“Nonna! Nonna! Come quick! Bring your camera! We have some real good ideas on pictures you can take of us.”
They chose the spots, the poses and the props. Be still my fluttering heart! I have lived for this day!! Haha!
The cute just won’t quit. Aw….
These were the first of the day. Lucky me.
In between arranged mountain rock lined edges, containing a mini-suburban woodland, small solar lamps begin to light up. I don’t have fireflies in Colorado, so these are my prize.
The temperature is this perfect 70 degrees after the loveliest of days. The cover is on the pool and I am hidden under lush Aspen with baby-blue skies above as the sun sets. The orange glow faded to pale pink and the light is losing its’ strength, softening by the minute.
The stock and carnations in the nearby pots are aromatic, but like always, nothing perfumes the air quite the purple petunia. Not a bug in sight.
I love Colorado. Could it be any better?
{Sandy-the-Dog does not appreciate eveningtide and is waiting to be back inside}
Then suddenly, Dave flips a switch and twinkle lights everywhere and backlit shrubbery sing the reply ~ YES! So pretty!
Tacos. At Wrigley Field in Chicago on a sunny day. Made early in the day, no doubt, and kept warm in steamers and under hot lights, a shell that started as crispy became greasy from its tasty contents and a little chewy and they. were. magnificent.
Kudos to Jack-in-the-Box for at least making the killing of us all with terribly unhealthy food so darn enjoyable.
From their website (www.jackinthebox.com):
No trans-fat. Thanks, Jack!
GemGem turned 5 and her mommy and daddy hosted the whole family of us at a picnic party for her (and her big-brother, Gavin) on Memorial Day evening. Stephanie (www.maydae.com) took this photo.
Some church lady taaught my mom to make the good, old-fashioned doll cake (or “barbie-doll cake”) the year I was turning 13. I hadn’t played with Barbies since I was 4, but my mom made me one anyway. I did not have fond feelings about them.
But Jovan asked for one in 2007 before she even had daughters and so I made it and discovered it was fun and easy. Then, for Guini’s 4th birthday in 2009, I made her a Cinderella cake. And it was a hit and I liked them more.
Gemma just turned 5 and has that dazzling head full of long, red, curly hair (which she always wants me to straighten, noooooo!). And as it happens, Disney’s Pixar is about to release a movie called, Brave, and the heroine is a gorgeous redhead named Merida. Voila – a cake that looks like the birthday girl!
Her mommy told me Gemma wanted a very colorful princess cake. She is a very colorful princess, so that seemed right.
Baked cake. Stacked and filled cakes on a cake stand. Wrapped the Merida-doll in painter’s tape (so she wouldn’t be totally naked when we cut the cake (from an earlier lesson learned). Used a serrated knife to create ball-gown shape. Crumb-coated with some of the pre-made strawberry icing. Divided up the buttercream into small batches. Used a “leaf tip” to cover the whole doll in ruffles and then just used various colors and tips and started “making colorful.”
I suppose it would be good to start with a plan. But just doing whatever is so much more fun.
Plus knowing Gemma will just love it. And it looks like her! That is nice.
Amelie is always first in line to offer to take a swipe of the icing for us.
Steph took this last shot, which I LOVE. It was breezy and getting the candles lit and having them stay lit was challenging and I love how every girl (regardless of age) there was full of anticipation.
A couple of weeks ago, the rest of the 6 grandbebes, Hunter, Averi and Amelie, made theirs.
Averi blew a party horn while the concrete was being mixed.
Amelie and Averi being silly sisters.
Daddy helped Amelie Belle.
Carefully placed flower and butterfly tiles and sea glass. Hunter preferred nuts and bolts and washers.
The design process.
Colored sands were Amelie’s fav part. The rain that night mostly washed those away, but it was fun anyway.
Hunter was much more conservative with the colored sands.
Look at that sweet Hunter-Magoo face.
“hi this is Gavin and i want you guys to know that school is out
i hope you guys have a goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Well, I didn’t read this until later in the day, but it made everything a thousand times better. Thank you for the good wish, Gavin! I love you. Hope for LOTS of Gav-time in my life this summer!
All the flowering trees and shrubs are running about 4-6 weeks early this year. Including my Golden Rain-tree just outside the kitchen window. Joy-maker.
Deuteronomy 32.1-3 NLT
“Listen, O heavens, and I will speak!
Hear, O earth, the words that I say!
Let my teaching fall on you like rain;
let my speech settle like dew.
Let my words fall like rain on tender grass,
like gentle showers on young plants.
