First Garden

I harbor secret fantasies about being a farm girl. I want a big barn with horses and cows and chickens and pigs. Step one to accomplishing that goal was go get guinea pigs. Surely, I need practice taking daily care of animals and why not start small (plus it was hard enough to talk nick into those). Unfortunately, the guinea pigs were a failure and a week after Delia was born I sold them. Step two in accomplishing my countryfied living goals was to have a garden. THAT was a success.



I learned a LOT just from trial and error and I will do my garden differently next year, but we were VERY happy with our results.

The girls especially, well Lainey especially- Elie kinda lost interest after the strawberries were done- loved to go out to the garden and pick and eat the booty. I found Lainey outside more than once eating not quite ripe tomatoes.





I also learned some about "home made" vegetables- they don't all come out looking like they do at the store. For example, some carrots look like this...



I froze green beans, carrots, zucchini and corn and made batches and batches of spagetti sauce from our tomatoes and zucchini bread. I can't wait until next year!

On having enought love...

I know a common concern for parents when they are pregnant with their second child is if they will have enough love for subsequent children. Personally, I was never worried about that because of how my love changed after Elie was born. I remember one of the things that surprised me the most about having Elie was my love for Nick. I loved him more because he loved our child. Every time I saw his smile at her or teach her something, I loved him more. When Lainey was born my love for him and Elie did the same thing. Now, with Delia, I am experiencing the same phenomenon. I love to watch Lainey be a big sister. She wants to "mwah" baby all the time. If Delia starts to cry, Lainey will immediately run to her and say "hey lelah hey shhh." She will even go so far as to get her own pacifier out of her bed and try and soothe her baby.
Elie's role as big sister is different than it was with Lainey and she loves being the one showing Lainey how to do it.
The old cliche "love grows" is so unbelievably accurate it blows my mind. My sister got married this weekend and in the sermon my brother in law (not the groom) talked about how "God is love" and therefore Love is a person. An independent entity. A living, being. I never really fully understood that until having kids.