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7.26.2018

Vegetable Garden : Deer and Our First Harvest

In my last vegetable garden update, we were just watching as everything was growing... and that is pretty much what we did this month. We love to walk out to our garden every day or two and check out the progress of the vegetables. 



The girls love to help water and look around for any new baby veggies or fruits. We have a couple watermelons and Cora has named some of them (Mama watermelon, baby watermelon, butt watermelon, etc). Ida mostly loves to find a dirt spot in the bed and dig around for a bit.


We have had lots of baby tomatoes growing... but we also have a couple deer that love to come snack in our garden. They have eaten every single tomato except a green one that Cora accidentally picked. We haven't had a chance to build up a fence, so I guess now we're just growing them to feed the deer.


Along with all of our tomatoes being snacked on, the zucchini got a little fungus thing on it's leaves... which has basically killed most of the plants. I trimmed off all the infected leaves, but I'm afraid it's too late in the season for anything else to grow. There is always next year!



We had our first harvest last week! We picked four sweet peppers and one red bell pepper. It wasn't much, but it was exciting to get something that we have been watching grow for weeks.


We still have some salsa peppers, tomatoes (if the deer don't get them) and watermelon growing... so we are looking forward to being able to harvest those when the time is right.


7.24.2018

Front Porch Chairs Makeover

This was supposed to be a quick and easy DIY, but it ended up taking me close to nine months to complete. My parents snagged these for me from a neighbor that was moving. Beige is not my thing and I knew a quick layer of spray paint would bring new life to them.

After cleaning the chairs, I started out with this blue spray paint... and I was not a fan. I used 4 whole cans (!!!) and barely covered these two chairs. I put them on the porch anyways and figured I could finish them when I got a chance to go back to the store. You can even spot them in my last exterior update.
After using the chairs for a bit, we'd find chalky residue from the chairs on our clothes and they were basically unusable. By the time I got back to taking care of the chairs, I decided I was over the blue color and I wanted to try out green in different spray paint.
I used less than 3 cans and it took me about 15 minutes for both chairs.  It isn't super fancy, but we have already found ourselves hanging out on the front porch way more often than we did before. We love having snacks on the porch as we people watch and I love how much a simple DIY can impact our day-to-day life.


7.18.2018

Walks With The Girlies : Sharon Woods Creek

You know we love our little trips to Sharon Woods Creek... so when I gave Cora the option of which park she wanted to visit this weekend, there was no surprise that she picked Sharon Woods. instead of just visiting the creek like we normally do, we tried to take a little hike on the Gorge Trail. We didn't make it far into the trail (it was really hot), but we had lots of conversations about fossils and dinosaurs.

We made it to the creek and my little water babies jumped right in. It was much cooler near the creek so there was a lot less whining coming from all three of us.



There were some people fishing and Cora was very curious. She had a lot of questions about what they were doing and how it worked. They were so patient with her and told us they had kids of their own. They let her look at their bait worms and explained all the equipment to her. They even let her try to catch her own fish. It was the sweetest encounter with strangers and I'm so thankful that they took the time to answer all of her questions when it would have been easy to brush her off.
Ida normally follows Cora around, but instead she went off on her own to explore the waterfall. We found some ducks bathing on the top of the fall and it was interesting to get pretty close to them and watch them swim around. Ida climbed around on the walls a bit and liked looking at the different leaves that were stuck in the water.





We were hanging out at the park for quite a while, so I definitely call our trip a success.  I love watching them wade around and observe nature. 
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7.15.2018

Life With Ida : 22 Months

My sweet Ida is growing so quickly and this month is no exception. We have been busy enjoying all that summer has to offer with trips to the pool, community activities, and lots of playing outside.  
Most evenings, I try to spend some time in our backyard. We check on our garden and I get a little bit of time where the girls aren't clinging all over me. Ida loves to run off and play in the cottage playhouse, dig in the dirt pile, or play with Clovey. She loves to walk out in the back and check on our garden whenever I'm checking it out.

Ida is also a huge fan of hanging out on our front porch... mostly because thats where we always bring our afternoon snacks (she loves popcorn and posicles). The girls love to wave at neighbors driving and walking by. I will work on yard work or sit on the porch while the girls run around and pick flowers.
We're still doing an afternoon nap... which is very refreshing because Cora wasn't really napping at this age. Whenever she is getting a bit cranky, we know it's time for us to give her a good cuddle and put her down for a little nap.
It took her a bit to start talking, but Ida is getting pretty chatty this month. She is always talking about things going on around her and her favorite thing is asking where her sister is. I love listening to her figure out new words and I love that it is a little easier to communicate with her these days. She is becoming so silly and loves to do things to make us laugh whether its saying something silly (poopy), pretending to beat us up (punching sound effects included), or just making goofy faces. I'm loving love with my sweet little Ida and I can't believe she is getting so close to turning 2.

7.12.2018

A Cottage Makeover : Progress

Remember when I scored this free playhouse last summer? This Spring, I was sick of looking at the tired brown house, so I decided that we were ready for a makeover. I made a quick trip to pick up some red paint and waited until we had some decent looking weather so we could get to work. 

When we first opened the red paint can, I freaked out. I was originally worried about this color looking too orange, but this looked way too pink and not what I wanted. Cora said she liked it and I knew she would love a pink house. We went ahead and painted the playhouse and decided that we'd love it one way or the other.



As a parent, most of my projects are done in 15-30 minute spurts and this was no exception. The red needed two coats and took me about four sessions. Cora helped with some parts of the red and cheered me on during other parts. Either way, a little DIY with Cora is always enjoyable.


I used the same black that we used on our interior doors. Cora wanted a dark green door and this black leans a little green in some lightings, so we both got what we wanted without having to spend any more money. Still on the to-do list is to paint the roof, paint the back side of the cottage, and do something fun inside. The girls love this little cottage, and I love peeking out the kitchen window and seeing this in my backyard.



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