The dog house

My daughter is so fantastic! She is so funny and smart and caring. It's amazing how one day she can be a precious sweetheart and the next she is an out of control, running around lunatic, not listening 2 year old. I have to say that I much prefer the angelic days, but every challenge helps me to grow as a parent. Some days I wish I could put her in a cage.....this however was not one of those days. She put herself there all on her own. I don't know how much Tyson enjoyed it, but Maddie was in 7th heaven. Silly girl!

Garden party?

I have been wanting to plant a garden since we moved out here to farm land North Carolina. I don't know if I'll be any good at it, but it is appealing regardless. Thus far I have been either preggo or with a small child and have never felt like I had enough time to dedicate to a garden.....until now. We may be a little late since it is already the end of February, but we are gonna cross our fingers and hope that the 7 yards of compost we had delivered today will make our land ready for planting in the next month or two. If we stick to the plan the garden will be approx. 12x30 feet.....so pretty good sized. I am pretty sure that I am just gonna do the basic stuff; corn, beans, bell peppers, squash, tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, herbs and watermelon. We'll see. There are various planting dates from March 15th through the summer and into fall, and if I have a good yield I may try for lettuce and blueberries.....things that are a little tougher. I hope this works out, I feel like I will really like gardening and it would make a great hobby for me.....I'm all about the hobbies that you can eat! We are also taking our second stab at composting. Our first design had some major flaws.....like how to get the finished compost out of the heap, but this time Dan is making me two 30 gallon composter barrels that I can turn which should make the process work a lot faster.....and I can just dump the compost out into a wheel barrow when its done. We are also gonna try setting up rain barrels.....we are starting with two 55 gallon barrels on the back of the house. I love the idea of using our resources to our advantage, and I LOVE anything thats free. So, now all we need to do is rent a tiller this weekend which Dan is going to use on ALL our land beause we are also going to lay grass seed, rake out the compost, set up stakes and string to divide the sections for different crops, pick out and buy seeds, plant, water and grow. Oh, and assemble composting bins and rain barrels. Yikes, thats a lot of work!! Wish us luck. We'll probably need it!

the truck dropping off our compost this afternoon

it's a LOT of compost

Maddie enjoying the hill of dirt!

it's nice that she isn't afraid to get dirty....

hopefully that won't change

walking out behind our house to our wheat

Charlotte my beautiful

Big

I have big kids. Bigger than 97% of the population apparently! This morning was the girls' big doctor check ups. It went really well. Both of them were super well behaved (hooray) we didn't so much as get asked when we were planning on vaccinating.....and for sure didn't get any lectures on the virtues of vaccinations and how our kids need an advocate (like the doc is gonna come and take care of either of my kids if there are any adverse reactions to vaccinating pffttt) and we were in and out in record time....considering I had to go alone with both girls and each had to be undressed and then dressed. Good visit indeed.

So, here are the stats for each.....drumroll please.......

Maddie-
Height: 39 1/4 inches >97% percentile
Weight: 36 pounds >97% percentile
Head: 49 cm 75% percentile

Charlotte-
Height: 30 inches >97% percentile
Weight: 21 pounds 95% percentile
Head: 43 cm 25% percentile

Comparison stats only go to 97% which means that both of my girls are off the charts for their height.....significantly! Maddie was off the chart for her weight again.....significantly, although she is in perfect proportion when you add her height and weight together.....so neither of them are overweight......just tall, solid girls!!!

We got the green light to feed Charlotte anything we want with exception to nuts, honey, strawberries, citrus fruit and any other no-no foods that she needs to wait until 18 months or whatever for. We also have to wait on the cows milk until Charlotte is 11 months old.....which is only a little over 2 months away, so hopefully not too much longer with the constipation! Hooray! Maddie is doing fine and the doc didn't seem to think it was a problem that we push potty training off until this spring/summer if necessary. She's just not ready, and I'm not interested in battling over it. I feel good about my kids' growth and the positive doctor appointments today. Yeah.

And just a little comparison for ya......
Maddie at 9 months: 30 inches tall & 22 pounds 10 ounces.
So Maddie and Charlotte are the same height at 9 months, but Maddie was almost 2 pounds heavier. WOW!!

My BIG girls!!

Noodie Charlotte

I love when I get a lucky photo shoot with perfect light where I don't have to do any editing. These shots aren't perfect (except for the subject of course!) I can always find flaws, but they are pretty darn close and I didn't have to lift a finger.....or adjust the exposure as the case may be. I wish we had more windows in our house, that is definitely going on my wish list for our next home. I know there are a lot of pictures below but I had over 100 really great shots to choose from, so there has been restraint shown....even if it doesn't look like it! lol

Daddy's little girl

I am of the opinion that Maddie looks a lot like her Daddy. What do you think? lol

our valentine's day

We didn't do much for valentine's day on Saturday. Dan worked all weekend so we were busy in our normal day to day grind for the over rated day of love. However, Dan got the girls some cute stuffed animals on Thursday which they both loved, and he got me a bunch of bath stuff (bubble bath, milk, salts etc) and a bottle of champagne. Yesterday Dan got home from work and did both girls' bed times while I soaked in a steaming hot bubble bath with my very own bottle of champagne which I totally drank out of the bottle!! Dan finished the last of it because I just couldn't drink the whole thing by myself, but it was a nice relaxing evening even if it wasn't on the actual valentine's day. I got Dan the Transformers movie on blueray. I think he considers it a pretty fair trade! Happy belated valentine's day!!

Charlotte enjoys the park

We went to the park. It ended up being colder than I thought it was going to be so we didn't stay very long. Maddie was there too, but she was too busy finding pine cones and throwing them into the creek to hold still enough for pictures. Gotta love a baby that still sits where I put her. I'm probably going to need a new lens for action shots once she gets movin! If you know me at all.....which my 5 readers who are either family members or close friends should.....I have a hard time choosing......pretty much everything, you should get me at 31 flavors, it takes a decade. Thus a lot of pictures posted below. Bon Appetit.