Let's catch-up

Oh my! I wish that I had remembered to take pictures.... Last weekend Ryan mounted the hardtop to the garage ceiling with the help of Marvin. I'm not really sure who was more surprised that the hardtop has stayed up this long, me or Marvin! But, as you can see it is a miracle of engineering and pretty cool to look at (once you get over the fear for your life feeling of seeing this over your head!).


We also had a visitor last week. Michael stayed with us for part of the day and it looks like the boys had fun. Ryle has a different approach to finger painting than Michael, he refused to use his hands at first, then he changed his mind!

Gray appears to be a chip off the old block.

See, he's just softening him up for.....

The boys also enjoyed getting dressed up for the 4th. We had a BIG day! There's a new fish tank in the house!!!

Another day of making sure the water is right and we get to add fishies to the tank.

It's Monday

Ok, Ryle is definitely goofy, and I'll even explain what I mean by that! His new favorite thing is to steal my phone (no, that's not new) and to push the voice recognition button and make phone calls. Who he gets is always a mystery.... the voice recognition asks "say a command" and Ryle thinks she says "sing to the man" so he says "sing to the man." Today he grabbed the phone, hit the button and scooted under the coffee table to hide from me while he was trying to phone someone. Giggling madly the whole time. And more antics.... Last night at dinner when I was just soooooo tired and hungry (ok, cranky) and he made me laugh so hard by repeating "I farted, I farted, I farted" and before you ask, yes, we were at a restaurant and yes, people could probably hear him.

This weekend we had a chance to visit with some old friends. Suzie's daughter Jillian had her 2nd birthday and we saw Suzie, Jillian, David and also the Sweeney family (Dan, Summer and Aidan). It was a blast!
Ryle ate (and LOVED) hotdogs! I think it might have actually been Ryan's proudest moment.... I may have seen a tear in his eyes. Ok, I exaggerate slightly, but it was a surprising moment. He literally snatched the hotdog off the bun and stole it from Ryan. Then demanded another. That kid....
It was a Alice in Wonderland themed party, so both of the boys got bow-ties.

The most surprising thing from the party --- Ryle patiently waited in line to get his hand painted! Waited for about 5 kids who either got painted or balloon animals.
He chose Lightning.... or course.

So proud of his car.

He also created a masterpiece right before we left.


Well, now we have to find a spot in his room for it to hang.

Apologizing and misc Garden

I really hate apologizing. It means I was wrong, and I hate to be wrong. But I think that I have to do it this time.

Dear Birds,

I am sorry to have accused you for being the responsible party for the "Great Edamame massacre". I still blame you for all of the missing ripe strawberries, but I think that another guilty party may be to blame for the edamame. During one of my morning garden inspections, I noticed one of the edamame sprouts I had protected from the birds had been "de-seeded" and a little slug was curled up next to it in a food induced coma. Let's just say that slug won't be bothering the garden in the future. So.... maybe it was slugs and birds, because 19 seems like a lot for slugs to accomplish overnight. The edamame seeds I planted in the raised container seem to be doing well, so let's hope that we will be eating fresh edamame beans later this summer.

So please stay away from the strawberries and I'll stop accusing you of eating my edamame seedlings.

Sincerely,

Apologetic Gardener

Well, that was a relief to get off my chest! So here are the plants in containers that are thriving so far.


They are the broad plants in the middle and the others are radishes planted to try and keep up with Ryle's voracious radish appetite.

Here are the two that survived the first planting.
Don't they look sad? All alone and small?

Well, they have friends close by, a team of burpless cucumbers, a scalloped squash (photo below) and some arugula.


In another container on the patio are these beauties.... Cherokee Purple tomatoes. I am really excited to taste these! They are supposed to have a deeper/richer taste than plain red tomatoes. Yum!
I bought this plant for Ryan, it is a "Tomatoberry" which I hope are very similar to the Strawberry Tomatoes we used to find at Costco. Looks like he will be able to let me know if the plant is a hit or miss very soon.


And this curious guy is my Green Zebra tomato. I'm sure he is very tired of me feeling and prodding daily to see if he is ripe yet. This tomato should be green and yellow when ripe. So I think the feel test may be the only way to see if he's ready.


