4 Weeks

I can't believe it's been 4 weeks! It seems like we just brought her home. She is such a good baby and I'm grateful that she has fit into our lives so easily.


I took these pictures on my phone during a rare moment yesterday when she was awake. We love our sleepy head baby!

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Soft Peppermint Puffs

A couple of years ago I discovered these in sticks at Walmart for 80 cents during Christmas time. I LOVE them. It's the texture...they are chalky and I can crunch them up.

My thoughtful mother-in-law found them at the dollar store in puffs...I can't stop! They are so yummy but probably destroying my teeth as well as my chance at losing baby weight in the near future. Maybe blogging about them will make really think about what I'm doing to myself.

King Leo I love you and hate you.

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Falling for Fall

This season brings the yummy smells of autumn (rain, dried grass and crunchy leaves) and of course anticipation for the holidays. I love the changing leaves and the beautiful colors of fall. I love that apples taste so yummy this time of year and the unpredictable weather and snuggling up inside when it looks so gloomy outside.

This year Leah has shared in my love for fall. She anxiously awaited the trees to change and would get very excited when she saw leaves on the ground. This afternoon we decided to indulge a bit...

Leah found this pile of leaves minutes before a truck pulled up to vacuum all the leaves up. Her eyes lit up when I suggested jumping in the pile...because it never occurred to her.

We have had a beautiful fall. As a matter of fact,  I really wanted to give Lily a middle name that incorporated fall-y-ness but I could not come up with ANYTHING. She enjoyed a nap underneath the changing foliage while her sister frolicked.

 Awwwww...pure joy.

In The Garden

 The Beginning

Mid-Summer

When Mother's Day rolls around I want to grow something! To me it signifies the end of stifling winter and sunshine and green is what I crave. A couple years ago I bought a honeysuckle plant for Mother's Day to grow outside our door. I wanted to smell it as I came in and out of our home. This year for Mother's Day I got a load of supplies for our garden plot. Gardening is therapeutic... and man did I need some therapy as I became more and more pregnant....growing right along with my little garden. Due to inability to sleep you could often find me outside working in my small garden as the sun was coming up and soaking up the quiet.

During my childhood my father often had a garden. We didn't contribute very much to it's maintenance but I must have caught on somewhat because some gardening abilities come naturally to me while the rest comes through research. This year I'm documenting what I have learned so I continue to grow as a gardener.

TOMATOES:
I planted multiple different kinds of tomatoes this year, Roma's, Grape, Jet Setters and Beef. I wish I would have taken pictures of the garden at the end of the season because the grape tomatoes were very impressive. I had one plant and they spread throughout the garden. I would definitely plant them again because of their output. Once they started producing I would bring back a sandwich bag full of them whenever I went out. It was nice having a variety of tomatoes on hand but I would not plant as many if I had a small plot again...it became a lot of maintenance to avoid them becoming a tomato plant jungle.

One thing I feel like I mastered this year was watering. I realized two things...when leaves start turning a yellowish color they are getting too much water (this goes for all plants) and when they start to wilt they are not getting enough. It's all about balance. This year I observed more and noticed that some plants only needed water once a week while others needed water almost every day. I would water individual plants accordingly. Paying attention to temperatures and weather forecasts was also important for water control. If it is going to be very hot I would water more in the morning or late evenings before the heat hit. If it is supposed to rain I would not water at all. Tomatoes like hot and humid conditions. A general rule is they like the soil to be kept moist but not waterlogged making sure you water around the roots.

Something that was new to me this year was pruning and it made a HUGE difference in my tomatoes. I constantly had other gardeners coming up to me and asking me advise on their tomatoes. There should be one distinct stem up the middle and I staked the one stem up straight. The trick is that you only allow 4 to 5 fruit bearing tresses to grow from the main stem.  Pinch out any additional side shoots leaving the top shoot intact. Be aware of suckers which grow in the V space of the main stem and branches...pinch these out ASAP.  Pruning directs energy to the fruit.

Additional Tips: Roma tomatoes do not need pruning or staking because they are bred to grow compact. Also, remove all the yellow leaves on tomato plants to prevent disease.

