for each page to load on the website.

So, to make the most of loading time, I'll share some pics of what's already coming up in the garden outside.

Two nights ago my dad and brother came over to till one of the gardens that was mostly ignored last year; I try to only till when creating a new garden space, but this was the best option for reclaiming the space for this year as I'd rather get it planted and mulched instead of spending all my time clearing it by hand.

While they were busy with the tilling I took some (rather terrible) pictures of what's coming up in the other "vegetable" gardens.  It was a little too close to sunset, so I apologize that most of these are a bit blurry.

One of my mums.

Dianthus (pinks)

Green onions; whatever doesn't get picked comes back the next year.

And when I was down on hands and knees transplanting some borage seedlings from the other garden, I looked over and noticed HUNDREDS of little green onions coming up - some of the green onions above went to seed last year and voila, a whole new patch of onions magically appears.  Love that.  So excited about this since I have a terrible time getting green onions to sprout.  My absolute favorite part of spring is discovering which plants successfully reseeded themselves the previous year.  Less work for the gardener, and the plants always do well.

Some of the transplanted Borage; best to do early on before there are too many roots as Borage doesn't like being transplanted.

Lemon Balm; I didn't think this would come back, so it was a welcome discovery.

Yellow Wonder Alpine Strawberry; planted some of these last year so haven't actually had the chance to eat one yet..I can't wait!!

And another gamble; my sorrel came back.  Behind it is a type of walking onion; also newly planted last year so I'm excited to see how well they reproduce this summer...

Yarrow; this is just a small chunk of a patch that's been going strong for the last few years; starting to see little seedlings coming up everywhere so may need to do some "weeding" this year.

Beets!  Planted a few weeks back right before it started snowing again.

And peas, planted at the same time.  I didn't get any peas planted last year; can't wait to show Ada how to pick these and then eat them fresh in the garden with her.

A few of my irises; descended from a large patch my great-grandma had in front of her house, with some additional varieties mixed in from my mom.

I'll also have to get some pics of the 3(!) parsley plants that are already up and growing.

Okay, finally done with the plant list and it's off to bed so that I actually wake up when the alarm goes off at 5am tomorrow.