Welcome Addison Gayle Lovell

My brother Ian and his wife Nathalie just welcomed their precious little girl Addison to the world on June 20, 2011. She is a sweetie and has red hair just like her cousin Sydney! We enjoyed getting to see her and hold her this weekend in Wilmington.

Movie Fridays

I almost never let the kids watch movies and we do very little TV around here, but this summer I decided to let the kids to a "Movie Friday" each week. We spend most of our days outside at the pool or park or elsewhere, so one afternoon a week, I figure a little TV will be a nice break from the heat. I got little "popcorn" buckets at Target and make popcorn (not the kind from the microwave bag, but just pop the kernels in our popcorn maker) and let them watch a kid's movie. (It is also the only time they are allowed to take food out of the kitchen - so fun!) They LOVE it! Aren't they cute?

Conveniently movie time occurs about the time our CSA box arrives, so I can put the veggies away and freeze any extras while they watch their movie. Everyone's happy!

I love my CSA

For those of you who are still skeptical about using a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture subscription program), this is why I love my CSA (well, one of the reasons). This week for $26, I had the following items delivered to my front door by a really nice seventh-generation farmer:

2 heads of cabbage
7 peaches
2 pints of blueberries
2 baskets of new potatoes
1 large bag of green beans (about 2 lbs)
6 yellow squash
6 ears of corn
6 onions
6 cucumbers
plus a few extra pints of blueberries and blackberries that the our farmers often leave with us because we have been trying to help get the word out about their services.

We can plan most of a week's meals around that $26 of fruits and veggies. And some of the items we can't get through at the end of the week, we can freeze to enjoy this winter.

Saturday

Ok, this post is a little delayed, but oh well. This is what last Saturday looked like for us, and what most of our Saturdays have looked like this spring.

It began with ballet for Sydney at 9:00 am. Then a visit to the Western Wake Farmer's Market to pick up eggs and a few veggies. Both kids got a free flower from one of our favorite farmers. They were so excited to carry them around. Then they got free face painting and danced to the live music. Pierce just got his hand painted (which required less patience!), but he was SO proud of it.

Then we hit the library to switch out our week's books. We're doing a theme each week this summer (to help ward off summer boredom and the misbehavior that comes with it). Last week was "Dinosaurs" and this week is"Food and Cooking". The kids have had fun with the weekly themes and we have stumbled upon some great reads that we would have never checked out otherwise. We've also been doing crafts and activities related to our themes. I highly recommend it to any parents out there looking to give a little structure and interest to their summer without having to pay for expensive camps every week.

After lunch and nap time it was time for Sydney's final soccer game of the season. She has really enjoyed playing soccer in our neighborhood league.

Score!

Pierce enjoyed cheering his sister on. He's ready to join the team as soon as they'll let him!

Water break!

We ended the night with a good meal and brownies and ice cream for dessert on the back porch!

Our second attempt at a garden

After a less than glorious year of gardening in 2010, we are back at it. I, at least, am determined to one day be good at growing food to eat! I'm sure it will take a few years. We composted some this fall and added some sand to our soil, so we think we are off to a better start with more nutrient-rich and better draining soil this year. We also learned a little about what we liked to grow and what didn't do as well. This year, I decided to grow the following things for the following reasons:

1. Lots of herbs - because they are easy, nice to have on hand and expensive to buy at the store. We've planted rosemary and thyme (perennials left from last year and growing too big for the garden plot!), sage, basil, parsley, cilantro, dill.

2. Tomatoes - because we love them and they are EXPENSIVE to buy. I cannot eat grocery store tomatoes because they only remotely resemble the flavor and texture of an actual tomato. So, while they are in season, I need to get as many as possible. We have 5 heirloom tomato plants: 2 cherry varieties and 3 full-sized ones. They are already MUCH bigger than they were last year at this point and we have a few small tomatoes on the vines.

3. Butternut squash - they are also expensive at the store (because they are so heavy), and are so versatile for cooking. I can freeze them easily, and have grand plans to make a monstrous batch of butternut squash ravioli this fall to freeze and enjoy this winter.

4. Carrots - because the kids love them and they are, theoretically at least, easy to grow.

5. Kale, mache and arugula - three delicious and highly nutritious lettuces that are easy to grow. These are cool season crops, so the spring crop is about done, but we'll replant in the fall. All three of them did pretty well and we still have lots of kale (more than we can eat).

6. Sunflowers - they are beautiful, fun, and we can eat those yummy nutritious seeds.

7. Onions - because our neighbor gave us the bulbs for free and you can never have too many onions! These have done well (or at least they appear to have done well from our above-ground perspective!).

Here is a picture when we first planted the garden (end of April):

And here is one from today. Lots of good growth! Hoping for more luck this year! (Two of the tomato plants I just planted this weekend, so they are still small, but the other three have about a month of growth already).

We also have 5 blueberry bushes with lots of fruit on them and a small gala apple tree. For some odd reason, the apple tree only has 2 apples on it... it's only 2 years old, so maybe next year will be more productive. We're considering buying a dwarf apple we can train to grow on our fence to cross pollinate this one...

Blueberry bushes: