Boys Will Be Boys

Posts Tagged ‘patrick’

Patrick flies home this evening from Houston and then we hit the ground running with lots of stuff going on this weekend!  It’s been a crazy week!  One of the most annoying comments is about how we “did it or made it through the week” as opposed to the house burning down and all of us losing our minds or something.  Of course we made it, I  can more than handle the kids & house..even if I whine about it a bit!  The hard part is honestly getting in this groove of a new schedule & routine when I’m used to having my loving “partner” there to help me out.  I was telling him last night that there’s something about even having that extra set of eyes and ears that puts you a little more at ease and not so on edge about the chaos going on.   I also admit to being completely spoiled by a loving husband and great father to our kids who does help out with not only the kids:  watching them so I can shower, watching Merrick so I don’t have to take both Merrick & Braysen to swim lessons, getting the boys to/from daycare on days I have class, among other things.   But, he also does some of the cleaning:  aka trash and dishwasher emptying and he likes to vacuum haha.  Some of those things I just listed are really big things when you are the only one around to do them! hehe

Anyhow off to our busy weekend!  Saturday is full with a visit to Great Harvest Bread for their anniv. weekend specials.  How could we miss double bread card punches, free coffee, cookies for the kids and balloons at our fave bread place?

Then we have the UFO Festival Parade in downtown McMinnville.  Did you know that it’s the 2nd largest festival of its kind, only to Roswell, New Mexico’s?   It’s probably one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen to be honest.  It brings out the crazy’s and makes for great people watching!

Lastly we have a birthday party at Scotty’s Playhouse for Austyn (a neighbor’s girl).  One of the sweetest things she does is asking guests to bring donated items for C.A.T. (Cat Adoption Team) instead of gifts.  We adopted our Stormy kitten from them thanks to finding out about the organization from Tracy & Austyn.  I was so impressed by C.A.T. and I highly recommend that if you are looking to adopt a kitten in Oregon to check them out!

Somewhere between all of that and on Sunday we need to get our garden planted.  We have the tilling to do, since I pulled the weeds last weekend!  Then we need to get the compost in there to fill it up more.  Time to stink up the car again I think!  Sometime in the midst of that I need to get out and buy the veggies + last few herbs to fill it up.  I’m hoping my green thumb pays off!

I’ve gone OCD with this garden stuff and made up a spreadsheet plotting out the lay of the land shall we say.  It has the various beds dimensions and what I have planted.  The main vegetable garden is the one I need to plot out currently.   The spreadsheet isn’t true to where the beds are laid out in the backyard but more so just the shape and order of how I plant in them.  I just want to be able to look at this to tell where things are.  In part because next year when I’m planting again I can make sure I rotate crops in the right places. I’ll be adding notes to the spreadsheet through the season as to what’s growing well, bugs we have & treatments, fertilizing and dates when we see them producing..basically a garden journal of sorts.

I am also looking at companion plant lists to see which veggies like to be next to each other, which herbs or plants to grow next to them to keep the bugs away etc.   So much to learn!  Thankfully the Vegetable Garden Bible book I was recommended has been a great resource and then of course I have the internet with it’s endless amounts of information!  I’ve really gone with the square foot gardening idea because we don’t have huge plots and I think with the size of our cedar beds it will work the best.

Here’s the spreadsheet on google docs:  Garden 2010 I’ll be updating it as I go ..or that’s the idea!

One last thing~ I’ve been meaning to get new pictures up on Flickr.  I posted some facebook but I need to get my flickr galleries all updated.  I am on a picture taking frenzy again now that I have this new camera.  I’ll post about it later but my Canon Rebel T1i came last week and I’m in love..if it’s possible to love a camera that is!

Patrick “cracking out” on his game and Braysen playing a game on my computer…kids and their games! (both the big kid and the little one!)

Spring is supposed to mean sun and um planting and flowers and ….cold, icky, winter like rain?

I know I shouldn’t complain about our weather because it’s been a wonderful mild Oregon winter BUT we were getting used to the sun and beautiful weather then BAM here comes the cold wintery rain.  We are talking rain that comes down sideways and then pelts you like ice hitting your legs brrrrrr.

I just want it to warm up some so I can finally work on the gardens and get them ready for planting.  We are adding another garden bed to the backyard and it’s going to be our early season bed because our other cedar bed doesn’t get the full sun we need for early veggies.  But we need to get some decent weather to get back there and cut back the weed fabric and build up the bed a bit with some more soil, plus we need to add more soil to the cedar bed & my herb garden bed.  Oh the dreams of fresh veggies…if this cold snap would go away and let me get to work!

Besides the thoughts of Spring and gardens, we are in the midst of our birthday season.  Braysen’s was March 23rd and he’s now 4!  Hard to believe that 4 years has gone by so quickly.  It’s one of those things people always says “the time goes by fast when you have kids, enjoy every moment.”  Understatement I say, time seriously FLIES!

We have this digital photo frame up on the counter and it cycles through all these cute baby pics of the boys, even their ultrasound pics and I can’t figure out where time went that I now have a daredevil toddler on my hands and a smart funny preschooler entertaining us.

I need to start planning Merrick’s 2nd birthday party.  We are keeping the parties small this year, family & friends really.  It takes away some of that chaos that comes when I plan these huge party blowouts haha.  I just can’t seem to 1/2 ass it.  I just like to throw parties and I spend hours looking at decorations, finding the right theme, deciding on food …I just can’t help it!  I’m a planner!  It’s in my nature.

We just had a nice Easter, despite Merrick throwing up all over me on the day of our neighborhood egg hunt.  I still took Braysen out but Merrick had to miss out on the festivities. It’s funny how you get puked up on when you have kids and you just take the shirt off, put on a new one, grab a steam cleaner and then go about your day until you have to rinse/repeat hehe.  I am always the one thrown up on though, it’s a mom thing I guess!

Luckily Merrick was over his little tummy bug and we had the in-laws over for a wonderful yummy Easter brunch.  I made this sausage egg breakfast quiche, a yogurt & fruit salad and then I made some yummy donut recipe for dessert.  Hank and Pat brought over the ham (which we are still eating haha)  and they picked up our “honey bunny” from our fave bakery (Great Harvest Bread).  The honey bunny bread is becoming a yearly thing for us to get since it’s so cute, shaped like a bunny and perfect for Easter brunch.   The boys of course got some fun stuff from the Easter Bunny in their baskets.

This weekend is full – a birthday party for our neighbors little girl and then we are having friends over that evening for dinner.  Sunday – the boys are being watched so we can head out to look at new couches and redeem my Gymbucks. Hopefully the pickings aren’t too slim for clothes..they both need summer clothes like no other!!!

Well ~ I probably should be productive so I’ll try to post again soon.  I find our schedule to completely exhaust me lately.  Patrick let me take a nap yesterday afternoon, bless his heart.  I slept for like 2 hours or  so and still felt tired.  I’ve just been drained and running out of steam with all that comes with our crazy family schedule!

*I really need to figure out what I did to make my paragraph spacing so close together, it’s driving me nuts!!!*