I Like Cloudy Days

It is overcast this morning.  I really like overcast mornings because the kids seem to sleep in a little longer.  I mean, it's 8:54 am and they are both still asleep!  Of course, they were up pretty late last night, so that  may have contributed to it, but hey, I'm not going to complain at all.  Now that I'm not pumping anymore, this gives me time to get ready in the morning.  I can shower, read my scriptures, eat breakfast, check emails and look at blogs/Pinterest/Facebook stuff (I finally broke down and got a Facebook account).  And today I have time to write a blog post.  I just don't know what I am going to do with myself!  :)

Emma is getting better at walking every day.  I can't believe she will be a year old in a few weeks.

Its so cute, she walks with her arms sticking out like little baby chicken wings.  I just love her so much!  I wish these pictures came out better but she was moving so fast the camera couldn't focus.  Anyway, you get the idea.

Garden Update

This is a picture of our cushaw plant.  It's a type of squash, kinda like a cross between butternut and pumpkin.  As soon as the corn was done and cleared out, this thing took over!  But for the longest time we only got male flowers.  It wasn't until about 6 weeks ago when we first saw some female flowers.  Now we are expecting around 4 cushaws that is, if the plant doesn't die.  The squash borers got to it.  I hate those bugs!  So we will see what happens.  Our garden is pretty much done now.  The zucchini produced one last humongo zucchini before it died (thank you squash borers and squash bugs) and the tomatoes are pretty much done producing and is now being eaten by grasshoppers.

Our green pepper plant has also been discovered by I'm guessing grasshoppers too, or some other kind of hungry bug that was so hungry it ate half a pepper.  Sometimes I wonder why bother having a garden.  Definitely not to save money!  We spend more watering it than we would ever spend on the amount of produce we get.  I just hope we get some squash before the plant dies.

Update 8/21/13:  We decided to pick our squash since the plant was infested with squash borers.  We got a happy little family of cushaw squash!  The weird thing is right after we picked the squash, Brent cut the vine right where it was coming out of the ground, and half a week later the plant is still alive!!!  We think it must have shot out some roots from elsewhere on the vine which are helping it to stay alive.  Now we are having fun trying to see how long it will be before it wilts and dies.

In other news, Emma is walking about 50% of the time now.  She really took off at the beginning of this month.  I had to go and buy her some shoes.  She loves to play outside.  Adam does too, it's just too hot to play for long periods of time.  Even in the shade.

 These are the most recent pictures of the kids, taken at lunch time almost 2 weeks ago.  Yes, Emma is sticking her finger up her nose to be funny.  She also does it for what I'm guessing are security reasons.  Some kids suck their thumb, she puts her finger up her nose.  We will find her randomly sitting around with her finger up her nose, and when we pull it out she puts it back in because she thinks it's a game.  Hopefully she'll grow out of it.

The Garden

Okay, so I originally started writing this post at the end of March.  And then I forgot about it.  Until today.  I am SO behind!  Ugh.  I need a personal historian.

We are attempting a garden again this year.  Last year we did pretty good with squash, zucchini, cherry tomatoes and sort of watermelon.  I say sort of because we only got about 3 melons and we could have had like 12, but somebody (not me!) used weed killer to kill the weeds in the garden instead of pulling them and I think it hurt the plant.  I also think we didn't water it correctly.  The ones we did get were pretty good though and I really enjoyed eating them, especially since it was so hot and I was big and pregnant with Emma.  This year we kinda got a late start again, so we bought plants from a nursery instead of growing them with seeds. We will try champion tomatoes, grape tomatoes, spinach, zucchini, and bell peppers.  We also got some herbs: rosemary, thyme, basil and sage.  We will see how that goes.  I also planted some corn from seeds and maybe they will sprout.  We will see.  We (Brent) put some new manure in the dirt and we have an irrigation system close to being set up (maybe this week) so watering will be easier.  Brent also built a shade thingy so that the garden will get morning sun and then partial shade during the afternoon.  Maybe we will have more success this year.

I have really been enjoying this time of year.  The weather outside is awesome, except apparently I have allergies now and they are driving me sort of crazy.  They could be worse so I'm not going to complain too much.  But it's kinda annoying when you go outside and then that evening and the next day your eyes are burning and your lungs have junk in them.  I suppose I could take allergy medicine but I don't want it to interfere with my milk production so I just suffer a little.  And wear my glasses more often.

***

Our garden in mid June

Our corn harvest.  We ate it within 2 days.

