kindergarten girls

Today was another milestone, Ella's first field trip, to the Pumpkin Patch. I wasn't able to chaperon so it was an exercise in letting go and trusting the school. They returned her in good health, a little dustier and a lot more tired. She proudly brought home her pumpkin and we carved it up like a "vampire that looks sideways a little."
We had our dinner, our Monday night Family Home Evening and made it into the tub with relative ease, when someone new showed up.

I call her "CRAZY MAISY" she is the insane and giggly creature that seems to take over my daughters when they are too tired or have had too much going on to process (for example your first field trip day ever!)
Maisy may sound fun, but when she makes my oldest girl refuse to put her clothes on apres le tub, Maisy is not our friend.

Ella was being silly and lost her bedtime story because she didn't put on her PJ's, lest you think me inhumane, I gave her 3 warnings and the final one being that if I saw her run through the halls naked one more time she would not get a story that night. As you have already surmised, Crazy Maisy went streaking through the hall and the story was lost.

I am glad that my daughters cherish their bedtime stories, but from the reaction that came next, one would think Ella's entire future happiness had rested upon her hearing that story. She howled and railed, she cried and hyper-ventilated, she had to go to time-out to try to calm down but ended up in bigger trouble for yelling at us, her innocent parents.

40 minutes later, she finally calmed down enough to lay down and crash, dead to the world asleep.

Eddie asked me where she gets the hyperventilating thing from and I had to confess, she is a girl, our emotions and our bodies are very tightly connected.

I was once a kindergarten girl too I give you exhibit "A"

I look pretty sweet and innocent, I was pretty sweet and innocent. I had two evil older brothers who made it easy for me to be the sweet and innocent one in the family (at least until I became an evil older sister, sorry Mary)
I can only now appreciate what my Mom went through, she survived 6 kindergartners, half of them girls.
Of course I can also now appreciate the benefits of really knowing a five year old girl.

Picture day hit us a few weeks ago, My big girl had a hard time sleeping the night before picture day (lack of sleep and Ella are a little too common) She was so excited and nervous for her class picture to be taken, her mind was racing and she couldn't fall asleep.
The next morning she spent ten minutes looking in the mirror because her teacher told her to "practice your smile"
She didn't just admire herself, she practiced all kinds of smiles and examined the benefits of each. She wanted her dimple to show, but she didn't want to show too many teeth, and so on.

One of the joys of having this beautiful girl in my family was seeing her face when she saw this face:

The perfect school picture!

Protecting marriage part 2

For those of you who read my blog looking for cute pictures of the girls and anecdotes from my life, those posts will return, but I wanted to respond to some of the comments that have been made here on the blog and in emails others sent to me in regards to Prop 8.

I must confess I have been thinking about what to write for weeks now on the subject of Prop 8. It's not so much that I didn't know how I felt, but rather that I know how hurt and/or offended some people would be. I have had friends, close friends who are gay/lesbian since High School. I have loved these friends and felt sorrow for the struggles and conflicts they have had to experience because of their sexuality. I have been grateful for their friendships, valued their opinions, and enjoyed their presence in my life. I do not believe that because they are living a homosexual life that they are inherently evil or bad. I do not believe that they want less in life or that they feel any less deeply.

That said, I do believe that homosexual behavior is against the teachings of the Scriptures. I don't say this in a dismissive way, I'm not saying that just because it is a "sin" I'm against it and that is all there is to the issue. I am saying that I believe God gave us the commandments for our benefit and protection. I believe that sexuality is not the most important part of identity.

I am saying that I believe that God's plan for me started before this life and continues after it. I believe that marriage was created for the purpose of creating families. I believe that a man and woman are each given a definite role in marriage and that those roles were created by God for reasons. I believe that Marriage is not something humans have a right to re-define, in order to be all inclusive or to make things easier. I believe these things are true because I have read and studied the scriptures, prayed and meditated on my own, and I have lived 30+ years on the planet observing and interacting with families and individuals.

I grew up going to Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and believing in God and Christ, but please don't make the mistake of thinking I am simply a parrot or blind to the reality of the world.

I have chosen to live my life following the commandments of God as taught by Jesus Christ in the scriptures. This was a very deliberate choice made in my early twenties and reaffirmed on a daily basis, I knew in making this choice I would be giving some things up. There are friendships that would not last, and romances I would not undertake, experiences I would forgo because I believe that in sacrificing things that are nice, fun, and even some things that were fulfilling, I could achieve things that were even more important, including my marriage and family which I hold to be sacred. I believe that sacrifices are required of everyone in life.