 SUMMER SQUASH (Zucchini): 
Luckily I had enough experience with Zucchini growing up to know that I could only fit one Zucchini plant in our garden and it would provide us more than enough squash!

Again, pruning was the new thing this year. This really helped with the excessive growth of squash. After 4-6 fruit have set you can start pruning. Use a knife to cut bigger leaves that are closer to the base of the pant leaving all others. DO NOT trim any stems. A good rule of thumb is trimming 1 out of 3 leaves on the plant. Again, this directs energy to the fruit.

Additional Tip: The leaves on squash can develop powdery mildew if they get to much water on the leave whether it's due to watering or rain. Try to trim these leaves or you can spray weekly with a mix of 1 part milk to 9 parts water.

Red Pepper

I'm pretty proud of this red pepper. It slowly turned fully red after what seemed like weeks. I made a red pepper sauce with it right away. It's really the only pepper I used. We use a lot of red pepper in our cooking so it is too bad that I was only able to yield one red pepper...I would like to grow more plants next time and figure out what I was doing wrong!

PEPPERS: 
I didn't learn a whole lot about peppers this year but honestly I wasn't that invested. Kellen really wanted a lot of peppers (which he never used) and tomatillos...neither are very expensive in the store and didn't seem very smart to grow but we were experimenting. Maybe my lack of interest led to the failure of the peppers and tomatillos... or maybe it really was the weather. At least we yielded some peppers unlike the tomatillos which grew bushy and looked promising but the husks never filled out...they may be a do-over crop.

There were a couple of things I did learn. Peppers (like most plants) need the soil around the base tilled regularly to avoid bugs making homes. A couple of times I did not get to this fast enough and I noticed bugs making their residence. Be careful when you do till because their roots are really shallow. Also, peppers like to have the soil moist but not drenched. It seemed counter-intuitive to me but peppers don't seem to like heat. Mine flourished when the days dropped into the 80's...which did not leave very much time for high volumes of production.

BASIL:

The basil was my pride and joy. One of my main motivations for gardening is to have a huge basil crop in order to have fresh pesto year-round. I got closer to my goal this year!

I learned that there is two huge tricks to growing healthy basil plants...one, they don't need much water. I would let the soil almost completely dry out before I would water it again. I would say every 3 days or even up to a week without water. Second, pinching out any flowers that appear. This is where I can use some improvement as I did not have the time to invest in the proper amount of pinching! Next time I would just pull of the entire top to prevent them from flowering and cultivate larger leaves. I started a few from seed and they did not do well do to bugs. Next time around I'll just work with plants at the beginning of the season.

Also, make sure you pick a few leaves off a number of plants rather than all off one. Making sure you harvest the top most leaves first. This year I would harvest enough to make a batch of pesto and then next harvest I would freeze it for winter. I also had a bug problem with the basil that I will have to learn how to manage better next time around.

I also tried Oregeno, Thyme, Cilantro and Bush Beans. The Oregano I would plant again because we actually used it, it was low maintenance and I think it would do well as a undergrowth in a flower garden. Thyme seemed kind of worthless because I don't like Thyme very much and it did not do well.  Cilantro was fun because it grew so fast from seed. The problem with cilantro is that it does not last very long before it goes to seed and is pretty cheap in stores. But it would be cool to have fresh cilantro always on hand in the backyard. Kellen and my sister thought it tasted much better fresh. If I grew cliantro again I would plant it every couple of weeks for a couple of months in order to always have a bunch. The Bush Beans grew a bit from seed and then slowly died off due to bugs and general lack of knowledge. They are a do-over crop because I love me some green beans!

KID TIP:

Leah wanted to water the plants every day. So in order to avoid over-watering everything I planted a few flowers (marigolds....which actually ward off lots of different bugs) on the outside of the garden so she could water to her hearts desire!

PROCLAMATION!!! It's a Medieval Party.

        To celebrate all the Holgate birthdays in August/Early September we threw a Medieval birthday celebration. Clint and Riley really like to dress up and I kinda wanted to be over-the-top this year with this and Leah's tea party. It was so much fun!

