Traditions in the Making

Family traditions are a funny thing. There are some that we don't really want to become a part of our families, some that don't excite us, and some that can be redeemed.

When I was really young, my mom instituted Pizza night. Every Friday we ordered a pizza from Dominos, and ate in the living room together, gathered around whatever tv show wanted to watch. (I had seen Gone with the Wind in it's entirety by the time I was 10.) It was the only night of the week my sister and I didn't have to cook for ourselves.

On a blog I read, they have Friday night pizza and movie night with their whole family. They have several kids, at least one of which is BabyFish's age. But they do it a lot differently.

She makes her pizza from scratch. It's a big deal to start off with that, because it allows the pizza to be MUCH healthier. Then they sit down and watch a movie together as a family.

When you have a very active almost 2 year old, it's hard to imagine them sitting for any length of time. He spends most of his time running and climbing. (indoors, outdoors, it's all the same to him.) He also normally eats 6 or 7 times a day, which makes getting him to eat with us hard. (We always make him sit in his chair and hang out with us while we are eating.)

But last night the stars aligned, and BabyFish hadn't eaten, so we all ate dinner together. Then, we popped in the movie, cause I had been wanting to experiment with Movie Night. He sat on the couch, transfixed. He yelled OH NO, OH NO at some parts, and told the main character to GO, GO, Go, GOGO in the suspenseful parts. Overall, it was adorable, and awesome! I'm so excited to see what movies he will like and pay attention to, and which ones he won't.

But most of all, I'm excited that this tradition have been renewed and redeemed in my life.

Signs of Life

Once I got my garden beds in, I couldn't wait to plant. I'm worried about LittleFish getting into the plants and ripping my hard work to shreds, but I'm trying to make sure I can always see those garden beds when he's outside. He's still managed to climb into them a couple times. We'll see how it goes.

But it's been just over a week, and I've been good about watering them (After losing half our front lawn to the unexpected sunny warmth, but that's another story). Today, I got a few happy surprises. They are a little hard to see, so I put little blue circles around them.




Those are my lettuce and Snap peas making an appearance!

And my front porch held a different surprise: Some already nearly ripe strawberries!

I can't wait to pick them and share with LittleFish!

MIA

I've been MIA for a little over a month now. Things just got so hectic that I couldn't stop to think, or write, or be creative. It was overwhelming, and though that feeling isn't over, it's subsided enough to allow me to write a little.

Mostly, I wanted to show you pictures. Pictures of part of what was taking so much time and energy - Our Yard.

It's been a source of yucky feelings for years now. The swamp that was the backyard. The huge flowerbeds that I no longer had time to weed. The grass that was uneven, and usually a source of more weeds. The small mismatched pieces of patio. It all just made me not want to go outside.

But this last month has been the change of all that. It took a longer than any of us anticipated, and of course took more money than we expected. But overall, we have a fabulous new yard and patio. I have garden beds to raise my veggies. Most importantly, my son has an amazing new playspace, and thanks to my sister's spring cleaning, a bunch of new outdoor toys!

Here are the pictures. The before pictures were actually when the yard was looking pretty good - it had been long enough without rain that the yard had mostly dried, leaving everything very green and long, but still too muddy to mow.

The Side yard:

What you may not be able to see is that the landscape now gently rolls, instead of having dips and potholes all over. I'm no longer worried about twisting my ankle walking through it.

The Back Yard:




We moved the hot tub, added bench seating across the new larger back patio, and made the back yard level. It's still a work in progress, because I want to add a table and chairs, lighting, and more plants... But for now, I'm reveling in the fact that I can just open the back door and let LittleFish go play to his heart's desire.