I am not perfect and not without sin, I hate confrontation, I don't want to cast stones, but neither can I sit quietly while my beliefs are attacked by some and dismissed as uninformed or naive by others.

Protecting marriage.

Here in California we are currently getting ready to vote on something really important this year, Prop 8.

Prop 8 basically would add to the Constitution of the State of California the words

"Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."


It would not affect "Domestic Partnerships" or remove any priviledges which California has already granted to same sex couples, it simply states that the word marriage is preserved for the union man and woman. So what's the big deal? Why does it matter if gay couples want to be married? How does that affect me?


This is the big deal, marriage to me is not just a word to put on whatever floats your boat, Marriage is one of the most important gifts God has given me.


I believe that God is a loving Father who has a plan for us, He wants the best for us, the most happiness possible. He has given us His son Jesus Christ as an example of perfection and asks us to follow that example and try to perfect ourselves. God gave us marriage as an example of perfection as well, the very best circumstance for happiness.
1 Corinthians 11:11 "Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord. "


I'm not saying I have a perfect marriage, or that I have ever even seen one, I am saying that God knows the greatest happiness we can achieve comes from our family relationships and that the best circumstances for those relationships to grow in, is a marriage. A marriage where a man and a woman come together in love, respect, and commitment, to make a family, to have children and to raise them, all in a partnership with God.

Neither gender can reproduce on it's own, both are required to produce children and I believe that both are needed to raise children. Obviously this doesn't always work out, but that doesn't mean it isn't the best way for families to grow.


To me, marriage is like a Diamond. As I understand it, carbon molecules are exposed to pressure, heat, and passage of time, and the miracle is that rather than be destroyed, a thing of great value and beauty is produced. Diamonds are not just sparkly things, they are strong and used right they can cut through substances otherwise impenetrable.
Married couples are exposed to great pressures and trials too, and like Diamonds, we can produce relationships that will get us through things that would otherwise trap or cripple us.


So I value my marriage, at 7 years I think we are still very much in the formative stage but have already made it a thing of beauty and strength. My goal is to have a diamond like marriage, clear and pure of flaw or defect, strong enough to cut through any obstacle.


I ask you to consider the effect on the value of a diamond if any clear looking gemstone were allowed to be labeled "diamond"

Yes, real diamonds would not change in their chemical composition, they would still retain their properties, but they would lose the value they had. Diamonds would no longer be something one could rely on as being strong and durable, but simply as something shiny.

I think this has already started to happen to marriage, high divorce rates, abusive or neglectful spouses, and infidelity have cheapened what marriage means to many people. Society as a whole is not doing enough to value the importance of family and as a result we are seeing greater trials and hardships.


When I teach my children about marriage, I want them to know that God has something great in store for them. I hope that they will strive to have a true marriage, where each individual overcomes selfish desires to make the family something great. I don't want schools to teach my children that any relationship can be called a marriage.

I hope that marriage and family can again become something it once was, the most valuable thing in our lives, worth more than careers or passions, not just a relationship begun with a party. I want marriage to mean what it should, not just a contract signed by two people, but a covenant with God to create a family.

I can't control the rest of the world, and I don't want to, Free Agency is another of God's greatest gifts to us, His children. But I would be remiss if I didn't take the opportunity this November to say that I believe in the sacred nature of marriage and that I want my state to uphold the bare minimum of standards, by defining valid marriage as "between a man and a woman"

I hope that you'll join me by voting Yes on 8.

Contagious!

I have alluded to recent illness but felt it was time to come clean, we had the dreaded "Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease" Actually only Liana had it this time, perfectly timed to miss her 2nd Tap class, her regular dental check-up, the first week of pre-school, and 2 weeks of church.
As we were biding our time indoors, not exposing our secret illness to others, I had a lot of time to reflect, if not a lot of time to write it down, and so, here are a few thoughts I came up with.

