More spoils

I SFG (Square Foot Garden). Thanks to this great book I got as a gift from my mom I have managed to cultivate a wonderful garden in a very small amount of space that yeilds amazing amount. It's been great! Anyone who thinks they don't have a good spot for a garden or not enough space for a garden - check it out! I've really enjoyed it.

I'll try to take a pic to post of it too.

For now-

the harvest has begun.

The purple stuff, it's cauliflower. Yeah, I know! When picking plants I decided I didn't want something I could just go buy at the store or farmer's market.

So I picked the purple cauliflower. It tasted like a cross between cabbage and cauliflower. Fun!

And below, our first batch of garlic, jalapeno pickles. Even the dill was straight from the garden. (Not the garlic though. I haven't figured that one out yet). 

Shortcake

Maren said Lillian looked like Strawberry Shortcake in this outfit so I had to take a pictureandshare Maren's observation with you all. Whadda think?

And Maren, not to be outdone, did a jig.

She wants to see the photos right after I take them. So she'll be like take my picture and by the time I even get the shutter down she's running to me. 

I love that her hair is mid-jump here.

 Dad is making mohawks in the bath tub. Lilly's is a little weak but check out Maren's 'do.

Nice!

Also, check out their tans! We've been working hard this year!

Being Kids

When Gramma made brownie I knew I'd need the camera. 

Maren wanted a knife to cut hers. She just likes the little spreading knifes that Gramma has in her drawer.

Lilly devoured the brownie by the fistful. 

Maren took her time.

Then they discovered the bugs. Sometimes Maren pretends to be scared of them but both her and Lilly were quite fascinated by the large population of boxelder bugs on the basil plant on the patio.

Dad in Canada

Every year the guys go on a fly-in fishing trip for a week or so in Canada where the walleye fishing is amazing. Every year us women get left behind to fend for ourselves. 

Last week was a tough week on my own. Taking care of the girls by myself so much. 

Looking back I should have said, "I'm sorry but you'll have to skip this year, honey." 

Lucky for him I didn't.

Matt's pretty proud of this northern pike that he managed to catch and net by himself out solo on the boat, with no leader on either. Pretty impressive.

Here's his biggest walleye. Isn't he cute?

No, I mean Matt.

Apparently, this is Jim. The bald eagle who'd follow the boat around to scoop up any that got hooked badly and didn't make the catch and release.

Nice stringer!

We're happy you guys made it home safely!

Still mourning

These are probably the blog posts I shouldn't write. The ones when I'm home alone and it's late at night and I'm feeling sorry for myself but I just checked a blog I like to follow. One in which there is a new baby and there was pictures from the hospital. Picture of a new baby born vaginally and lying on mom's chest skin to skin.

This is something I wanted with my first child. Maren "failed to progress" through the birth canal and I ended up having a c-section and she was whisked away to the NICU to monitor her for infection because I was running a temperature when they were trying to suction cup her head out of my vagina.  After the c-section I think it took me 10 days maybe even two weeks before I even looked at my incision. I didn't want to face the failure I felt.

The second time around when the OB/GYN said I could try a VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean) I really wanted to succeed. Both times I also wanted to succeed with no spinal. Both times I ended up caving and going with the "walking" epidural. I could live with that. Having to have a second c-section, a second failure, I HAVE to live with that. I GET to live with that. (Don't get me wrong I am still very happy to be here.)

What I haven't yet taken the time to mourn is the loss of birth as God intended it. The birth women have been experiencing for centuries. Babies turning down and proceeding through the birth canal. Pushing all nine months of misery out to a beautiful culmination of life. (Okay so to some of you this is NOT what your ideal birth is and you think I'm crazy, I realize that.)

What I haven't yet taken the time to mourn is the loss of bonding with my newborn baby skin to skin the second after she was born. To lie there with her completely exhausted feeling her warmth and being overcome with love. I really wanted that. Boy am I lucky that I had two healthy babies that I've been bonding with for years. Two healthy babies, two live babies, babies with fully developed lungs born FULL term, boy am I lucky!

I'm not upset when I see pregnant women or newborn babies. They aren't me and they aren't mine. I WANT to hear your birth story. It helps.

I do need to take the time to work through these emotions and mourn the loss of what I wanted so badly. Maybe it seems silly and I'm sure it seems selfish, after all it's not all about me. Maybe these are the blog posts I MOST need to write. I don't feel like I can talk to anyone about my feelings. Not that I don't have many willing, trusted, loving listeners I'm just not ready to say it out loud. Not to anyone but my husband and I'm not sure he is on the list of willing listeners. I'm not ready to say I'll never get to experience the joy and pain of vaginal birth. I'm not ready to say that I'll never hold my offspring against my bare chest the second after they are born and let them feed from my breast as soon as they're ready. I'm not ready to say it but at least I'm willing to write it.

Super Hot

Boy, it's been hot!

And not just hot, but humid. Hello, July in Minnesota.

Excessive heat warnings, what, 5 days in a row now with two more days ahead? Yeah, hot.

What do you do on super hot days?

The a/c is working great and the heat isn't effecting us in the house but Mom goes crazy if we don't get out. Dad was open to spending one of his weekend mornings out with his girls so we hit this new park we heard about through another mom. It's really close to home and has a....

