Manning Mayhem: April 2011

Living in Paradise---Summer in April!

Our roses just recently bloomed and they are so beautiful!! I want to get 2 more bushes just like them for the side of the porch.

The one catastrophe so far. I have never used a weed eater before but I decided it was time to learn. Well I learned a valuable lesson. Weed eaters pretty much eat anything. Including your house! Really don't like using the weed eater.

The sand and water table that is pretty much a "mush and muck" table now. Has been a huge hit and Caleb has most definitely made it his own.

The new "Breakfast Nook". Since we don't have patio furniture we improvised. We spend so much time outside and I love that we can eat outside too.

Is that not the face of summer!! Caleb loves being outside all the time and he is so cute! As you can see, we were having a clothing is optional day.

I love the heat and rarely like air conditioning. Texas has had some gorgeous weather and it has been so fun to see the roses bloom and green trees in April. I actually have a tan already and I never tan. So now that you are all jealous, you have to come check out our little paradise here in Texas!

The "Green Thumb" Experiment

If you know me at all, then you know that plants and I really don't get along very well. I pretty much kill plants. So any gardening and plant care has fallen on Brydon, who enjoys it and does not kill plants. But here I am in Texas and it is 90 degrees outside with a beautiful yard and no husband for pretty much the whole spring/summer. So for entertainment and sanity and for fun, I have decided to see if I can indeed plant a garden and flowers and actually keep them alive. So for so good!!!
I am trying my hand at "Suburban Gardening" or whatever you want to call it. We are allowed to dig up our yard to plant a garden if we want to, but when we move it must be restored to its orginal condition. So I am opting to not tear up my lawn so I have to replace it in a year or so. Instead I am using 5 gallon buckets, planters, and a great garden stand I found at Wal-mart. So far things are growing really well. I have 2 tomato plants, 3 pepper plants (they are struggling the most), radishes, green and regular onions, romaine, beans, and peas. Caleb also really wanted to grow giant sunflowers so I am planting a patch of them right under our kitchen window. I was also told about growing corn in 5 gallon bucks and so tomorrow we will be planting sweet corn in buckets. It has been so much fun to do together. Caleb is facinated by the growing seeds and we have our nightly "watering the plants" ritual. Which if you know Caleb then this is the most exciting part of the day. It will be intersting to see how it all works out but so far it was a pretty cheap project and has been well worth it!

Caleb's Flower Pots

I thought they looked really nice on the front porch

Our Garden Stand has 2 upside down tomato plants and then the top is a 5x5 garden patch with 3 pepper plants and I stuck some romaine seeds in there but we will see how they do. The Flower Planter has radishes and onions.

Caleb was so excited to find these radish sprouts today. It was so cute!

I started the beans, peas, and sunflowers in these seed starters. I have never done that before and it is wild. I hope I can actually transplant them ok.

We will keep you posted on how we do with our new experiment!

Team Bradshaw---Autism Speaks

One of Caleb's amazing friends in Abilene has autism. Ethan is the sweetest boy and Caleb loves him to death. A couple Saturdays ago, we had the opportunity to be a part of an Autism Speaks Walk at the zoo with the Bradshaw family. Autism Speaks is a great oganization that offers support to families with autism and continues to support autism research. It was a super fun day and we were so happy we could be a part of such a great cause. We are so grateful for the Bradshaw family and the wonderful friends they have been to us here.