1-Sometimes you just have to quarantine yourselves, for the good of all.
2-Sometimes you have to break your quarantine so you and your children don't go crazy!
3-If you are breaking quarantine go to the grocery store that is farthest away from your home, this way you not only get a longer break from being cooped up, but you also avoid seeing people from your play group/ward/school/etc. who know you have the dreaded disease.
4-If you see someone you know at the farthest away grocery store, try not to let them see you, if they do, nod politely but do not engage in conversation - Remember, plausible deniability is your friend, and the less details the better. All it takes is one person saying that they saw you "spreading the plague" and you will be blamed for whole outbreak, even if your child was the last one to get it.
5 - Do not tell people who don't have children the name of the disease your child has. trust me, you say "Hand, Foot and Mouth" they hear "Hoof and Mouth" and you are never invited to another BBQ again.
- and finally,
6 - If you don't like what your pediatrician says is the correct amount of time to wait before rejoining the populace, ask your friends what their doctor/advice nurse said and choose your favorite answer.

Country Bumpkin Pumpkins

Well, it is October, and Fall has come to Southern California, we had 104 degree weather last week, and down into the sixties last weekend. The cool was short lived, but it was perfectly timed for a trip to the pumpkin patch with Eddie's work. We climbed the "Hay Castle" and took the above shown picture before heading off to the patch.

The girls were delighted to get a free ride
Especially since their favorite pack animal was pulling the load
The girls started with the thought that we should get the biggest pumpkin we could find, then we told them they could pick their own so they decided to find the smallest pumpkins they could, so that they could pick and carry it on their own.

Nina decided not to go with this one, but she was happy to sit in the mud while we took her picture with it.

Ella searched high and low and in and out of the vines
Liana got a little help wrestling the little pumpkin of her choice
and seemed very satisfied with the results!
Part of the festivities included painting your own pumpkins, and here are our results

It should come to no one's surprise that Ella won the prize for the "most creative" pumpkin (far right) Not only did she paint "bloody teeth and blue spit, and a purple ghost!" but she also painted actual leaves and used them as stamps on the reverse side.

I've not posted in a while because we have had colds and stuff, so I thought this little photographic essay might be a nice way to say Happy Fall Ya'll

glory days

Recently my 5-year-old boss was caught red-handed in my photo boxes, I am not an avid scrapbooker, I am not the most organized of mind, my pictures (from the pre-digital era) are in photo boxes, sort of sorted, in general epochs of my life. Ella happened to be in BYU-HFAC section and uncovered the following gems.

I find myself smiling when I look at them, what pretty young things we were, what a pretty young thing I was! Of course at the time I often felt the angst of being unmarried, relatively unsuccessful at getting cast in productions, untalented in comparison to my closest friends, and lonely.

Amazing thing perspective.

I know that I cried when a cast list was posted and I wasn't on it, I know I felt sad and even slightly depressed when my friends were dating or got engaged or married, I know that I lost hope when the crushes I had pinned hopes on for eons graduated or left. I know I felt all of that, and that it was real, but looking at these pictures from the perspective of 7+ years of marriage and 5+ years of motherhood, all I really think about is how much fun it was.

In High School when someone said "these are the best days of your life!" I laughed and knew that that was not the case with me, but now that I am thirty-something, I guess I can see how sentimentality might make someone see that as true.

Ella's First Day of Kindergarten

Well, we survived it, truth be told we did even better than that. Here is Ella in the outfit she wanted to wear on her first day of school. I was very brave and let her choose her own clothes, and in case anyone wants to know, the sparkly white sneakers from Walmart are tons more sparkly than the ones at Payless! Can you tell she felt confident? (credit for this pose goes to her tap teacher, who taught her well, Hiya Ginger!)
We walked her to the courtyard outside of her classroom and waited for her teacher to give her a name tag. Once she was properly tagged, I gave her a kiss, told I was proud of her and told her I would be back to pick her up. The teacher asked the children to line up, and so Ella walked right to her spot so that she would be ready to go in.
I had some supplies (tissue, wet-wipes, etc.) to donate for classroom use, but I was waiting for the teacher to take care of all the students first before I asked where to put them.

This is a picture of Ella right before she said (and I quote)
"What are you still doing here?"
Liana and Nina and I watched her go into the class, left our bags of supplies inside the door and then went to a PTA welcome where we ate donuts and signed up to help with a craft fair near Holiday time. We left to make our umpteenth trip to the pediatrician's office to take care of the millionth form so that Ella can have all the medicines she needs available in case some peanut sneaks into campus.
We made it back to school right on time to wait for Ella to emerge triumphant from her classroom, here she is, exiting the gate where she had to raise her hand when she saw her mom and shake hands with the teacher before she could leave.
And finally here is our girl, mission accomplished, she played with Hula Hoops during recess, colored a raccoon, and survived snack time, what more could I ask for?
Aren't you proud of me? I didn't even cry!

