Garden updates!

Not much to say about it, other than we're enjoying the salads at the moment. Can't wait for the tomatoes to turn red so we can add them. Squash has lots of blooms on it as does the zucchini and the fruits are finally starting on those. In a couple of days the beans will have enough that I can add them to what we're having for the night, just no enough for us to have just green beans. They'll have to be mixed in (like added to a soup). Check out the pictures below! I took the pictures from my bedroom so you could see how big the plants have gotten. I don't know if the eggplant is going to survive since the zucchini kinda went crazy. (It's the plant on the right. No I didn't do anything special to it. I honestly don't know why they do that to me. When ever I plant the stuff it goes wild on me and we end up with lots of zucchini bread frozen for the winter. Its a favorite with my family so I'm lucky there. But I didn't do anything except put it in an area that I know holds more water than normal. It gets sun for only about half the day. I didn't add any fertilizers, or use anything for bugs either. We're working on animals in science and the habitats of those animal. Our youngest is really into bugs so I can't really kill them. The purple cabbage is a first this year but it seems to be happy. There are eight plants in the middle there and I'm a little worried that they're going to crowd each other out. I'm not sure if the carrots are still under there or not. And the same goes for the onions. I guess I'll find out this fall, lol. The beans on the far right side are all happy as well. And as you can see the lettuce and spinach is looking sad since we can't stop ourselves from picking at it. I need to put some more in. My wonderful parsley is in the round container. The chives and oregano keep disappearing (I think thanks to our youngest daughter) before they can really get going. I've put in two sets of seeds and they'll start and then they disappear again, lol. Our hanging gardens aren't liking all the rain here lately. You can see the yellow leaves on the tomatoes an cucumbers. Although I don't think we'll put cucumbers in them again. They don't seem to be doing very well. The tomatoes all wanted to grow upward and have finally started to turn upside down due to their weight. I think they also needed much more sun. We don't really have a place that we can put them that they would of gotten a lot of sun. I'm glad that we got a plot. I added a bunch of tomato plants out there. Oh well this is the girls science project that goes along with our history on the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Well we need to know that just because a science experiment doesn't go the way we had hoped that there is still something to learn. The flowers on tops are beautiful. The primrose on top of our oldest's closed up because we had yet another rain starting. Enjoy the view as we do!

Blue eyes!

In April our oldest got her very first makeup kit (play one). Today she was finally able to find a time when her little sister wouldn't be able to try and get in it. So fun she had! Beautiful blue eye shadow and glitter pink lips. Add a bit of princess pink nail polish and mom grabs the camera. I wish I could of gotten one less blurry. I was trying really hard to get MeMe out of my head so I wasn't very successful. At least she had fun on a rainy day!

Opps!

I can't believe it's been an entire month! So sorry I haven't wrote anything here lately. Everything is coming to an ending.....and then restarting again. One school year ends and another begins. Sicily's Kindergarten year is over and she started first grade as of Friday. Kyra's done with second grade and began third grade on Friday also. I've been so busy with putting together the curriculum for them so that they can work at their own paces I've lost a month. Along with that I got a garden plot, so I put that in along with my loving hubby. Only to have a storm knock down two trees into it two days later, lol. So we were getting rid of those right before he had to head off to ANOC (it's a school he needs for his rank in the army, to put it simply). Hubby went off to ANOC the day before mother's day and won't be back till July. We're hoping to go up for his graduation on July 22. My board year is ending so I have all of that going on as well. Of coarse a new one is starting right behind it though, lol. Both the girls are taking golf this summer. They have two weeks off lessons and assessments then the rest of the time will be practice. So we'll be at the golf coarse nearly all summer long. At least I'll be able to get a break when I sleep at night, lol. Oh well, we're having fun at it!

I guess I don't really have a way of helping out thrifty wise this time. Oh I know, instead of using your milk that you drink with for cooking use powdered milk instead. In most cases you can't tell the difference. If you use soy, almond, or another form of substitute milk check into powders for those also. They have them, you may just need to look a little harder, like ordering them online. The cost adds up. My kids prefer the powdered milk on their cereal but I don't like it in pudding, or ice cream. I prefer to use it only in things that will get cooked. I use it in Mac-N-Cheese, or baking and no one ever knows the difference and I save anywhere from $0.50 to over $1.00 per gallon. There's a lot less waste since you can make only what you need and the powder is shelf stable. If you're going to drink it or use it cold make it at least 24 hours in advance so it can chill well in the fridge.