Bring on the twos

It's unbelievable that another year has passed us by! Two years ago today I gave birth to my second daughter, Charlotte Grace. This baby girl changed my life more than anything else I had yet experienced. Life with Charlotte that first year was full of ups and downs that drove me crazy, made me weep, and taught me to count my blessings. The second year of my sweet girls life has been pure joy for me. She is loving, giving, creative, compassionate, polite, hysterical and oh so much more. I laugh every single day....even when she's driving me crazy, she is precious! Everyone who has ever met Charlotte (even strangers) has told me how great she is, how smart she is, how funny she is and I wholeheartedly agree! You've never met a character quite like Charlotte.

It's amazing how much kids learn in such a short period of time. Charlotte started talking at 15 months and I haven't had any quiet since then. :o) She talks in complete sentences often times using 7-10 words. She is not shy about making her opinion known! She can count to 10, knows a few words in Spanish and can draw really good circles. She has an amazing imagination and comes up with the funniest things. She loves baby dolls, but prefers the real thing, she loves dressing up and can now get herself dressed and she adores shoes. Boots, sandals, heels, slippers.....doesn't really matter what kind, this girl changes her shoes all day long! Charlotte loves other kids and can not wait to start preschool, but her most favorite person in the world is her sister Maddie. I am very blessed to have two children who love each other and play well together!

Favorite food: bananas & popsicles
Favorite toy: dolls & her new umbrella
Favorite color: pink, but mostly because it's Maddie's fav
Favorite lovie: stuffed Elmo and her paci
Favorite inside activity: painting & reading
Favorite outside activity: Water!! & riding bikes
Favorite show: Caillou
Favorite cartoon character: Dora & Elmo
Favorite word: Okay
Favorite animal: cow
Favorite place: the park or grandma's house
Favorite song: twinkle twinkle little star & put a ring on it :o)

I love this child more than words can convey, so I'm not even going to attempt it. I look forward to watching her grow into the girl and woman that God has planned for her to be. I know that come October our lives will change yet again, but I also know that Charlotte will prosper through it all.....she does love her a baby! Happy birthday to my sweet, beautiful and stubborn Charlotte. Hopefully the third year will be as fantastic as the second! Cheers.

Strawberries for a gloomy day

It's been raining all day today....thank the Lord!! We so need the rain, and every time it rains is one less time I have to water the garden, so basically I win! We woke up this morning to the power going out which is pretty inconvenient on a rainy and dark day. So I packed the girls up and we went out to breakfast and then played at Monkey Joe's. Maddie and Charlotte love the big inflatable bounce houses and slides, but I usually end up stressed out chasing after them and worrying about their safety. Awesome treat for them, ulcer for me. We all came home and took a 2 hour nap! The power is back on and while the girls watched some Sesame Street I was able to get some photo editing done and decided what better day to share a lovely afternoon of strawberry picking with you! I would not give up this rainy day for a sunny strawberry picking day, but it's nice to look at the pictures and remember the feel of the sun on our shoulders and the sweet taste of fresh strawberries. I have to say that strawberry picking is one of those things that signify a change in season to me, and just like Hill Ridge's pumpkin farm in fall, strawberry picking will be part of the tapestry of our family traditions......something that is to be counted on and remembered.

My beautiful Maddie & one of Charlotte's many weird faces

Waiting

You will notice a theme of Charlotte eating strawberries

Maddie is so serious when she has a task
She didn't eat one single strawberry until she had filled her basket

Charlotte on the other hand......

The face and shirt just gets dirtier and dirtier

FINALLY she eats one!

And you can't pick strawberries and not have ice cream afterward!
Another one of C's lovely and photogenic faces!

I couldn't resist :o)

The great headbander

My Charlotte loves her a headband! She has systematically broken every single one of my plastic headbands and has now moved on to elastic ones. She can't break those, but I end up finding them all over the house! I love this child and her obsession with all things girly.....she's so different from Maddie in that aspect. I can't wait till she gets more hair, maybe she'll actually let me style it! Happy Friday friends.

P.S. She put these on all by herself!

