No Ghosts in this Graveyard

With Bea starting Pre-K in our home this past week, our school year is now full speed ahead! But with it still being Summer, and with so many of our friends still enjoying their Summer break, we had quite a few adventures outside of our home this week.

We had a mid-week play date with some of our "Happy Hour" group...

...and we had a pool date with some of our MOPS friends...

Miss Nancy has the coolest creatures at her house! You can find anything from sharks...

...to ladybugs!...

We had a surprise visitor show up when we were playing with our cousins!...Grandpa arrived!...bearing Popsicles for all!...

Brady liked his Popsicle so much that he decided to save some (on his face) for another time! ;0)....

Later in the week, the grand kids got to visit their Grammy in action while she was working her very-part-time-hobby-job at Williams Sonoma where they got to participate in the store's Marvel Cookie Decorating Party...

The kids took their "job" seriously...

Very seriously...

Too seriously???...

And then we got to take the kids to the brand new Lego store in the mall. I love these girls...can you see Samantha saying, "Cheech..."...

...and now Bea is getting ready to ask for "Mom," and Samantha is now yelling, "CHEECH!"...

...lol, it feels nice to be so needed. :0)

And speaking of "loving girls", I had the privilege of taking the PRETTIEST girl to church on Sunday...

She is gorgeous...especially when she's silly....

Simply put...I adore her. :0)

Now for an update on our garden...oh this garden...(HUGE SIGH)....

I thought having a garden was going to be so much fun! I thought we would save a little money by growing some of our very own produce. I thought having a little garden would require little fuss. I wanted a HUGE garden!

I was 90% wrong about all of that. I was only 10% right about there being SOME fun in this experience.

Generally speaking, this garden has cost close to $200, and we have reaped nothing so far.

Well, that's not entirely true...our Basil IS in full bloom, and COULD be used at any moment, but I have been waiting (and waiting, and waiting) for our tomatoes to bloom (is that the proper term??) so we could enjoy our very own Caprese Salad with that basil.

We are still waiting.

Our first problem started with the carrots. Early on we had a problem with some tiny little flies settling in the carrot "patch". After trying some (free) home remedies that failed, I went and bought an organic pesticide (???) that failed. I've given up on trying to control the flies. I will admit that over time they have seemed to cut way back on their own.

Then, onto our pumpkin "patch"...(HUGEST SIGH)...

Slowly and surely our big beautiful green leaves have turned brown and are wilting...according to google, they have some sort of "squash disease" (???)!!! AND on top of that, I have learned that our pumpkin plant is Homosexual...if you will. Our plant was producing all of these gorgeous orange flowers but after weeks of the orange flowers blossoming and then dying, I was confused...where are all the pumpkins??? I thought the pumpkins would form out of the flowers??? But again, google informed me that it turns out that there are MALE flowers and FEMALE flowers...the female flowers actually have a bulging ovary at the base of her flower...bees (or humans) take the pollen from the male flowers and pollinate the female flowers, which result in the "pregnancy" of a pumpkin! Very cool! Google went on to tell me that some vines have an equal female/male ratio...some have more male than female (or vice versa)...and some vines just have male (or female) flowers...which is why it's important to plant more than one pumpkin seed. Well, this virgin gardener knew nothing of the sort. I planted a couple of seeds...only one seed sprouted...and my sole squash-disease-infected-vine is a male-only plant! Waaaaaa! Where are all the single ladies!?!? I guess it's going to be city pumpkins again for us in October!

And now on to our latest issue...tomato worms! :0( I have been spying holes in our tomato leaves for weeks, but none of us have spotted the "big horned green caterpillar-like" creatures that my husband was so familiar with back in his home state of Indiana. So I kept dreaming/hoping that a random "something" would come take a nibble of our plants and then fly the coop. But unfortunately my hopes and dreams were "squashed" (excuse the pun) when after doing an intense hunt for budding tomatoes...

 ...I stumbled upon many TEENY TINY worms munching on my tomato leaves...

