Green beans

I have gotten some yummy green beans from the garden! The green beans have been super easy to grow and fast too!


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The first zucchini has arrived

I am very excited to report that my first zucchini has arrived. May 17, 2011; 0 lbs, 1 oz; 3" long. He's a bit small but apparently if you harvest the first ones early they produce more throughout the summer. Here he is pictured with his sister the radish.




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Cute Shoes for Sale

Apparently, the rumors are true.  Your feet are never truly the same after you have a baby.  So, I have several shoes I do not want to part with but they are not going to fit again.  So sad.  I would love to sell them to a friend so I don't have to take them to goodwill.  

Poetic License brown shoes with hot pink on the top.  Size 8.  Worn maybe 5 times.  Comfortable but too small for me.  $15

Mia shoes.  Size 8.  dark brown with plaid around the flower.  I heart these shoes and sad to see them go but they are just not comfortable anymore.  Worn about 5 times. $15

 These are possible the cutest shoes I have ever seen.  They are actually my sisters and therefore I will be giving her the money if they sell.  They are a really deep red crock skin look with a super cute loop on the toe.  They are from shoedazzle.  Worn once to a party and the heel is just too high for me.  I think a 9 is a little big for me too cause my toe slips forward a lot.  $20

Steve Madden heels.  If you need a basic red shoe this is a good one.  Size 9.  They have been worn the most of all of these but are still in good shape.  $10

Beautiful Shoedazzle black suede shoes with gold chains.  worn once and they are a little big and high for me.  I dream of wearing heels this high!  Size 9.  $20

Let me know if you need more information or are interested in any of these shoes.  If they are local I'll bring them to you but if you want them shipped I can do that too for whatever the sipping cost will be.  

Squash

My zucchini today. There's some squash in there too. It's taking over.


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Radish

Here is the baby radish I pulled from the ground and then used in some mango salsa. Hopefully more radishes this week. See previous post for more on my garden.



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Growing a Vegetable Garden

The garden is growing and I am so excited.  You can find the first garden post HERE.  The pictures below are from two weeks ago and it's even bigger now! 

In this bed I have cucumber, yellow squash, zucchini, baby yellow tomatoes, green beans, beets (not shown), jalapeno, red bell peppers and roma tomatoes.

The far right bed has tomatoes, radishes, lettuce, carrots, another tomato, green onions, banana peppers, chives, and strawberries. 

The bed on the far left has rosemary, three kinds of basil, thyme, oregano, cilantro, and something else I'm forgetting.  There are also 3 kinds of mint in pots.

 Here are the radishes.  They started from seeds and grow so fast.  My next post I will show you a radish I pulled up this week.  The rest should be ready soon.  I have never really eaten radishes but I'll be looking for some recipes.

 Only one of my 4 tomato plants is producing right now.  I hope the others hurry before it gets too hot.  The tomatoes are much bigger this week!

 This is the zucchini plant.  It is giant!  I think it's twice the size of the picture now.  This is after a hail storm and the hail went straight through the leaves of the plant.  It produces beautiful yellow flowers then the flowers fall off at the stem.  I don't think that is what should be happening so I will have to do a little reading on taking care of zucchini.  If you know what is happening- please tell me.

Slumber Party

Carsyn came over the other day for a playdate.  The kiddos were tired and I thought Dora would help extend their bedtime.  

 So cute!  Carsyn really wanted to be sleeping and Cason was more interested in Dora. 

Today I found myself singing a Dora song.  I may regret ever turning that show on.

School Easter Egg Hunt

They have an Easter egg hunt at school and it was great fun.  There was a hunt last year when he was 1 but I wouldn't so much call it a "hunt" as a "roll".  This year, it was serious.  It was every 2 year old for himself. 

 And they are off...

 Shiloh is ready to go too.

 Finding eggs is so much fun. It's hard to find them in this crazy carpet!  He started out slow, even with the encouraging words from his parents mom.

 Then he hit the motherload. 

 Counting our eggs.  The school had smartly taped them together so there was no sneaking candy.

 Shiloh managed to break into one.  Bliss.

 And then everything changed.  The teachers took all the eggs away.  every. last. one. 
Rude.
Cason was very sad.  He worked hard for those eggs. 

Don't worry.  He recovered quickly and all was forgotten. 

Easter! He is Risen!

We had such a wonderful Easter weekend and I have so many pictures to share that I'm a little overwhelmed.  I'm just going to give you a preview of what we had going on.

 There were glitter eggs.  No Easter is complete without them!

 There was a cute little bunny.... One of the cutest I have ever seen. 

 School egg hunt with his bestie. 

 Really good food!

 Decorations.  Glitter eggs are important but the most important are the verses that remind us that this holiday is not about eggs- it is about Jesus. 

