Our Garden

We kind of made the mistake of getting in way over our head with our garden this year. I was so excited to start our garden this time around because I was feeling pretty confident from what we had learned last year. So we got pretty adventurous and planted LOTS of stuff. I had big plans to can all kinds of things. I mean, I planted 4 varieties of tomatoes all for different purposes. For some reason while we were planting it never occurred to us that we were going to have no time or energy from having a newborn in the house. Our garden has been neglected to say the least and my big plans went right out the window.
 Contributing to our crazy out of control garden was that we were given some plants from my amazing neighbor who is a horticulturist. She didn't warn me that she was giving me lots of exotic squash and such. So we planted some things not knowing what we were getting ourselves in to.
Our garden that started out like this:

 

And soon became this wild and overgrown monstrosity.

  It might be hard to tell all of the insanity. There are vines and craziness growing everywhere including up our fence, into the neighbors yard and across our lawn. The worst part about it all is that it was our exotic squash that was taking over everything and not only did we not know how to tame it, we had no idea how to even cook it.

See those round green squash? Yeah, they are some Japanese variety that has to cure for 30 days or something. I don't even know. And, yes those are humongous zucchini and yellow squash. I told you it was neglected which means we would forget to go pick them until they were way too big.

 So, the only thing to do was rip out the squash and save our garden from complete take over. It looks and feels mush more manageable now.

 

Sadly our tomatoes didn't do very well either. They got blossom rot from being over watered by our neighbors sprinklers and we didn't even realize what was happening. Even though they all died it is kind of a blessing because we would be up to our eyeballs with tomatoes and no way to keep up with them. That is my dream to make/can everything fresh from my own garden and I will do it someday. The other good thing is that we learned what to plant and where to plant it so I'm thinking that next year we will be much more successful.

And here is a cute picture of my little gardening partner.

Milo at 4 months

 Last week Milo turned 4 months old. It feels like he has been with us for a lot longer than that, I think because we have had so many ups and downs with him already in his short life. Thankfully things are evening out with him and we are all getting back to not being crazy people. I think the biggest contributor to that is sleep. Last week I decided that it was just time to get some sleep so that meant that Milo would have to cry it out. And boy can he cry it out. It was a good 3 or 4 nights of him crying for 30 minutes multiple times a night. The kid just doesn't give up! I am happy to report that for the last 3 nights he has slept from 11:30 pm to 7 am and it's like a whole new world has been opened up to us. I can actually reason and function during the days. I have energy and desire to work out. Its amazing what sleep will do! I'm also grateful because he has been stretching out his naps during the day instead of taking 10 cat naps like he was doing. All in all much is improved.

 At the doctor appointment (which was an utter nightmare because I did both kid's well child at the same app so we were there for 2 hours and the doc called Olive fat but that's another story) he described Milo as intense. I found that so fascinating because that is the 3rd doctor to say that about him. It's not that I don't agree, there is major intensity in this little man, but I'm just surprised that they see it so fast. His stats were exactly the same as his 2 month, 40 percentile for height and 75 percentile for weight, so he's kinda a short, round little guy. Weighing in at 16 pounds means that his cheeks and thighs are very very squishy and that's just how we like them. People will comment to me how chubby he is and I will tell them "You should have seen his sister at this age"

 How handsome is he? I just think he is the best looking baby around! At 4 months he is constantly sticking his tongue out, especially when he smiles. His hands are always in his mouth but likes to suck on almost anything and everything. He likes to grab things with his feet and is surprisingly strong when I try to pry something out of his clamped toes. He likes baths now. He has had some adorable belly laughs. He can do tummy time now that his stomach is feeling better. He can bat at things and is almost able to grab them. He likes his jumper and the bjorn because they hold him straight upright. He cries in the swing now. He is swaddled still at night but kicks his legs like crazy and often undoes our super burrito wrap. He is really quite strong. He likes to stand up. He is timid and nervous about people, often crying even if it's only grandma that's holding him. He is easily startled. He still loves to be bounced on your knee but will settle for sitting on your lap. He doesn't like his bumbo, bouncer or any other seat for longer than ten minutes. He screams (seriously screams) on all car rides so that makes you think twice about going somewhere. He likes to watch what is happening around him, especially his sister. He really likes when Olive shows him things or plays with him. He's just adorable! (and sorry for the stream of consciousness but I'm on a time crunch here)

 

My cute sister in law bought our boys matching overall outfits and we thought this was the perfect time to get some real photos of them together. Turns out it was a disaster! They didn't have any good props for these guys because they aren't quite sitting yet. Nothing worked out. So, here is a funny look at the worst photo shoot ever.

