May pictures

 

You can call me Strawberry Shortcake

I love fresh fruits. There is nothing better then eating fresh, in season fruit. In fact, I love fruit so much, I can often times make myself sick eating so much. Particularly with cherries, raspberries, and blueberries. But we are not going to discuss that here. My dream goal is to have my own supply of these fruits. Slowly but surely I will get there!

This year, I've got a strawberry patch I'm going to be working hard at to get to produce fruit. I planted a bunch of strawberries last year, but they got weed infested and there were these very irritating slugs who ate every strawberry that came close to maturing.

I've also got some blueberry bushes I planted a few years ago that I'm also trying to get to thrive. The trick is getting the soil acidic enough. Blueberries love acid. We'll see how they do this year. I'd love to get some raspberries going, but those are tougher. Maybe that will be my project for next year!

It was so gorgeous out today. I spent quite a bit of time out weeding, adding some fertilizer, and watering my strawberries. It was fun and I enjoyed myself. CLEARLY it is early in the year as weeding gets old fast. I hope my plants do better this year. No doubt, it will soon be time to figure out what kind of slug killer works best.



Here's a picture. It's amazing how plants grow slowly and you don't notice. But then you look a picture from a few months before and you're shocked at how small they were before. I just want to document what the strawberry patch look like in May.

The only issue I'm having? While weeding, Nathan likes to help. Problem? He doesn't distinguish between the strawberries and weeds. Not good for Mommy's strawberries. He also just stomps all over them. Oh well. They come back.



Just for fun, here's a picture of Nathan and I swinging. Nathan LOVES to swing. He thinks it's hilarious when someone swings next to him in tandem. I am SO glad the weather is getting nice! It's been SO long!

Updates!

We have decided it's the "year of the yard." Every year since we've moved in, we seem to focus on making a different part of our house better. We've put in all new windows, new carpet, new doors, put in some laminate floor downstairs, painted all the walls, etc. The yard has never been that great, so this year we're going to put in a lot of effort to make it as soft and green as possible! We've been out there quite a bit this spring thatching and Jeremy has been making it look nice. We're going to try to water more to get some better roots growing.

A few weekends ago, we helped my sister Laura move into her brand new house in Liberty Lake! She works out in the Valley and really wanted to buy a new house out there. It's beautiful and just the right size.

I also did Bloomsday about 3 weeks ago. It was my first ever Bloomsday. It was great! I hope to make it a yearly event if I can.

Other then that, nothing too exciting is going on. Jeremy continues to work nights and weekends, but we're used to that. It's actually nice having days off during the workweek as there is never any traffic in town and the stores are never crowded.

Nathan continues to learn and have lots of fun! He still isn't talking though. He had a speech assessment last week and is way behind. Kids his age should be saying at least 50 words. He has about 5. They would like to see him twice a week for speech therapy, but it's so expensive and our insurance wouldn't cover it. It would be over $100 a week. This may be something we just aren't able to do for him. I've talked to MANY other Moms who've said their children (always boys) didn't talk at all until they were 2 and sometimes 3. They were all freaked out, but the boys eventually started talking and doing fine. In a few cases, I've had women tell me the boys didn't talk at all and around 2 1/2 or 3 started speaking in full sentences, so who knows? Nathan for sure KNOWS at least 150 words and can point to anything you ask him! His main method of communication is pointing and grunting. Those pointers are out all day long! Now that it's nice out, we spend a good part of the day outside on his swing, in the sandbox, playing in the yard, and going on walks in the stroller where he likes to point at everything.

He's also beginning to do some imaginative play. Pushing around cars making vrooming noises, pretending to drive the car, feeding his stuffed animals. It's cute.