My husband said he had never seen tomato worms so small. The most discouraging part is I am now finding many, many, many leaves that have a ton of their little worm eggs on them. Will this ever end??? :0(

I have stressed about this garden more than I have enjoyed it. I have put way more money into this garden than I ever expected.

I will continue to water it, but I am done buying and producing "potions" to ward off the enemies.

But so help me, I better get at least a single ($200) Caprese Salad out of this garden!!!

Ok...enough complaining...

I will end this post with the exciting (for us) news that we have resumed our elective study through the United States. We picked up where we left off with the 9th state in our Union...New Hampshire!

We learned so many neat facts about this state..."They were the first of the 13 original colonies to declare their independence from England, six whole months before the Declaration of Independence was signed. In fact, everybody agreed the people of New Hampshire should be the first to sign it because of their bravery." Their state motto is "Live Free or Die."

Among other things, we also learned that New Hampshire is referred to as "the Granite State," and that tons of stone comes from this state...lots of headstones you see in cemeteries are made of New Hampshire granite! This fact produced our first field trip of the new school year.

We picked up Grammy, and she came with us to the cemetery where her parents lay. The only thing is, she had a little bit of a hard time actually finding their resting place...

We searched this way...

...and that way...

And after making a phone call or two, we found them! (It may sound a bit erie, but I love my daughters shadow cast on the gravestone)...

But would you believe, after ALL of that searching, my grandparents gravestones were (what appeared to be) the ONLY gravestones that were NOT made of granite!?!?!...

Granite...or no granite...it was still a nice time of reflection...

...and we did find one of our names on a granite headstone...

...and we found the granite headstone of one of our baby cousins who had passed away. :0(...

After searching the cemetery in the HOT sun for a couple of hours (literally), we were exhausted...

We ended our week with the State Dinner. I prepared "Pork Roast in New Milk - Fit for Company" (the names of these OLD recipes always make me chuckle!)...

...and a loaf of rosemary bread...

The meal was INCREDIBLE! It was by far the moistest roast I have EVER prepared!...

And for dessert I made, "Old Portsmouth Orange Cake," with a dollop of whipped cream, and a sprinkle of powdered sugar (the only thing missing, IMO, was a sprig of mint) ;0)...

So there you have it. Onward and upward to this next week... :0)

Dear Jennifer Hudson (Week 32)

Dear Jennifer Hudson,

I definitely found my weight loss groove again this past week. I didn't break any records on the scale or anything, but I did lose 7.6 pounds of the 11.2 pounds I had gained in the prior 2 weeks...so that's pretty good. Just 22 pounds away from my goal weight! :0)

If I have done my math correctly, there are 20 weeks left in this year...it was one of my New Years Resolutions to meet my goal weight in 2012. 22 pounds in 20 weeks SHOULD be doable! Only time will tell!

I did some cool things in the fitness arena this past week...usually I just do a 9 mile run around my neighborhood (a few times during the week), but this week, in preparation of my upcoming half marathon race in 2 weeks, I did a 10 mile run, and then a 12 mile run on a different day. I was happy to get those under my belt, and I hope to do a few more "biggies" before race day.

One of the more unique adventures in exercise this week, was the walk I took with my mom and the kids from my mom's house, all the way up to Mt. Helix...

That was a super fun change of pace...and scenery!

Other than the wonderful cake, cookies, and ice cream (my sister made an incredible cookies and cream ice cream!!!) at my brother's birthday dinner, our most memorable eats were:

1. Turkey Nacho Salad...

But believe it or not, that dish was memorable for how gross it was! IMO, the picture looks great, everything looks so colorful!...but in reality, the salad lacked so much flavor! Fail!

2. Grilled Chicken Gyros with a Greek Salad...

Now THIS dinner was AMAZING!!!! I can't get over just how good it was...especially the salad! My taste buds have changed so much in the last 2 years, and things that used to gross me out, have now become some of my faves. Artichoke hearts are one of those things...and this salad was packed full of them! We had a lot of salad left over, and I broke my "never-keep-salad-overnight" rule, and saved it anyway, hoping the lettuce wouldn't get soggy by the next day. Unfortunately, the lettuce did get a bit soggy, but it didn't matter...there were still cucumbers, artichoke hearts, Greek olives, red onion, bell peppers, and feta cheese all still edible!...I warmed up an extra pita bread, spread a generous amount of "Spicy Cilantro Bitchin' Sauce" on it, and then layered all of the edible salad leftovers on top of that, and it resulted in: THE BEST (healthiest) LUNCH EVER!!!

So that's all I have for you this week J Hud. I would love it if I could be sitting here next week and be reporting at least a 2 pound loss on the scale. We shall see...

Your biggest fan,
Elizabeth

And so it begins...

As I had previously mentioned, we started school this past week! Well, not Beatrice...just Wyatt. I figured I would get Wyatt settled into this school year a week early so he could get in his groove, and then Beatrice would start as planned, tomorrow.

So here is my 3rd grader!!!...

Wyatt picked up where he left off...you know, bein' a rock-star-student!!! ;0) I so appreciate his ability to stay on task, and excel in his work. He makes this teacher very proud! :0)

Beatrice will start Pre-K tomorrow. Basically I will be doing all of the phonics curriculum we have for Kinder, and then she will just repeat it next year when she is in Kinder. It made most sense to me to teach her how to read with the same program she will use next year, instead of doing something completely different each year. I'm interested to see if she can grasp the concept...I didn't formally teach Wyatt to read until he was in Kindergarten.

When we weren't doing school, we spent our time NOT watching TV. That was the main new rule for our school year this year. 30 minutes of TV is earned by them each doing their daily chores (which is the reasoning behind the introduction of chore choarts for our family this year). Instead, we played LOTS of board games, we had elective learning activities...

...and we did some card-crafting for a certain Uncle's birthday...

There was a picnic at the park...

...where fun was had...

...discoveries were made...

...and a protest against smiling-for-pictures was underway...

We had a visitor in our house this week...

We toured our new local farmers market, where the produce was just GORGEOUS to look at, and the sampling of ripe white peaches, Chinese lemonade, and various organic cheeses was in full force...

Beatrice can never help it when her Hello-Kitty-Radar goes off!...

However, Wyatt had his sights set on the snow cone stand...

And as usual, I was captivated by all things cookies, and (cup)cakes!!!...

We went to Grammy's house this week, and saw several wild bunnies hopping on her lawn!!...

And, as always, we ended our week with family dinner. Except, as it sometimes happens, this family dinner was kicked up a notch...with the celebration of a birthday...and this time it was in honor of my brother..."Uncle Michael!"

There were special decorations...

...and, the girls wore their new dresses from Grandma Piton...they looked SO cute! But if there was ever a classic book that related to the moment when we tried to capture a sweet picture of the girls together, it would have to be the story of "The Pain and The Great One," written by Judy Blume. Oh my word, my niece Samantha is ALWAYS adorable...but she gives us all the HARDEST time when it comes to taking her picture...she's so unlike her mother!...and her father!...and her Aunties! ;0) But my daughter was ALL GRINS and was so eager to show off for the camera (on tippy-toes and all!) I seriously have TONS of pictures like the following one (or worse)...

...fortunately, my sister had a bribe for her daughter in the form of a popsicle...that did at least remove the famous-Samantha-stink-eye from the experience!...

...and a couple more...because they were just THAT cute!!!...

The boys had the MOST FUN gettin' their Lego building on...

Then there was a spaghetti dinner to be had (and apparently a Homer and Bart Simpson reenactment to be made)...

My brother opened his cards...most of them being homemade, lol...

And not to not worry, we would never dream of forgetting about cake! But with this many candles, it would take a team to light them!...

...in fact, let's take a moment and warm our hands by the fire...

Alright, alright...make a wish!!!

And only because a blog post wouldn't be complete without it, here's the weekly picture of my sister and I, lol!

This upcoming week should be fun...Bea starts school, and we resume our study through the United States. We'll catch you on the flip-side! :0)