 Nice right? Two babies balancing atop a chair, neither one happy about it. Honestly though, could these little guys be more different?

 The lady kept scaring Milo because she would use loud sounds to get their attention but all it did was make him cry every time. She never tried any other tactic and so most of our photos have this sad face in them. In this photo he is actually looking at me and I feel like his face says "WHY are you doing this to me?"

 This random couch in their waiting room was the ONLY thing they had that would sit them up so these are the best photos we got. Notice how Milo's hand is in/almost in his mouth in every photo.

This is the one I ended up getting printed. It's as good as we were going to get.

Olive's First Day of PRESCHOOL!!

I have known for a year that Olive was going to LOVE preschool. She was probably ready for it months ago. Well, the day has finally come and boy was it stupendous! Olive is going to the Cottage Preschool which is here in our neighborhood so very close. It is a fantastic little school with a teacher that I am in love with. If you want to check it out click here.

 Here is our big girl on her big day! How cute is she? We went on a special FHE the week before to pick out everything she would need for school. This was her special new outfit.
I particularly liked her choice of shoes, always the fashionista!

Look at that happy smile. She was so excited!

 Hooray for school!

 Always the big sister Olive pushed Milo the whole way. She lives to help us.

 We have been talking about preschool for months now and since it is in our neighborhood we would walk by Mrs. Jani's house all the time so, Olive knew right where to go. She was so anxious that she literally ran to it.

 Yippee Skippee! Olive is a big girl!

 We found her star and she was overjoyed to find out that she got to take it home. It is currently hanging in her room.

 

 Milo was happy for his big sister too.

The second day of preschool might have been even more exciting than the first because now she actually knew how awesome it was instead of us telling her it would be fun. She now asks everyday if it is a preschool day.

 Doesn't she look excited?

 I bought her some new Vans over the summer but she has been patiently saving them for fall. I thought it was the perfect time to break them in.

There she goes...my big preschooler!

The Film

Scott took some film shots of Olive's birthday and I am in love with them.

Olive's Actual Birthday

 Olive's Princess party was quite the smash but that doesn't mean that the celebrating was over. A few days later it was her actual birthday and we tried to make it very special. She just kept thinking that everyday was her birthday and it basically was because she got presents all week.
The poor girl had a pretty serious cold on her actual birthday so you will notice a lot of runny nose pictures. Also, being the mom of 2 means that I am constantly forgetting my camera (as you may have already noticed from other posts) so, there are lots of camera phone pics. 

 She woke up to a house full of balloons. That was very exciting. She also had her a special birthday breakfast that had to include strawberries because she adores them.

  Olive refused to let her illness get in the way of any celebrating so we carried on with our birthday plans. Lunch was a lovely picnic in the park with the cousins where she got to open some gifts.

 Her new princess shoes were a major home run. She now wears them constantly.

 Then it was off for a good nap to help her recover. After nap it was time for a special dinner. On their birthday our kids get to choose where/what they want to eat for dinner. Olive loves pizza so we decided to splurge and get the good stuff.

 The funnest part about (any) food is getting to dip it.

 Cheers to yummy birthday dinner!

 Milo got to chill and watch us eat.

 

Then it was home for more present opening. She had already opened her Belle dress. This girl is obsessed with brides so that was the them of her gift. A bride dress that I made a veil and bouquet for. She insisted on wearing all of it even though it was 100 degrees.  Finally we ended the day with some chocolate ice cream cake that Olive didn't actually eat any of because she didn't want to take her new white dress off. She sacrificed chocolate for her dress, now that is dedication.

The Details

This is basically just for myself but I thought I would do it seperate from the party. Here are just a few of the details that went into making it a pretty special Princess party. (and don't make fun of my cake, and yes I did hand cut out 25 of those crowns. Oh what you do for your children!)

 The party favor included things like Snow White's apple, Rapunzel's headband, Ariels bubbles, etc. It was pretty darn cute.

 

By the way, Scott and his friend Kent just got their own radio show! It starts tonight and will be every Thursday from 9pm -12am. They are going to take listeners calling in, talk about movies and tech stuff, playing good music, doing Netflix reviews (which I am still writing here) and just being funny. I am really excited and so are they. SO....show your support! Listen to them on utahfm.org