 More egg hunts- checking each egg to see what kind of candy is in store.

I love my precious family!

And there was silliness too.

How does your garden grow?

This year, I decided we needed a vegetable garden.  To grow our own vegetables.  So we can afford to eat.  Have you looked at the price of tomatoes lately? 

I told Mike about my plan for our new garden and he gave me a funny look.  Maybe because I don't garden.  I don't even like the outdoors- there are bugs out there.  Nevertheless, my mind was made up.

From the extremely small amount of research that I did, a raised garden is the best way to grow vegetables so that is what we did. 

 We decided to use a flower bed kit from Home Depot.  You can easily make your own but we weighed the cost of lumber and supplies and the kit and found the kit to be the most affordable option for us.  This is 3 kits and each square is 4'x4'.  I helped put them together (not shown).  Mike is disturbing the soil that will be under the garden.  It helps with drainage... or so I was told.  We put a weed barrier down after that (not shown). 

 Next we filled it with dirt.  By we I mean Mike.  I went to the store to pick up the dirt but that's where my involvement ended.  The dirt was the most expensive investment I think.  There are probably less expensive ways to get dirt- like digging a swimming pool- but for time we just purchased it at Lowes. 

 Next came the planting.  We used some seeds and some plants from Calloways.  I'll be covering the plants we used in a later post but 2 of the beds are vegetables and one is herbs. 

 My mom helped with the planting.  She will be taking some of the veggies so I thought she should be put to work.  The hardest worker was that little thing in the back. 

 Lots of water on those new plants. 

 Watering is serious business.  Look at that lip- pure concentration.  I would also like to point out what a trendsetter I have.  Some people wear sunglasses on their heads but that's overdone.  Wearing sunglasses on your stomach is the new thing to do. 

 Here it is all finished. 

The cute plant tags are from ikea and the little windmill things are supposed to keep the critters away.  And I think they look pretty.

I talk to the garden every morning.  It's totally healthy.  I also pray for my garden.  I pray for a bountiful harvest.  So many vegetables I have to give some away to friends.  I know it sounds silly but I had a friend who had a peach tree that had never produced fruit.  One winter, her husband prayed that the tree would fruit and that summer they had so many peaches she was bringing bags to the office.  I made all of Casons peach baby food with her peaches.  Times are tough right now and everyone would like to save money at the grocery store.  Maybe some of my vegetables will help with that. 

This morning I read this: 
For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations.  Isaiah 61:11

Lakeway Resort and Spa

When we were on Lake Travis last year (see previous blog post) we took a few days away from our resort to go to another resort across the lake.  Since the first resort was practically free we thought it would be fun to stay somewhere really nice for two nights. 

I researched all the big resorts around the Austin area and decided on Lakeway Resort and Spa.  This resort looked incredibly nice but was the most affordable. 

It turned out to be a great choice.  Since we were there at the end of September there was no one there.  It was great.  They knew our name, they got us whatever we needed. 

 Here is our room.  You can't tell much because we have already trashed it but it's pretty big and it was nice.  We started with a parking lot view but the second night we switched to a lake view.  Much better.

 I just liked these chairs.  I think they would go great in my house and I wanted to steal them but I took a picture instead.  Any place that has chairs like this is alright in my book. 

 I didn't get the best pictures of the pools but there are about 4.  There are little conversation areas at the bottom of the picture.  You can see but this pool overflows into another pool below.  I believe this is the adult section of the pool.  There is also a swim up bar.  Since no one was at the resort we didn't really get to see how this all worked.

 This is part of the building with the conference center and spa.  The spa is on what looks like the bottom floor but it's actually not.  I did go to the spa and it was amazing.  The relaxation room had an indoor and outdoor part so you could sit over the water and relax.

 The pool that we liked had the beach entry and the little fountains.  It kept C plenty entertained and was really safe. 

 Here's another view of that pool looking back at the buildings.

 Cason loves the water!

This is what got me.  My favorite brand of tea in our rooms.  I'm a fan of any place that has good quality tea in the rooms. 

I highly recommend this place if you are looking for a lakeside resort but don't want to spend what some of the name brand places charge.  I liked that it wasn't very crowded but if you are into groups apparently it's really hoppin in the summertime.  I believe they have concerts by the pool on the weekends and stuff. 


I couldn't resist adding some pictures from the web site since they are so much better than mine. 

 This is the relaxation room at the spa... see, I told you it was nice!

 Here's a view of all the pools.  The waterslide wasn't open when we were there but it looked fun!

 Here's a better view of the room.  This is one with a lake view- we thought the lake view was worth the upgrade.

Here's a beautiful night view.  There are more pictures on the web site.

I'm already trying to find a time we can go back!