And on another gardening note, I am pretty sure the Fairytale Eggplants I purchased are actually not Fairytale. I kept monitoring them waiting for the distinctive striping to occur and it still hasn't. Looking at some photos of this type of eggplant seems to show that the marbling occurs from the one-set, so I have a different plant. Oh well, maybe next year.
Ryle has been asking me the last few days if we can eat the purple eggplant. So I finally caved tonight and we harvested the largest of the 3 that are edible sized. Since we were finally going to eat one of the eggplants, I decided we might as well at the scallop squash I picked earlier this week and the zucchini that was sizing up. We can't eat just 1 squash/zucchini, so might as well combine them all for a side dish. We washed them up, sliced and tossed them on the grill with the rest of dinner, and they were so good! Ryan's response to the eggplant was "I didn't hate it." True praise indeed.

The jalapeno below (1 of about 4 good sized ones on the plant) was used in a last minute batch of black beans.
Hmmm..... Dinner was grilled chicken legs, rice, grilled eggplant/zucchini/squash, braised collard greens and some black beans. Yum! Summer is here and the garden will hopefully produce us lots of treats.

Happy Father's Day Ryan and 7 month Birthday Gray!!!

Jumping ahead a bit, bear with me....

Monday started out bright and early! Kids up, dressed and out the door by 7 am. Dropped Ryle off at daycare, picked up Ryan and then Gray's ortho appointment. I think we met a resident, fellow and the head doctor. An impressive ensemble. The X-ray was more normal than dysplasic, and his examination using the Barlow and Ortolani tests showed his hips to be stable (no hip clicks and a 60 degree angle of his legs spread). As of now he is "normal" and we need to have a follow-up x-ray in 6 months. We are not to accelerate the start of his walking as the motion of crawling is better on his legs. So that's good news! Gray is "normal"!

Happy 7 month birthday Gray!!!

Poor Gray, as a second child he gets hardly any video or photographs to memorialize his growth! As soon as I grab a camera, SOMEONE tries to take it away. Ah, but we will try to work around that. Gray celebrated his 7 month birthday by helping to make his Daddy's Father's day spectacular. The day started out around 6:30 am when Ryle absolutely needed ice.... yes, demanded that Daddy get him ice. And fell asleep as soon as he got it. So Ryan got a nice and early start to HIS day. I got a great nap when he took Gray off my hands (whose day was it again?), we finally started the festivities then. Of course cards and presents. GT had a big presence this year. This was my present to him, so I can gripe about how hot it will get this summer....


Gray got Daddy some new GT shorts and Ryle a nice business casual shirt (not pictured). Ryle really enjoyed opening the father's day gifts. But the best present was the fact that I let Ryan feed Gray breakfast. Plums and oatmeal.... (first photo and photo below).
It got a little messy.

Then we opened up the slip-n-slide and attempted to get Ryle to, well, slip and slide. He didn't quite like it as much as we had hoped he would. Eventually we had him sort of running and sliding, but he wouldn't let us turn the water one high when he did. It's a work in progress I guess.

Dinner ---- hmm, I'm getting hungry just thinking about Father's Day dinner.... grilled steaks and artichokes. I'm glad that Ryle likes this meal too so we can have it for his birthday!

Ryle inhaled his meat first, then concentrated on his artichokes. He ate 3/4 of a steak himself and a whole artichoke. When he wants to he can really eat!

Garden news:

We harvested 2 pounds 10 ounces of yellow onions from the garden and I have some more that I still have to get around to pulling up. Still waiting anxiously for the eggplants to finish growing. I have no idea what I am going to make with them, but I know Ryan will hate it. Beans are starting to mature. I found teeny tiny beans on the Blue Lake Bush beans. Let's hope they grow-grow-grow (their overall growth has been a little stunted because they were trapped under the huge bok choy we had in the garden... you know, the one we harvested 2 pounds off of then another half pound the next week.... that one!)! I had a terrible time growing the Asian greens, so I pulled them all and re-amended the area. Let's hope the next batch grow better. But, since Ryle said he would help me plant seeds, they are bound to thrive. I'm wondering if my plants would do better if I played a vuvuzela for them.

Well, off to feed the boys and figure out what our plans are for the week.

What we are up to

It's really amazing to see Ryle and Gray interact. Ryle does love his little brother and Gray's eyes light up when he sees Ryle. He will follow him with his eyes and is very interested in what he is up to. The new big thing for Ryle is to help bathe Gray. He assists in diaper removal, disposal, belly rubbing and rinsing. He also loves to try to "carry" Gray.