 SPLASH PAD!

Yay for St Paul Parks and Rec! 

Can you tell how hot it is? The lens of my camera kept fogging up! :)

I am so excited to have this to add to our list of things to do.

It was a great way to stay cool in the heat.

My lens is finally adjusting to the heat. 

Lillian takes a break and asks for "swing swing swing"

Not only is it a brand new splash pad but a brand new playground! Yippee! 

Maren is a monkey and is not afraid to climb. She's getting prepared to belt out the new Katy Perry.

Enough of the heat - back to the water.

Enough of the water - back to the playground.

Dad even tried it out.

I love the blues of the suit with the blues of the equipment.

On the way home I suggested an ice cream shop on the way that we haven't been into before but have heard good reviews on. GREAT PLAN! Great ice cream + great service = a great time.

Lilly's had ice cream before and she was excited. We ordered her mini cone last and she was having a hard time waiting yelling, "Cream, Cream, Cream!"

She finally gets her banana ice cream and tried to take a big bite off of it and makes a great face! Apparently it's cold. 

Maren chose "Superman" ice cream. That's the flavor, Superman. Matt tried it and said it tastes like fruity pebbles. The nice man behind the counter offered her a little mini cone like the one we got Lilly but I knew she'd be fine with a small, and she was, she ate every lick.

Oh so cute!

Oh so messy!

Yes, now mom carries a bib in her purse. It took a while but I figured that one out now.

Lilly was of course the first to finish her mini cone and then she kept yelling "More, More" and signing. 

Then she'd get a bite of someone's ice cream and then yells, "Bite, Bite, Bite."

If you ignored her the yelling continued with, "Cream, Cream, Cream."

The good news was we were the only ones there and the ice cream was more enjoyable than her yelling could ruin. 

We're doing that outing again soon. Hot, we didn't feel the heat much at all.

Garden spoils

Maren loves to eat pickling cucumbers right out of the garden.

Now we are getting raspberries and a lot of them!

She gets so excited to help hunt for them.

It was hard to get her to NOT eat these until I got a picture. 

:) What a great problem to have.

Hermit Crabs

Maren earned hermit crabs on her last sticker chart. She had wanted a chameleon, thanks to Disney's Tangled, but when I found out they are not social, they are very expensive, and I'd have to feed it live crickets we nixed that fast. We got her convinced she wanted hermit crabs. On Father's Day she got to go pick them out. They have been great. Maren loves them! She takes them out twice a day and Lilly is now quite enamored. Here is a video of 'em

 We have three. Spot, the smallest, Pinchie, he's medium sized (and does pinch) and Spanky the biggest. I picked up a lot of stuff for them on craigslist so we've had minimum investment. I would highly recommend hermit crabs as an aquarium pet for kids. They're pretty easy and even Matt and I enjoy them.

Summer fun

It feels like I could title almost all of my blog posts this same thing, summer fun. 

We've been having a lot of it! Long Live Summer!

Lillian drinks very well out of a straw. She has for quite some time. Maren uses a straw cup and Lillian wasn't great at drinking milk from her soft top cups. One day she got wanted Maren's but I never thought she'd be able to drink out of it. Sure enough, no problem. So she got straw cups because she wants everything her sister has. Now she's a much better milk drinker. She is also, I come to find,  a champion juice box drinker.

 

SO STINKIN' CUTE! I call her my little tink because she's such a s tink er.

Here's a nice pic of Maren at the sand table. She looks good in this color purple, no?

Turns out the pool water was cold again so into the hot tub to warm up. Even Lillian got to stick her feet in for the first time. It's only set at 98 for the summer so it's not all that hot.

Anyone who is thinking of buying Crayola's colored bubbles look at these pictures carefully. 

They are okay for in the pool because wash off it pretty easy but, man oh man, are they a mess!

I would not get these for my house. Not in the tub, not outside, way too much mess. Thanks to Gramma for being such a sport!

the OTHER camera

I just realized that I didn't download the pictures from our holiday weekend at the lake from the blue camera. It's just a point and shoot that we carry for pics near (or on) the water (it's waterproof!) and we don't use it a lot so I completely forgot there were pictures on it. 

So here is an addition post of our long weekend at the lake.

Matt and I took Maren out fishing one night after dinner. Unfortunately we didn't catch much that night. 

Matt did pull in a sheephead that Maren got pretty attatched to. Grandpa told her to catch him some dinner so she insisted that we give it to grandpa. She thought it was pretty and named it Spanky.

She brought it up to show the neighbors when we got back and said it was a wallfish (walleye :)) Too funny! Then she brought it in to show Grandpa and flipped it right up onto the table in front of him :o Thatta girl, Maren.

We tried a life jacket for Lillian to help us all be able to be in the water swimming but she did NOT like it. Who could blame her. 

 Maren is a great swimmer. She doesn't need much. A pool noodle will do. 

 There is a bucket of toys up there from when Matt was little. The girls enjoyed playing with his old action figures. 

What does Lilly have in her mouth??

We had wonderful weather and a great time! I'm sad that it's our last of the summer already.