Lately around here

We're gearing up for summer.  I'm thinking about how I'm going to entertain my kids without electronics this summer.  We're going to be earning our tv and iPad time.  The kids will be reading and helping me around the house to earn the time on the electronics .     

We've been living to the fullest around here,  enjoy!

Crystal Cove State Beach was strolled with the kids.  I love this beach and plan on visiting a lot this summer.

Peonies=������

Dominos and ice cream

We have 3 tomato plants, I can't wait to eat fresh all summer.

Taco night with my dad, so yummy!

Mini golf adventures.  I learned I really suck at mini golf.

The School Garden is weedy, weedy, weedy. This will be my summer project.  

Our bounty from the garden.  We made grapefruit carrot juice.  

I thrifted these paint racks, total score.  They were filled with brand new paints too!  This will keep me painting all summer.

I'll never tire of dominos.

Four little squirrels were born in our neighbor's garage.  The are so flipping cute.  

New outdoor rug from ikea.

Sunflowers always make me smile.

Mother's Day paper airplane contest.  I haven't laughed so hard in a while.  This was a fun game for the whole family, young and young at heart.

We helped my daughter make a Mt. St. Helen's model.  Hello foil and duck tape!

I learned that sometimes a little drawing is in order to sooth and relax after a long day.  Like only 5 minutes of drawing, and it was sleepy time.

Today our house looks like this!  Good things are happening around here, I'll share soon.

Bathroom Before and After

The Before 
Our Guest bathroom 
Dark and more Dark
We have lived in our home for close to 12 years and have done only cosmetic changes to the interior.  So finally we took the plunge and upgraded the main bathroom the kids and use everyday.  The bathroom was starting to have some water damage and the space needed some LOVE.
 

The After

Light and Bright

I hit up Craigslist and found a local business going out of business.  I picked up the floor tile for $5 a sf.  This is my dream floor.  I love it.

 

Our Amy Butler towels hang on the Ikea towel rack.

The double bar is perfect!

We installed a quartz counter.  I love the bright white.

All the bathroom fixtures are from Pioneer.

By favorite part is the new double TP holder from Ikea.

New Trash can from JC pennies.

The decided to use our previous vanity, toilet, tub and vanity light.   I just repainted the vanity to BM Flint from the Aura line. 

We tiled most of the room with white subway tile from Lowe's.

The new tub fixtures are so modern and beautifully designed.

Cararra marble corner shelve are awesome!

the floor

I'm in love with this new space.  It's so bright now because we added a new bathroom fan with a light and a fan that actually works.  I still need to add art work and hang a ceiling mounted shower curtain system.

April Highlights

School Garden Tour

For the last 3 years,I've been lucky enough to take care of the school garden at our kids school.  This year has been our best yet.  In the Fall. the kids planted each bed with one to two varieties of vegetable.  We planted this way so everyone would be able to share in the what we planted.  Now that it's harvest time, we take a classes out and pull enough organic veggies to make a salad.  Parent volunteers wash, prepare the salad and serve it to the class.  I just love it. 

 I took a bunch of photos yesterday and wanted to share what going on out there.

  

Last week the school district delivered and spread out mulch all over the garden floor.   I'm so thankful to the people that made this happen.  

 

We're looking for parent volunteers to help lay about 30 more pavers to this path. 

The carrot patch.  So far this patch has feed about 6 classes, about 150 kids.  We still have many more classes to go before we run out of carrots.  Things I've learned about growing carrots a) If the little kids pull the tops off and leave the carrot in the ground, the carrot sends up need leaves. b) We add the carrot tops to the salads, just chop it up like an herb.  c) you can plant 16 carrot seeds to each square foot in the garden.  Plant in four rows of four.

Red cabbage- we grab two large leaves and add to the salad.  This bed is raised high to accommodate our students in wheelchairs.  It's time to add some more soil to this bed, it's sunk about a foot.

This bed is aHere we have a mix of lettuce and onions. 

The onions are blooming and the kids seem to like them in the salad too.

Mystery Veggie?  Anyone know what this is??

Hey mister sunflower!

When I take the classes out to the garden I just wing it.  One class found a bounty of sunflower seeds on the ground and wanted to plant them, so we did.  And look whats growing!

This bed features cabbage, lettuce and another mystery plant.

Kale- this bed is a slow grower, we need to plant more kale seed stat.

Kohlrabi, artichoke and lettuce.  The kids sometimes spill their seeds all over the ground before they make it into the beds.  We started to notice lots of lettuce ground all over the ground.  One our teachers started to transplant the little seedling out of the ground and started growing them in the beds.  

This class planted twice, the first round of seeds produced nothing, so they replanted and wow!

So we have a lot of lettuce!

Radish and Spinach

Our Butterfly Garden needs some love.  I'm hoping a family or scout troop adopts this space soon.  We need to plant some more milkweed and other monarch friendly plants. 

Volunteers are awesome.  One of our Grandparent volunteers taught the Kindergarten kids about soil. 

Our Orange Tree- it needs some love too!

This Mural which is also the back fence, was donated by one our local Girl Scout Troops.  The plants we're plant by another troop. 

Apple Tree-we had one apple on the tree and now it's gone, someone or something ate it, I knew it was not for long.

So why is this year different in the garden?  We have volunteers.  One class has a retired principle who brings the kids outside to the garden for science.  He built this worm shelter for our vermiculture bins.

 

The Grape Vine.  I need to trim this up, it will be huge soon.  The bares fruit in the summer.

These carrots are really tasty.  The kids LOVE them.

So there you have it.  If you have any questions about the garden let me know.