Letting go a little bit

For those of you who have sent your first child to Kindergarten for the first time already, you know pretty much what I've been feeling this last week, If your child has a potentially life-threatening allergy then you might know exactly what I've been feeling this last week.

From the first time Ella had her first reaction to Peanut Butter at 15 months of age, I have not let down my guard very much, I've tried to stay relaxed, tried not to stress the things I can't control, but I have controlled the things I can pretty strictly. By paying attention to my instincts, (and by that I mean the promptings of the Spirit as well as my own logic etc.) we have managed to keep her alive and thriving and ready to go to Kindergarten.

She is anxious to get there, to be helpful to the teacher, to teach the other kids how to tie their shoes, to bring about World Peace in a day. I am anxious for her to go, anticipating the freedom that one less body, however small, allows on grocery shopping days etc.

I am also terrified, the two times she has had to receive emergency medical attention were both times I wasn't with her. In both cases, I guess it could have been me, I can be flaky with the best of them, I forget things all the time, but it is a testament to the gifts of intuition that come with motherhood that she hasn't had more reactions. So you can imagine that the prospect of her leaving my care, even for a few hours a day, gave me some anxiety.

If you are feeling anxious along with me right now I encourage you to take a deep breath and let it go, let it all go!

We met with the school nurse and Ella's new teacher last Friday, and I am breathing much more freely now. The Nurse was kind and direct and helped me to see that as food allergies have become more prominent they are used to dealing with all the precautions and remedies associated with the issues. The nurse was great, but surprisingly, the greatest relief came from a few simple words uttered by the teacher, who said "My son has a peanut allergy too." She is used to reading labels, scouting a group of children for signs and smells of PB, washing and wiping down tables and chairs, and though I am still preparing Ella in every way I can, I am no longer feeling the dread of letting her go.

This isn't the closest school to our home, it isn't technically even our school district (though only by a block or so) but for a variety of reasons we applied for and received a transfer for her to go to her new Elementary school. We were told that another Kindergarten teacher there was "the best teacher I have ever known, in any grade" and so of course I hoped that Ella would be assigned to that teacher. Thankfully I do not control the universe and now, when I cry a little tomorrow morning as I send Ella into class, it will only be the usual neurosis of a parent sending their little one off to the world.

Fancy Nancy's new friends

Recently my baby Brother (who is of course all grown up with a job and stuff) gave my girls the best gift I think you could give a kid, BOOKS!!!!!

To be precise, he gave them each a book from the "Fancy Nancy" series, which if you don't know about, you should.

http://www.harpercollinschildrens.com/harperchildrens/kids/gamesandcontests/features/fancynancy/default.aspx

They address the issues that many girls age 3-16 are faced with, specifically, family members who are not fancy enough. It seems my daughters have taken these stories to heart and their lives have become tres bon, which is of course a fancy way of saying fabulous.

This is how fancy girls get ready for bed,
These fancy girls are also patriotic,
Ella's Primary teacher has even gotten into the act, she made this masterpiece for Ella,
C'est Magnifique, Non?

As part of the Library's Summer reading program Liana and Ella each got a raffle ticket which they could choose to put in a drawing box for different prizes. Raffles for small children are a little bit cruel, Ella and several other children asked when it would be their turn to win. Liana actually won a prize much desired among the 3-5 year old girls, however, her best friend, who had entered for the same prize, cried copiously and hysterically when she did not have the same luck. There were many sad children coming home from the Library that day, but this was Liana... If you wipe away the chocolate cake, her butterfly glasses make her look a little like Fancy Nancy herself.

Even Nina has become a little fancy, her hair is growing in and if you fluff it just right after her tub, she looks like this:

And if fancy hair isn't enough to get her on the fancy list, how do you like this action? At almost nine months she has realized she is capable of climbing stairs, of course, as a lady of leisure she likes to stop and sit to rest a minute and that is where she falls victim to the laws of gravity, so even with the safety gate she isn't allowed to play unescorted in the living room, what could be fancier than round the clock body guards?

Here's hoping you all get a little fancy in your lives soon!