Mini harvest

I have no idea how long I'm supposed to leave vegetables in the ground. I got a new book called Grow Vegetables and it's been very helpful on this topic and so many more, but I can only read so many books at once and right now I'm juggling 3......so the information is slow going. After reading up on lettuce, radishes, and spinach I decided to do a mini harvest. And since I have 4 basil plants and lot's-o-basil I harvested a bit of that as well. The soil that we had delivered this spring has turned out to be fabulous because I have never seen spinach or basil as big as what I'm growing right now! They are amazing. Since I have all these fresh greens, I am making salads for dinner. I'm going to saute sliced radish and shrimp with garlic and butter and we'll eat that over a fresh, truly organic salad. I'm excited to be eating food that I've grown!! Bon Appetite.

Basil

Spinach

Mixed lettuce greens

Haircut chair

We got a new computer desk chair. New is a relative term since the chair is 60 years old! We've been on the look out for a banker/lawyer style chair to go with our 1960s desk that Dan refurbished but new chairs are nearly $100 and I hadn't found any on craigslist for months. Finally I found this one, quite by accident and it was only $20! It needs a little love on the arms and legs where the finish has been worn off, but thats an easy fix. The chair is sturdy and actually quite comfortable and I adore the style of it!

For the kids, it was love at first sight! We've had it in our garage for the past week and every time we're outside working they want to play in the "haircut chair." Maddie gives Charlotte a haircut and then spins her around and around. Sometimes Mama takes turns spinning the girls round and round too.....dizzy kids are amusing! As soon as I sell our dining room furniture we're going to move the desk into the dining room and convert that space into an office. Hopefully the haircut chair will be refurbed by then and we can enjoy it indoors instead of on the driveway! And yes, in these pics my children are in their underwear......in the front yard. They get soaking wet and then take their clothes off. Front yard nudity is a lesson in progress, we don't like it, but it's hard to enforce and sometimes it's just easier to let it slide when we're elbow deep in gardening. Don't judge! :o)

Getting a haircut

Getting a spin

Progress

It's amazing to me that I can walk outside and from one day to the next our garden seems to double in size. It almost makes me do a double take because it really is so shocking. What a miracle plant life is! I love watching our veggies grow.....some plants I have never seen before in real life. I have no idea what kind of bounty we will have this year, but we already have plenty of plants growing edibles......lettuce, cherries, strawberries, radishes, spinach, herbs, blackberries and raspberries. We also have squash flowers popping up and my tomatoes are really close to fruiting! Even if we don't get very much food, the process has been so worth it, and the way I figure it......it's only our first year as gardeners so we're really still trying to figure this whole thing out! Dan built a small garden box that's just for the girls. We haven't planted anything in it yet, but I think we'll work on that this weekend. We also have to finish staining our deck, and Dan has to put a new starter on his riding mower. Busy busy.

Finally got our mulch down!

Strawberries. Yumm

Corn is getting so tall

Lettuce. Cucumber next to it

Radishes are almost ready to harvest

Cherries are turning red
I have to threaten Maddie not to pick them yet!
She reeeeally wants to

Watermelon bed

We're going to trellis them eventually

Sugar snap peas

Kentucky Blue beans

Red peppers

Sweet taters on left
Eggplant on right

More corn
The girls garden box in the background

Hi there

I know I haven't been around much lately.....I just haven't really felt like blogging. And I got tired of having to post the food rules every day, so I may just spread them out or just post them when I feel like it. The weather has been getting warmer and more summer like which isn't my favorite, but our garden is growing wonderfully and we've been spending lot's of time outside.....gotta soak up the outdoors while it's still bearable to be out there! Dan finished his school semester and we've been hanging out and watching lot's of Showtime series. And in exciting TV news, our cable wire got knocked down a couple days ago and when Time Warner came out to fix it they didn't put a filter on our line (we normally only have internet) so for the time being we have free cable!! I've been enjoying lot's of HGTV. I have really mixed emotions about having cable in the house....part of me really enjoys it, but it is such a waste of time and brain cells. I think that not watching TV is a lot healthier for our family, but for now I'm going to get caught up on some House Hunters! :o) Some random pictures for you......

Painting is fun!

Charlotte's facial expressions......
I love them!

Masterpieces