Fast forward a few months.  It is now the middle of (hot) July and monsoons are in full force, which basically means it is a little cooler (upper 90's-low 100's) and humidity at 70% with a 50% chance of rain and some cloud cover.  My allergies are better now and I can wear my contacts (yay!) most of the time.  Our garden has been fairly successful.  We harvested our corn about a month ago.  We got about 7 measly cobs of the 40+ we planted.  I guess they just didn't get fertilized very well or something.  Our tomatoes are doing great!  I've already made 2 batches of spaghetti sauce.  We also got a bonus cherry tomato plant from some seeds that were from our plant last year.  It just started growing randomly between the other tomato plants, like it knew where it was supposed to be.  Our zucchini is doing well with one zucchini every few days, the beans, rosemary and spinach tanked (to be fair, our spinach did well for about a month, then it got too hot) and our pepper plant is struggling to survive.  We also have a cushaw (kind of like a butternut squash) plant that is taking over the yard but it only has male flowers on it with maybe 3 or 4 female flowers that haven't opened up yet.  So we will see what that does.  Adam loves the corn and zucchini.

Happy Easter!

Well, maybe it would be a little more happy if I didn't have a little 2 year old sick with the stomach flu.  Poor little Adam woke up puking this morning.  Poor little guy.  He doesn't get sick that often so when he does, he just feels so bad.  I think he mostly feels bad that he's making a mess all over the place.  I'm trying not to stress him out about it but also trying to keep it contained to areas that are washable, so as a result, he is currently sleeping on his mattress (which we put on the floor) with just a towel covering it and blankets on him.  And I am doing a lot of laundry loads consisting of towels and blankets. :)  Ahh, the joys of being a parent!  Actually, so far it hasn't been that bad.  It could be loads worse for sure.  He is content to just sleep for the moment and I don't have to hold him (which is good because he smells gross), and he's ok being quarantined in his room.  All I have to do is go in there when he cries and clean him up,comfort him and help him get a drink.  Then he goes back to sleep.

So while Brent and Emma are at church, I have loads of time to myself in between puke cleanups.  So today I'll use it to catch up on the ole blog.  There's a lot more to catch up on than what I feel like writing in a single post, so I will attempt to do multiple posts.  Some things that have been going on around here include:

Planting a Garden (see below)

Trying to stay healthy (this encompasses a lot of things)

Brent's new job

Kiddos getting cuter/bigger (especially Emma, been taking lots of pictures)

Lots of Pumping (still)

I hope with in the next few days (weeks? months? years?) I can write a little about each.  I'm really bad when it comes to journal writing and I really need to get better but there are a TON of other things that also NEED to get done as well.  Too bad I don't have a clone or a robot to do some of the other things (like cleaning my bathroom) that keep getting put off as well.  Anyway, I'll write about this week at least and see where it goes from there.

This week was pretty normal, nothing too exciting going on, but one fun thing was Brent's dad came to visit on Tuesday evening.  He's been working in Phoenix a couple days a week since August (yeah, flying back and forth from LA to Phoenix each week) and so every now and then he drives down to Tucson in the evening to see his kids and grandkids.  Adam loves all his Grandpas so he really loves when any of them come to visit.  And we love to have Grandpa Westwood visit.  It's nice to see him a little more frequently.  

All tuckered out
after  pictures

Yesterday we went to the park and Janny took some family pics for us.  I think they turned out pretty good. I will post them when she's done editing them.  She really does a good job.  We went out to eat and In-N-Out with them afterwards.  It was fun.  

When we got home, the kids took a nap and Brent did some work in the garden while I played Easter Bunny.  Growing up we always did the Easter baskets and egg hunts on Saturday.  I think this was my parents' way of helping us focus on the real meaning of Easter on Sunday.  I think we will carry on this tradition with our family.

 So yesterday I hid a dozen eggs with little candies in them (I probably should have used raisins or fishy crackers instead) and put the baskets out with little toys for the kids.  Well, the idea was that after the naps, we would do the egg hunt.  Adam woke up first and saw the baskets and "hidden" eggs and couldn't wait for Emma to wake up so we did the egg hunt without her.  Which was no big deal because she's too little anyway.  Adam was so proud of himself for finding all the eggs.  And it was so
cute because every time he found one, he would open it, eat one of the candies, then give the other two to me and Brent.

Maybe that's why he's sick.  Too much Easter candy?  He had fun playing with his cars the rest of the day.  Fast forward to Sunday Evening.  Emma now is puking but she doesn't seem to have it as bad as Adam (fingers crossed).  She's all giggles and smiles.  Anyway, she looked cute in her little Easter outfit.

Whose Idea Was That?!

There seems to be a rule somewhere that says, "On any given night, the total hours of sleep Kyra gets shall not exceed more than six."  Now, I don't know who came up with that but I wish they would have consulted with me prior to making it.  It seems like no matter what I do, I just can't get any sleep.  If I plan ahead and I am able to get to bed the same time as the kids, it's one of those nights where both of them wake up a few times, usually within half an hour to an hour apart.  If they go to bed late, Adam is usually OK but Emma still wakes up once or twice.  Lately its been twice.  Or if Emma doesn't wake up, Adam does.  On top of that, I think I am still suffering from iron deficiency so I'm even more tired.  On average I feel like I've only gotten 4 hours of sleep when I get up, which makes it difficult during the day.  If I sit down to feed Emma or pump I have to force myself to stay awake.  I'm so tired of being tired!