Dollywood and Home Again

We finally got our sweet boys home!  Two weeks was the longest they've been away from home.  They had a great time in Memphis, and Bobby did lots of projects around the house!  Not only did he repaint the living room (turquoise!), but also painted the boy's bathroom and gave them a new toilet, and the most work went into completely remodeling our bathroom.  My favorite part is after nearly 2 years of the initial start of the project (tearing things out), there is now tile floor, which means I can clean it!  So, pretty much Bobby's a rock star :)  Here's some before and after :

When I picked up the boys in Tennessee, we spent the night in Pigeon Forge and used our season passes for Dollywood & Splash Country (the big Christmas present last year, which a couple other family friends bought also so we can all go together). 

Dollywood has fireworks every night, which were fun, and then the next day the boys went with their friends to Splash Country and ZB and I had a little-kid day at Dollywood... she loved it!

We went to two shows (the Gazillion Bubbles show and a play of "The Little Engine that Could"), and she just adored that she could go on rides of her own!

Then she had a great time playing in the designated play areas for young kids.

The weather was nice and overcast, and with the high chance of rain, the park was not at all crowded.  We happily avoided rain and everyone had a great day :)

 A couple chicken pics before I end this post!  I've struck up a friendship with a guy who brews beer in huge quantities.  He calls us when he's brewing and we go pick up the grains he's used for brewing, in trade for a couple dozen eggs for his family.  The chickens are in heaven, and I appreciate the free (local & organic) food!

Here's they are munching away, under our hops vines (which I will hopefully use for our own homebrew this Summer)

Have a great week!

A Rustic Sandbox

The boys wanted to build ZB a sandbox for her 2nd birthday, but time got away from us.  Then I found the pinterest website and became completely inspired to make an unconventional sandbox.  We already had this huge hemlock log sitting in the yard - why not put it to use for a fun tree stump sandbox?  B chainsawed it up for me.  River sand cost $2 per 5-gallon bucket - much cheaper than the stuff at Home Depot and without the added chemicals.  I'd say we've got a happy girl!

Dinner Talk

I've got no news or updates or anything, just cuteness from the ZeeBster...



Oh, I can make a little brag - the chair she's sitting in was an awesome thrift find! I was in the checkout line in Goodwill, when I heard this conversation behind me, at the next register,
"No, I'm sorry, we don't take returns on furniture"
"But I can't use it. I thought it was a step stool, but now I'm pretty sure it's some kind of strange high chair."

At which point, I turned around and saw it was a Stokke chair:
Stokke Link
which retail at over $200, in perfect condition.
I promptly wrote the woman a check for $10 (this was more than she originally paid for it), and happily loaded it in my car! It matches our table and everything. My mom bought the "baby set" so ZB can sit in it (when she grows out of that, it's a regular chair also), but I even found a good deal on that, on ebay in a listing where the seller didn't really know what it was called and listed it incorrectly. So I bought it for half of what they normally go for on ebay.
Retail for chair and baby set: $273
My total price: $34
Woo-hoo!

Beautiful Weekend

The weather was so lovely - I know it won't last, but it was a really nice break from all the gray skies! 2 days ago, I took the boys and their friend to Greenville to go ice skating and to a fun playground (okay, and so I could shop at Trader Joe's :). I've started using a program called swagbucks, where I got a great coupon to go ice skating, so it was super cheap! The kids had a blast, and I even got some skating time in!


Then we headed to the playground next to the zoo - it's a really fun playground, plus you randomly get to hear monkeys making a racket in the background :)


Yesterday we actually spent indoors at an indoor skate park birthday party. The boys, of course, had a great time!



I'm glad it's looking like another beautiful day today, as I have some outdoor projects I'd like to work on ... and I'd like to just soak up some sunshine before it disappears behind gray winter skies again!

New Toy

Thanks to our friends for giving the boys scrap wood... completely kid-made new toy:

New Garden

We're not buying any bread products these days except for the occassional box of $1.99 organic cereal from the scratch n dent store. The problem is my kids don't like my homemade sandwich bread, but fortunately they don't eat sandwiches very often. So most sandwiches are make-shift and served on things like homemade tortillas, or like today's lunch, on a leftover homemade waffle:
Reed and Leah decided they *needed* to collect unripe walnuts from the black walnut tree to make crafts out of. I have no objections, since I don't know anything else to do with the things besides make a garden not grow (any ideas for uses for these things are appreciated!)
Clay helping with the effort:
Put in a new garden today that is primarily for rhubarb and herbs and flowers, and will probably also be for brassicas, since I read they are good companion plants with rhubarb. Hopefully these are far enough away from the black walnut trees so they can actually grow. There will be a second garden just to the right of this one, leading up to a little fort the girls like to play in - it will probably have impatiens and hostas and other pretty things that like shade:
Now I am dirty with sweat from digging and horse manure and compost from finishing the garden and think it's time to call it a day :)

Party!

Some shots from Clay's 10th birthday party! Clay choose to have his party at one of his favorite parks. Part of the park sits in a small valley with steep slopes on either side. One side has a slide built into the hill. We brought big sheets of cardboard and our plastic sleds and the kids had a great time.