I will proclaim the name of the Lord;
how glorious is our God!”
Joel 2.21-24 The Message
Fear not, Earth! Be glad and celebrate!
God has done great things.
Fear not, wild animals!
The fields and meadows are greening up.
The trees are bearing fruit again:
a bumper crop of fig trees and vines!
Children of Zion, celebrate!
Be glad in your God.
He’s giving you a teacher
to train you how to live right—
Teaching, like rain out of heaven, showers of words
to refresh and nourish your soul, just as he used to do.
And plenty of food for your body—silos full of grain,
casks of wine and barrels of olive oil.
I think “Mulch ado about nothing” is one of my best blog titles ever, because I have never ever {to my knowledge} heard it said before. Hahahahahahhahaha! Yes, I think it is funny. I am probably not the first, but I am not going to google-it yet…I will enjoy my utter hilariousness for a minute or two more.
Really, I was just planning to share some very unrelated and yet interrelated ideas and thoughts I have as I meander through the suburban backyard garden.
1. Mulch is a protective cover you place onto the soil around your plantings to help retain moisture, stop the weeds from horning in, avoid erosion and to make pretty. You can buy bags of red, shredded bark for beds and borders and it looks nice, but mulch can be shredded bark or newspapers, nut shells and any number of other materials. Even in containers, I like to mulch to discourage all that darn evaporation that happens in hot Colorado on sunny days!
2. I am late getting started. So what is new? It is never too late to garden, though.
And none of us are really late. Yes, the lilacs bloomed 5 or 6 weeks early and we have had unseasonably mild days and nights. Yes, the stretch of 80-degrees-plus temps have made us want to hit the pools, but people, I implore you! Remember it is Colorado. We could have a major blizzard in May. I hope not, but we could. Tender veggies and flowers are safer planted after Mother’s Day. We can sneak a few into pots, but just be ready to haul them inside at a moment’s notice!
3. None of has superfluous time to spend. And that’s OK.
Just tackle a 5-minute area: clear away dead winter debris and unleash the new green. Water a little, think about something colorful to add, and voila: off to the garden races. If we went outside for 5-15 minutes daily and planned to just deal with a 10-to-12-square-foot area, we’d be all over the yard in no time and healthier for the fresh air.
4. Advice: don’t create a garden too big to handle.
Let’s talk veggies. Most of us are not gardening to support our full vegetable and fruit intake for the entire year (although I really really really think we should start thinking about living a more self-sustainable life). But every little bit we do to feed good, clean, organic food we grow in the soil ourselves, straight from the garden to the dinner table to our families – is just a thousand times better! But people decide to garden and then bite off more than they can chew…or weed…or keep up with. Start small. Even a 4 x 4′ raised bed can do wonders. Be successful with that and then add on.
Me? I have 3 4’x4′ garden squares and some large pots for food gardening. I also tuck veggies into other places around the borders because they can look decorative and get needed shade. I learned everything I ever needed to know about gardening {this is true!!} from Mel Bartholomew’s Square-Foot Gardening. HIGHLY recommend!
5. Advice: If you are going to grow tomatoes, invest the time to grow the most amazing tomatoes on your block &/or in the universe.
This is a value I wholly subscribe to. Try all the tips and tricks you ever hear of – from tying the tomatoes to metal stakes with strips of your old pantyhose (for the electrical charge), to burying seedlings with Epsom salts for the magnesium – or whatever else you hear. Just grow good tomatoes. It will speak so much about your character as a human being when you can spot the perfect tiny seedling and grow it into a fruit-producing machine that will taste so good.
Oh and, an extra piece of advice for free – never let a tomato go to waste. Never ever. Sauce them. Roast them, Sun-dry them. Freeze them. Sandwich them, deep fry them or salsa them. Just EAT them for the love of God and all that is holy!
6. Extreme truth: there is no reason to garden at all if you are not growing tomatoes. Don’t try to debate me on this {Bryan}. Seriously.
Pictured: The Kelley kids making garden stepping stones for me on a Sunday morning.
But it did rain and cats and dogs last night. Good news. Because just yesterday on the news we were informed that Colorado is officially in a draught and our summer watering laws are in effect. Booooooo.
Gemma and I decided to find a puddle for splashing through right after breakfast. This was all we could come up with…before the sun broke through and dried everything up. Colorado, Geesh.
Me as green. Loving the recycle, the up-cycle, less plastic, less chemicals.
Me loving the chemically-super-scrubbed-clean. And wanting to own some of everything in the store’s cleaning aisle.
Torn between green-clean and uber-over-clean.