 Introducing....Princess Leah!

King Kellen and Squire Clint

Friar Kalob and Lady Harmony...and other commoners.

Allison the Gypsy

 

Adam the Wizard

What medieval party would be any good without a feast? Our feast included goblets of juice and silver platters piled with food...and a speech from the king.

Doesn't this look like fun? We really only had enough sunlight for one of the tournament games. We jousted. This included pinning a balloon to our sides and trying to pop our opponents balloon with our Styrofoam lances with pins in the ends. It was so funny...as well as painful because we kept sticking each other! There was also a rule that we had to gallop which made it all the more ridiculous.

We also played slay the dragon with a dragon pinata. After all this I can only imagine what our new neighbors think of us. They probably think we are really into larping :)

A big thank you to everyone who celebrated with us! How cool is it that our family and friends would go out of their way to play along? And by the way...my parents were there as well....they managed to stay out of all my pictures.

P.S. I must mention this cake I made for the party....Doesn't it look incredible? Good news...it tastes as good as it looks!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Tiered Cake with a Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Frosting and a Peanut Butter Chocolate Glaze... For REAL.

I had been day dreaming about this cake for weeks. It was a big hit and I need to share one of my favorite food blogs that brought it to my attention, Smitten Kitchen. Follow the link for this yummy recipe.

August 2008

Red Pepper Spagatti Sauce

Kellen is now vegetarian and because I've never really liked meat I'm fine with it. Our family gets to eat more of what I like and Kellen seems more adventurous. He made tofu lettuce wraps the other night and they were delicious!

Leah says that she only eats "chicken" which usually means steak and since we only eat steak once in a blue moon, she is basically a vegetarian as well and okay with it. She is going to have to learn to like fish... or we need to stop telling her it's fish before she attempts to eat it!  I think her problem with fish is that she see's her dad catch fish and has caught a few herself and so she is too sympathetic.

Back to the recipe! We can't get over this one. I made it up one week and we've made it every week since. Due to the garden producing so much summer squash...it's always served on the side all fried up..yumm. I still need to figure out how to cook summer squash another way...any ideas? I blend the onions and garlic in this sauce because I enjoy the smoothness and Leah will eat it easier but it is not necessary.

Red Pepper Sauce

Ingredients:

3 Cloves Garlic
Whole Onion
Whole Red Pepper (roasted)
16 oz Tomato Sauce
14 oz Crushed Tomato
Cayenne Pepper
(To taste)
2 cubes or teaspoons of Beef Bouillon
1 teaspoon Basil
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
Fresh Basil



1.  Dice onion and garlic roughly and saute both until translucent. Meanwhile, roast red pepper under broiler with olive oil until soft. Place onion, garlic and pepper in blender.

2.  Add 1/2 can of tomato sauce to the blender and blend until smooth. Pour blended mixture into pan. Add all of the remaining ingredients to pan (besides fresh basil) and let simmer for 30 min.

3. Add fresh basil and remove from heat.

08/02/09

Getting Caught Up

I think being pregnant and working full-time was just about all I could take for the past 10 months. During that time I started about 30 posts and never finished them. It's time to get caught up!...especially since my main job right now is just being a milk maker :)

My goal is to finish writing and organizing everything by the end of the year. As a late Christmas gift to myself I am going to have everything printed and bound. So I'm going to pump some posts out and worry about the order of events later on...try not to get too confused...and wish me luck!!!

Leah is turning 4.

For those of you out of town...a virtual invite to Leah's Tea Party. She had so much fun last year she wants to do it again! This year we are not going as fancy and I'm just going to make a bunch of finger foods that she will enjoy and let her dress up in a princess dress. I can't believe that she is turning 4! Wow.

Babe #2 (Warning: Bare Belly Photos)

It's about time I publish about the baby in waiting. I don't know why it's taken me so long...maybe because she doesn't have a name yet. I should tell you that I have had this secret desire to keep her all to myself and our little family. I don't like leaking information. Her arrival has only been a far off date and only proof of her existence is my expanding belly and her movements that are only for my own knowledge. I don't know why it is. I guess my pregnancy (and birth) of Leah was all too public.

