Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary

How does your garden grow?

Okay, so my name is not Mary, and I'm not "quite contrary"(usually), BUT I do have a garden. My mom, sister and I are growing a "community" garden to split the produce (and work) between our three families. We figured it would be a fun project to work on together, and considering I'm renting my house (can't plant a garden there) and have been wanting a garden, it works out perfectly for me. We are using a plot of land in my sister's backyard. We got started on it on Saturday and worked all afternoon. Thankfully it was very cloudy and even sprinkled and little bit. The temperature was also very nice. We tilled the ground and also mixed in some fertilizer and mulch. We borrowed my in-law's tiller and Craig did the work with it. After we did all that, we started to build up the furrows. We stopped before we were finished, and thankfully we did.

Yesterday morning, we continued getting the garden ready for planting. Our plan was to finish the furrows. Things never go as you plan. The day before, the ground was too wet, so the soil just ended up drying and creating rocks. So we knocked down our rock hard furrows and basically started over. We discovered the ground had been packed down badly from us stepping on it on Saturday. This would not work at all for planting seeds. We first sifted through by hand picked out the big clods of dirt. Then my sister and I got rakes and basically hand-tilled the ground. Oh my ouch. It was very hard. In fact, the head on my sister's rake came off. Between that and the beating down sun, we were so worn out! I thought I was going to pass out and die. But we had to keep going.

The next step was to rebuild the furrows. But thankfully our plans changed and we decided to do a square-foot garden set-up. It requires a bit of measuring and stringing string, but it was so much easier! Then we plotted out where we were going to plant the different kinds of seeds. It was about 1pm by this time (we started around 9:30 or 10:00)and Ella was getting bored (and getting into the seeds), hungry and tired, so I had to go after I had planted only two squares of radishes.It was probably good for me to have left then too. I knew I was sunburned, but when I got home, bathed Ella, fed the kids and put them down for naps, I didn't realize how badly. I got in the shower myself and then it hit me. I felt sick from too much sun. And, I then saw how badly I was burned.

As of now, I am a lobster. And I hurt. This morning I woke up with sore muscles and hurting skin. I am burned very badly on my face, ears, back of my neck, my chest (it looks like I'm wearing a red dickey), the back of my hands, arms, legs, and top of my feet. I would post pictures, but they just don't show how bad it really is. Let's just say it hurts just wearing clothes. I can't wear pants, and since my only shorts are dirty from yesterday, I must resort to wearing a pair of Craig's basketball shorts. And the neck of my shirt is touching me, but there's nothing I can do about that!

However, despite my suffering, I am very excited for the veggies to start growing! And the hard part is over with. I'll have to try to remember to take pictures once the seeds start sprouting.

Sunshine

I became slightly obsessed with "You Are My Sunshine" since yesterday's post. So, I decided to make a slideshow of the kids to this song.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

You Are My Sunshine

Even when my day is really crappy, I always have these two rays of sunshine to help me feel better. It's not ironic that the song "You are My Sunshine" is one of Ella's favorite songs. She truly is my sunshine "when skies are gray" (Caleb too).

Best Friends

Ella and Caleb sure do love each other! It is so cute watching them interacting with each other. Yesterday Ella asked hold hold Caleb, so I let her. I, of course, had to help, but I was able to get a picture of the two.



The funny thing is that as I pushed the button to take the picture, Ella was smiling as Caleb was not. They switched expressions during the second or two it took for my phone to take the picture!

Bouncing Baby Boy

Growing Like a Weed

He was so exhausted from his appointment, he fell asleep during his tummy time.

I just realized I forgot to post about Caleb's stats from his doctor's appointment last week! It's amazing because he has constantly been about a half pound to a pound heavier than Ella was at his age and also an inch longer.

Weight: 13lbs 5oz, about 15th percentile (Ella was 12lbs 15oz, 25th percentile)
Height: 25 in., 50th percentile (Ella was 24in., 30th percentile)

I was expecting his percentiles to be higher than Ella's, but I then realized that boys are probably compared with boys (and naturally bigger) and girls with girls. So his percentiles would be much different.

Caleb also had his second round of shots at this appointment. Last time, he had no reactions to them, so I wasn't expecting any. But, that night and throughout the next day, he had a mild fever. Even though his fever was mild (100 or less), and I knew what it was from, deep down inside I was on alert and nervous. When Ella was four months old, she got her shots as normal, and got a fever from them, which was also normal. However, her fever was not mild. I called the doctor's twice, and they said to not worry, some babies get high fevers as a reaction. A day or two later, I called them again and the nurse said she probably had some sort of bug and to give her Motrin and wait it out. But, a day and a half later, her fever was still raging (totalling six days), so we decided we needed to take her to the ER (at 3am). It turns out she had a fluke UTI and had turned into a kidney infection. She was in the hospital for three and a half days, and she had about three of four tests performed on her. The fever she got as a reaction to her vaccines covered up that she was sick. It was all so weird how it happened. And she hasn't had another one since. Anyway, that is why I was nervous deep down with Caleb's fever. That was a very traumatic time for me, especially being a first time mom.

Back to Caleb. He is perfectly healthy, eats well, sleeps very well (from 8 or 8:30pm to 5 or 6am), is very active (he rolls from back to tummy very well and has even rolled from tummy to back), is happy and is growing like a weed.

Three Years

Today is our third anniversary. Time has flown by so fast! Last night we were thinking all the way back to when we were dating. Such good memories. We had so much fun just being with one another. We started dating in November of 2006 with our first date being a double date hiking up Camelback Mountain. I had been hiking before plenty of times, but not this kind of hiking. I swear it was mountain climbing and not hiking! I remember huffing and puffing just five minutes into the hike but I was too prideful to let anybody see me. Well, somehow I made it up that mountain. I think it was me wanting to make a good impression on Craig. I had such a great time and was sad when the date was over. I wanted to go out with him again, but I didn't expect to. I didn't make it to the second date with anybody else but one guy. He turned out to be a jerk. Anyway, now that you know how much of a loser I was, the next day after church, Craig called me up on the phone and asked me out for a second date! The rest is history.

We got engaged on April 28, 2007. Looking back, our engagement was actually quite short. But at the time, it seemed we would never be able to get married. We were waiting on permission to be sealed in the temple from the First Presidency because of Craig's previous marriage. This was such a hard time. And his ex wasn't making it any easier. She was supposed to write a letter but never did (even though she claims she did). Our bishop was so wonderful in working so hard to get everything in order to send up to Salt Lake.

After a couple months, we decided that I should go through the temple in preparation for receiving the letter from the First Presidency. On June 30th, I was able to go through. June 30th is a special day. Not just because of this. This is the day when I truly gained a testimony of enduring to the end. That afternoon, Craig and I were hanging out at his parents house and we decided to check the mail. As he was going through it, he saw it. The letter from the First Presidency granting us permission to be married in the temple. We just hugged each other and jumped up and down out of excitement. We told our parents, and then got down to business. We had a wedding to plan. We had basically had everything but the temple part and the actual dates planned. Craig's parents were leaving for their mission just a few days later so we decided to get married before they left the MTC. So two days short of two weeks later on July 12th, we were married in the temple. Because of the short notice, we held our reception two weeks after that.

We had already been married for two weeks and back from our honeymoon.

Three years and two kids later, we are still madly in love. You know, people say that marriages are hard and you really have to work to make it good. I totally believe that, but honestly, I think that we are such a perfect match, it's not really that hard for us. Sure, we have our little spats, but in three years, we have only had one true fight. I also believe that because of the incredible path it took for us to even meet each other, we are truly meant to be together. I love Craig so very much and I know that he loves me just the same.

He is such a great and wonderful husband and daddy. I couldn't ask for anything more in life. I can't wait to spend the rest of eternity with him. I get so excited thinking about that!