Got to hang out and relax with some of my favorite folks
I made Clay a cheesecake and a keylime pie. The cheesecake had an oreo crust and M&M and fresh-picked strawberries to spoon on each piece. I did end up making a second cheesecake (the one pictured) since the first was so ugly. Now it's taunting me from my refrigerator! So delicious!!
Legos, DS Games & Teck Decks (who woulda guessed? :)

Goes to show that you don't have to spend big bucks to have a fun party! Menu consisted of: homemade bread, cheese slices, carrots sticks, young peas from garden, sun chips (oh, i'm a sucker for supporting compostable bags... okay, they're yummy too :), and halved bananas (from the disounted produce bags). To drink was soda cans (this is something we only get for REALLY special occassions, got 2 12-packs, which of course what not enough for everyone to drink soda the whole time, which was okay with me!). Also had out home-made lemonade (lemon juic.e, sugar & water), and a water cooler. Both cake & pie were homemade. Paper cups from a yard sale. Favor bags were hand-painted brown paper lunch bags. They were filled with fireworks, some party straws from a yard sale, some happy meal toys from the thrift store, and some mini-size playdo from a thrift store. This party probably cost under $40, with a bunch of happy kids!

Scenes from a Lovely Friday

A sweet way to end the week for us! We did some urban foraging. On our morning walk, a daycare child found 2 mulberry trees down a road we rarely walk! We ate a few, they were hard to reach. We then got our pail and headed up to the highway behind the house. There are about 6 serviceberries planted along it. Serviceberries (also called sarvisberries or juneberries) grow all over! I discovered them growing wild in SW Colorado, and here have found them all over town, being used in landscapes. Most people don't realize they are edible and delicious!! If you are local and want to know some easily accessible spots to get these, lemme know!


Great for eating straight off the tree, also good in baking or for freezing (remember to freeze your berries in a single layer on a cookie sheet, before you put them in a freezer bag!):
The new 20 sq ft garden plot:

I am busy this night getting ready for Clay's birthday party tomorrow. Bobby took the boys to ... drumroll ... WWE Raw Smackdown at the Asheville Civic Center (oh yeah!!!), so mama has some time to get all birthday crazy :) Making party favor bags (as you can see in the top right corner, i am just *that* mom that puts fireworks in party favor bags heehee)
Made cheesecake and key lime pie for party. This is only my second cheesecake, and my first to make in a spring form pan, and it cracked :( poo. hopefully it'll still taste yum tho :) It has an oreo crust and will have a choice (or combo?) of fresh strawberries or M&M's to put on it
Bread rising for party food (dang, i am still in love with the Artisan Breads in 5 Minutes a Day book - buy it!!!)
Happy weekend to all!!!

Busy Days

Too busy to get photos up often! Today I started...er... completed a garden space. I actually had made a bean tee-pee for some Jacob's Cattle beans that were a gift from one of my favorite people, and were sent to me in the mail in a plain white envelope :) I didn't realize they were bush beans, not pole, so they did look kinda silly just bushing it up around the tee-pee, laughing at my desire for them to climb on up.

The bamboo was pulled, as well as my make-shift coat-hanger stakes that held down the twine and vines for more bean supports. Now to square off this little space and gain about 20 more square feet of gardening goodness!
And my extra motivation to get this project done is that a great little greenhouse tucked back in the mountains started their clearance sale tonight! Music, free food and free local beer got me right in the mood to buy too many plants :) I came home with a couple flats as well as some bigger pots. Of course if I had a normal size yard instead of the pitiful excuse for one I currently have, I would have bought a ridiculous amount of plants ... haha!

I came home with bell peppers, lavender, rosemary, echinachea, and loads of flowers, as well as some blueberry bushes to be gifted elsewhere. I think I spent $22 total - the clearance sale goes on for a couple more weeks if anyone wants to check it out. The place is Painter's Greenhouse in Old Fort. Most things are $1 or $2. A great way to fill out the garden on the cheap!

I'll post pics of all the goodies I bought in a later entry. For now, I'll just show what the boys and their friends were up to while the grown-ups were shopping: (making lounge chairs in a big pile of dirt ... ahhh, boys.)
And certainly the most exciting event is coming up! Clay is turning 10 tomorrow!! Hard to believe it was 10 years ago... even harder to believe in 6 years he'll have a driver's liscense or in 10 more years he'll be 20! sheesh. too fast. Here's the kitchen table scene beside me waiting for Clay to wake up in the morning. It's after midnite now and he's still in bed mumbling that he's too excited to sleep. aww, I love that kid.

Spring LEAF 2010

Another LEAF has come and gone. This one was definitely my least productive yet :) This is the Lake Eden Arts Festival in Black Mountain, NC. We filled our days blowing bubbles, drinking homebrew, catching up with friends and enjoying the scenery...
My lovely friend Deb and I bought new earrings from Sonja's booth:
Got good and sunburned hanging with the youngins while they sold their handmade crafties in the Kids Village "Kids Market" area:
The bazaar style Kids Market:
Kids Village this year was moved to a different spot of the festival grounds, which was a longer walk, but did provide for the tennis courts, which is where Clay (here showing pogo sticks tricks with a new friend) preferred to spend most of his LEAF time:
We camp right above this jam tent, which is wonderful to stroll down the hill from camp and hang out at:
Reed and I did the zip-line one day, which was a first for both of us, but SO fun! You have to jump off the side of a mountain, sail over a main walking path, and land in the lake :)
LEAF parade on Saturday:

Rock-climbing wall has been opened up this year - it's Sweet! Reed is on the left:
Clay getting geared up:
Probably my favorite thing about LEAF is that there is so much to see and do, this is just on the side of the path:
and the Zumba class we could see from our camp site (which I really had wanted to go to, but at this point had too much food and drink in me to be motivated)
Our friend Leah with Reed running by some vendors to get to a fire show:
LED hula hoops - I *need* one!!
Fire spinners, shot with the "fireworks" setting on my camera:
You can volunteer, as I do every year and get in for free (I usually do set-up, but this year did clean-up for a day, you can also do shifts during the festival). There will be another LEAF in October - hope to see you there!