plantin' taters

I love to garden.  Gardening for me is very nostalgic and gives me a great sense of accomplishment.  My house may be a mess, and my kids may outsmart me, but at least I have a garden with vegetables (hopefully) growing in it!

With rain in the forcast for Friday, Saturday and Sunday; I made sure to plant my taters on Thursday.  Jim had meetings and errands to run related to work and took Hank with him (amazing help), and luckily I had Jared to do the hard tilling for me (also amazing).

 First, I raked out and picked up a large quantity of rocks. 

Wyatt enjoyed sitting on the rocks in the wagon and throwing them back out. (Not so helpful.)

Next, I dug the furrows with a hoe because I don't have a big-wheel-furrower-thing (wishlist) like Dad did when I was little. 

 

The first year I planted a garden, I dug my furrows with a stick thinking "I'm so resourceful for using this stick when I don't have the right tool" *pride* only to be humbled later when I realized foolish me could have used a hoe (duh) to dig them.

 

Finally, I planted the taters. 

Porter wasn't too excited about picking up the rocks, but he loved putting the cut potatoes in the furrow...for about the first row.  Then he was done, and moved on to being my photographer.  He did a pretty good job, and he provided a commentary as he took them.

"Mom, I got Wyatt's picture!"

"Mommy, I got Jared's picture!"

"Mom, I got your picture!  You look so beautiful!"

(*aww* Beauty is definitely in the eye of the beholder on this one)

"Mom, *laughing* I got your butt!" (this one's for you, Amanda)

And of course his self-portraits.

Two of our bottle-fed baby goats followed us around as we gardened and provided entertainment.

 

 We were all pretty pooped at the end of the day, and my arms ached all night.  I'm sooo out of shape.

 

fashionably bald


Think of the worst comb-over you ever saw.  When I was 16, I took a summer job and my boss had one that resembled this, only it went pretty much from one ear over the top to the other ear.  I guess growing up my generation saw too many of these drastic comb-overs because we've developed a comb-over phobia. Now any man who is slightly balding and has hair over 1/4" long (especially if he gels it) MUST have a comb-over.  The only solution, therefore, to allow one to be both bald and fashionable is to shave it all off and adopt the skin-head look.

(Mmmm, not bad, Bruce.) 

My husband found himself in exactly this predicament.  I thought he still had plenty of hair. I thought he looked great with his handsomely receding hair line.  I thought it was far from looking comb-over-ish...


...but he didn't, and I couldn't convince him.  He actually agreed with 2 other balding friends to take the plunge together, to shave it and let it all go, and they all showed up at church together bic-ed bald.  (All but one, whose wife got him to keep his hair for a couple of weeks longer....but he has now jumped on the bandwagon.)
  

I was worried he wouldn't look as great bald, but I was pleasantly surprised.  My husband has a very handsome bald head!  The funny thing is how he didn't do it alone. My husband isn't one to hesitate in doing anything alone or on his own, but with this venture, he got his friends and kids to do it with him.  (One of the other guys got his boys to shave bald, too.)  It reminded me of teenage girls who can't take a bathroom break unless their friends go with them.  Some things are just more fun in numbers, I guess.

 

All sooo handsome!

 (The mow hawk Porter had in the last post was a baby step to going bald.  Sariah actually paid him a dollar to go with the mow hawk, and unfortunately he fell in love with it and cried when I finally shaved it off.)

craving chocolate?

Today I was attacked by a chocolate craving.  Usually I overcome said craving by eating a few green olives or a cheese stick, but (being 22 weeks pregnant) it was too strong and I was too weak.  I had spent the morning browsing recipes and planning a months worth of dinners while trying to ward off the munchies by drinking LOTS of water.  (My 3 adorable monsters trashed the living room, tore 3 pages from my bible, and dumped out a jar of cinnamon while I was thus occupied.  Lovely.)  After a late lunch of leftover pizza, the craving began.

I tried to ignore it as I put Hank and Wyatt to bed and went outside to plant a row of spinach with Porter.  The refreshing outdoor work only made the craving stronger and with not a single chocolate chip in the house I soon found my self google-ing "chocolate fix."  I found this amazing blog post and decided to fill "Porter and Mommy time" with a lesson on the letter "B" and a corelating snack of Brownies in a mug.  It was a great success...at least the brownies were.  After I told Porter that "Bakugon" was something cool that started with "B", he decided that "Ninja" was cool and also started with "B".  A long debate later I almost had him convinced that only "Black Ninja" starts with "B" and not just "Ninja".  Almost.

Cleaning up the mess.

Patiently waiting.

Topped with ice cream and ready to eat!

(Though this is not a healthy snack, and not "real" brownies; this way you will never have to worry about eating a whole pan of brownies when the crave hits!)