I can't hide any longer. I am much larger with this baby than with Leah and I'm getting pretty close here people. It snuck up on me. So here are the much requested belly shots you've all been waiting for and a few of the ultrasound pictures for documentation purposes. I'm 27 weeks and all baby.



This pregnancy has been very uneventful which has been really nice. Leah's first 2 trimesters were the same way. This time around I was sick with a cold and then sinus infections for the first couple of months which in turn made me nauseous from medications. But I still was much better off than most! I totally held it together emotionally this time around...I don't know what the heck Leah did to me but I was an emotional wreck with her the first trimester or maybe I have just matured :) This second trimester has been utterly uneventful. Again good. One other thing that is different is that this baby girl is really low riding. It doesn't even seem right. I keep thinking she might fall out. Leah was so far up and in it was hard to tell I was pregnant at all.



The one thing I look forward to the most about this baby girl coming is Leah's interaction with her. Leah has wanted a sibling for so long and refused to believe we would have anything but a sister for her. When the ultrasound technician told us it was a girl Leah had this expression on her face like..."What the heck did YOU expect it to be?" No biggy for her. For the last 6 months she has spoken about her sister in her play and refers to the baby as "my baby". She tells me everyday how her sister will soon be involved in whatever she is doing. She will be a very good big sister.

SO. Now for suggestions or opinion. I have come to the conclusion that we will not be able to agree on a name for this little girl. So I'm letting Kellen name her with the idea that I can name the next. Kellen really wants to name her Sadie Mae. It's a cute name but for some reason I am struggling with it (probably because my grandparents had a dog named Sadie). What do you think? Any suggestions? He told me I could change the middle name but everyone seems to like it and I think Mae is really pretty. I'm just afraid it sounds hickish. Let me know what you think and I will continue to update on the baby as my 3rd trimester plays out. Due date : Halloween. Kinda fitting for our little family I think!

Moab 09

FINALLY we can camp again. Still questionable with late snow and rain storms but we went and it was good. I told Kellen then I only want to camp once a year at a rocky place and so now we are done for the year :) It was gorgeous and really cool but dirty. Moab is a really cool place because you have access to so much recreational opportunities (rafting, 4 wheeling, biking, etc.) and also access to 2 national parks. So we visited both Arches National Park and Canyonlands. Here is the evidence of a great time...



First off...our campsite was covered in these caterpillars. Leah loved it and was often covered in them. At the very end of the trip she found some friends in the campground but found out that they were stepping on the caterpillars. She gathered as many as she could from their campsite and ran to ours. She didn't play with them again :)



Leah loved this hike...sandstone arch. It was all sand and their were kids everywhere rolling down the hill. This is also a good pic of my pregnant belly at 14 weeks! (Disclaimer...I look nasty because I had been hiking in the heat pregnant, please keep in mind.)




I like to call this "Kellen ruling the sky." Canyonlands National Park



Mesa Arch at Canyonlands. This was so cool in person because there is a huge drop off on the other side. It's pretty freaky but so cool to look through. This is the most daring I got all trip letting Leah go up with Kellen.




Leah has been messing around with this cheesy smile for a while now. It's really funny. She also got this leather hiking purse the night before which is great because it limits the amount of rocks she carries with her. She gave sacrifices (rocks) to many of the hike gods along our hikes. She literally says she is going to feed things so we can pass.




Kellen is such a great photographer. This is my favorite of the trip. As Kellen would say...Epic.


It rained off and on the last two days which was actually wonderful because the temperature dropped, kept the dust down and the people away. We got a lot of things to ourselves which was so nice. Here is a picture of balancing rock with the storm in the background.


Family picture in front of one of the window's arches. We got there right before sunset and it was beautiful. We got so many good pictures of the trip and I downloaded a bunch to flickr and facebook if you want to have a look! Link to flickr album is :

http://www.flickr.com/photos/theholgates/sets/721