Mother's Day

This is a busy week for posting.
I wanted to let everyone know just how awesome and amazing my husband is for making Mother's Day super special for me!
First, I had a rough night because Caleb decided he didn't want to sleep anymore. I was up bright and early at 5:30a.m. and was very bitter about it. I kept sarcastically saying to myself, "Happy Mother's Day!" Needless to say, I had a bit of a pity party to be up so early on MY day.

Then, I decided to pray for patience. and energy. and love. Of course, I felt the love for my baby return and even though I was tired, I was no longer angry at him---I felt so bad for being angry at my almost-9-month-old! He doesn't do it on purpose! Justin made me feel better too by saying that Caleb just wanted to spend more time with me on Mother's Day....to make me feel special. :-D

So, after the morning was normally underway, Justin made an AWESOME breakfast! I'm sorry we didn't take pictures of breakfast or dinner: bacon quiche tarts, with puff pancakes, strawberries, orange juice...AH, it was delicious!

Dinner didn't happen until after church, but it too was very good: Sun-dried tomato chicken with bow tie pasta, freschetta bread with bruschetta, yummy salad, and a deletable raspberry bar superb dessert.
I was so stuffed! But it was delicious!
Aside from all the food Justin made, he and Caleb gave me some AWESOME gifts:
1) Beautiful flowers that Caleb selected because they looked tasty. haha, complete with two-toned roses!
2) M-Cups!

We found these on a random site a while ago, and I LOVED them! They're nesting dolls that function as measuring cups. yeah, if you know me, and you know me and Russia, you know why I was so excited by them! I've been missing Russia a bit lately, just with pictures and such, so these were a wonderful thought! Now I just need a kitchen...

3) Rubber stamps! I'm also quite into carding, so a set of rubber stamps made my imagination go crazy! I just wanna send cards for fun (don't be surprised...) This isn't the exact picture of the ones I got, but they're close.

In addition to these material gifts, I received a wonderful reminder how blessed I am to be a mother. Caleb is a doll and even when I'm not the best mother or the most patient with him, he still LOVES me. And that is a gift.

Having a wonderful husband who supports me so much in motherhood: he makes me feel like I'm the best thing ever created! haha He gives me confidence to keep trying. And he loves me, too!

Happy belated Mother's Day everyone!

The Squshed Spider

Sorry it's so dark...but we wanted everyone to see how hilarious Caleb first looked when he started crawling. It was 2 weeks ago yesterday (wow, time flies, right?) and he's gotten better at it: He does more of the two-knees style now.

He still LOVES the binky motivation and will crawl for food. haha, he's started following me around the house and I LOVE it! It makes me smile!! I love my baby!

Do I see more of me in him?

Here are a few pictures of Caleb over the past month.


8 Months here: he looks like such a little toddler boy, right? I'm told that he has my eyes...does this picture witness to that?

He learned to stand up before he learned to crawl. And he loves bouncing.

I love this face! hahaha....it looks like he's making the elephant noise. ya know that noise, right? haha

Caleb wants to be a big boy!

Aunt Becky came to visit a little while ago and made it her goal to get Caleb to like her--a lofty goal since he's been a major Mama's boy lately. Well, it took her a total of TWO days!



As part of her tactics, Aunt Beck sat with Caleb on the table and just talked to him. Well, he found the fruit bowl behind him and really wanted an apple, but he couldn't turn himself around. He kept trying to pick up the apple with one hand...and then he did it! Then he did it again! I didn't know his hands were that big and strong and coordinated!

I just love how he tries to shove the entire apple into his mouth. We finally cut some up and he tried to put ALL of them into his mouth. He's just growing so big so fast! I love it!

We have a garden!

I just wanted to inform everybody that we have proudly planted our first garden together. :-) It's a fairly small one (I told Justin I didn't want to have to weed more). They are raised beds---so as not to leave too big a mark on the yard that has to sell--- and one is 4' x 8 ' and the other is 4' x 4'. In the smaller box we planted corn, green beans, and zucchini. It's an old Iriquois Indian trick. It's called the Three Sisters Garden.

Basically, you plant your corn and beans together, so that the beans (they have to be pole beans) will climb the corn, adding nitrogen to the entire plot; then the squash (we're using zucchini) covers the ground and acts as a natural small animal deterrent (because of the prickly leaves). We're not actually sure how well it'll work, but we're excited to work on it and see what happens!

We also planted peas, swiss chard, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, normal tomatoes (and we did these in one of those hanging planters....Topsy Turvy), green bell peppers, then we've got some rainbow sweet peppers that have to start indoors...I think that's it! Once (positive thinking) we have some green in the planters, I'll take some pictures so you can see. :-)

Wish us luck...!

By the way, anybody ever tried a homemade insect repellent for your garden? It's like soap and water, basically, but it's supposed to keep pests away while being safe to eat.

Do you have any experiences or suggestions for gardening?