Gray sits up mostly on his own, he still pitches over occasionally, but more often than not he stays upright. He never lets me eat a hot meal and does not appear to like anything green (the exact opposite of his brother now.). Gray loves breakfast of single grain oatmeal cereal and fruit. Lunch is single grain rice cereal and an orange vegetable (carrots, sweet potatoes, squash -- not as much as carrots, but he will eat them). Dinner is usually an experiment of other foods to see what he will and will not eat. When he sees us sitting down to eat he will start his protest until he gets his food. He's trying so hard to be just like his big brother!

He is now fully suffering from separation anxiety. If I leave the room (or just his eyesight) he will protest. And I swear he says "momma". I'm breaking the food rules a bit with him though. Some nights he will demand to try what we are eating. He really likes mini bits of beef and chicken and loves licking nectarines.

Hmmm.... what can we say about Ryle. He comes up with the best sayings! Today he asked me across the table "so, are you coming or what?" I couldn't figure out where we might be going, but it was funny none the less.

Why walk when you can run? Apparently Ryle has taken this to heart. His favorite thing is to race either me or Daddy. Today he held on to my sweater and said he was my caboose, then grabbed Daddy's hand and called him his freight car. He definitely loves his trains!

He likes to try to match things, and if you aren't paying attention to him, he will try to fool you...



I love that Ryle loves the garden. Today he was excited to eat bok choy straight from the garden, no rinsing or cooking required. Good thing they were higher leaves and we are growing organic! I can't keep up with Ryle and his newly acquired radish habit. He loves going out and finding out which radish he can pull and eating them as soon as they get a rinse. Every container available has some radishes tucked around the main plant just waiting to be ready for Ryle to eat.

We haven't harvested swiss chard in a while, so when we finally get around to it, it should be quite a haul. It's hard to find things that will survive the heat. It hasn't even gotten truly hot here yet and most things are already bolting. Spinach, bok choy, some asian greens, and the arugula will have to wait until fall to get replanted. The tomato plants are loaded, the Fairy Tale eggplant has 3 medium sized eggplants and lots of babies, our cucumbers are getting bigger, the zucchini and round squash are producing, our Scarlet Runner beans are hopefully going to start climbing up the trellis soon, the Trionfo Violetto have just broken ground (let's see if the darn birds leave them alone!), and Royal Burgundy bush beans are sprouting in a container. Now let's see if we can actually grow any Edamame! We have two seedlings from the first batch we planted, yes, 2 germinated out of about 20.... and the second batch were eaten by birds... if we manage to grown any, they better be worth the heart ache.

Our biggest haul so far was a whopping 2 pounds 9 oz of bok choy! We've had lots of mini harvest of bok choy, swiss chard, salad greens, peas, tomatoes, etc but nothing like this bok choy harvest. Ryle's favorite harvest was the cauliflower. While it was fun to grow and looked pretty, I do not think this will be in the garden again for a while. At least until I get a better understanding of what I am doing out there! We had lots of cabbage worms who loved to eat the leaves (and wig me out) and some smaller bug that made the cauliflower head it's home. I definitely do not like the buggy/wormy part of gardening! Cabbage worms are gross, cutworms are gross and even though worms are so good for the soil, I am usually startled when I find them as I am amending the soil.

Opening post

Well, we are going to try something new.... Blogging. Blogging about the boys and the garden. Let's see if I can keep this up.

Update so far, Gray is almost the big 7... that's right, 7 months old on Father's day! Hopefully we will post some photos and an update on that fun day.

Ryle has really been an unusually sweet 2 year old, I think he knows his birthday is coming up and is really hoping to cash in on his sweetness. Most of his requests come in the form of "Please may I have some .... (fill in the blank)." and really, how can you refuse that?

Gray has a ortho appointment bright and early Monday morning to see if his hip dysplasia is something we need to be concerned about or if it will (hopefully) be something we can correct painlessly. Keep your fingers crossed!

The garden---- we are in the middle of a battle with the birds! The birds (at least I think it is the birds) have been eating everything! Ryle's strawberries, the edamame seedlings, other bean seedlings.... Might be time for a pellet gun and a stake-out! At the moment we are covering the ripening strawberries and seedlings pushing out of the ground with the green mesh baskets that come with strawberries. We lost 19 baby edamame plants to the darn birds. 19! ERG! Tomatoes are going gang-busters, fairy tale eggplant are growing and I hope for a harvest next week, pole beans are growing upwards, and zucchini are getting their start as well. Maybe pictures next post?

Now off to prepare for Father's day!