Vacation Sensation

A month ago we went to the Utah, it was a really nice trip, and now that we have been home a while, I am finally checking email, returning phone calls and even blogging. I was going to try to do a trip journal and share the day by day account here, and then I remembered, I have only a few minutes of sanity in which to type, so here are a few highlights.

The Drive: Call me crazy but there is something nice about spending that time together, Eddie and I actually talked about things going on in our life and future, and since the grandparents bought our family a portable 2-screen DVD player last Christmas, we actually got to talk uninterrupted. Of course it wasn't idyllic, but thanks to my Great Aunt and Uncle Donna & Hal, (thank you for the generous use of your home) we broke up our journey both on the way there and on the way home.
Eating out: I rarely eat out anymore, it was really nice to order things I like, try new things, and not do any dishes.

Seeing Family: We started out trip with Eddie's Sister Tammy and her beautiful family, they have a gorgeous new little girl and we felt honored to see her while she was still so fresh! The older kids are cute too and it means a lot to me that my children really get to know their cousins and count them as friends too.

We also had half of a reunion with my side of the family, My two older brothers and their families, My parents and my family all negotiated the hazards of large group activity and managed to have a lot of fun doing it.

My brother Peter has some of the cutest and smartest children I know, each more talented than the other, thanks to my sister in law Steph, I am sure.

We stayed in the same hotel as my brother Matt and his family, my sister-in-law Tia is not only beautiful and intelligent but she also has the added attraction of coming from really wonderful people. Her parents are kind and generous and fun, and I'm not just saying that because they bought me breakfast one morning. Her Brother Brad works at the Cottontree Inn, our accommodation in Provo I recommend it highly, continental breakfast in the lounge, indoor and outdoor pools, who could ask for anything more?

My niece Kirstyn was excited that she was staying to see Miley Cyrus at the "Stadium of Fire" for July 4th, what she doesn't realize is that to my girls, she is just as cool and amazing as "Hannah Montana".

Museums: We took the kids to the Discovery Science Center in SLC, and the Bean Museum of Natural Sciences and the Museum of Art at BYU.

Discovery was great for my girls, Liana didn't want to leave the 3& under section, she could have stayed in the "birdhouse" all day, after all, the sofa was just her size.

The Bean museum cannot be beat for price, it's free, the parking is free, and you can see "Shasta" the liger who my brothers and I agreed is the same one we saw alive at Hogle Zoo when we were kids - Of course I just googled Shasta and found she died in 1972, two years before I was born, so much for accuracy, maybe we saw her stuffed there.
There are worksheets for every age to hunt down data, including "how many Lions are there on the main floor of the museum?" I think the answer is 18 but maybe Shasta should count for 1/2?

The Museum of Art holds a special place in my heart, I used to work early morning janitorial there. They house of of my favorite paintings in the world, "Fallen Monarchs" by William Bliss Baker.

In addition, Eddie got a hair cut at the Bon Losee Academy, including an invigorating scalp massage and the highly complimentary advice that his hair is "perfect for a faux-hawk". We also swam in the indoor pool, visited with old friends and shopped for things we didn't need. All in all a great vacation.

Picture Pages

Last Saturday we went to take a family portrait, we hadn't taken one since I was 1 month pregnant with Nina and we didn't even like that one enough to hang on the wall.
The family picture we currently display looks like this:
So you can see that we are due for an update, something that includes all three of our girls and shows them to be the happy loving twerps that they are. That picture does make me happy though, after all, look at Liana, she is so cute in that picture and she is smiling. Look at it now folks, you may not see her smiling in a picture again for awhile.
I am not crazy about having my picture taken either, but I am avoiding the reality that is my chubby chin and wacky hair. Liana with her perfect skin hair and teeth, has somehow come to hate the camera already.
I hoped to have a smiling picture full of her joy of life and silliness to show in this post, these, however, are a few of the options she gave us to chose from.

We ended up with a family portrait with a grump in it, secretly however, I kind of like it, I have candid shots of her doing all sorts of things, including big goofy grins, but now I have preserved for history this phase of her little life, when she made the decision to not smile and stuck to it with the fervor that only a 3 year old can have.

So long Santo!

More than 2 years ago, my daughter Ella was given a gift of 2 fish, she named them Santo and Donkgo (spelling here is approximate, we don't know where the names came from.) Donkgo died the first night and I expected little Santo to go the same way quickly, amazingly, he just kept going. He was with us for so long, he became the stuff of legends, we forgot how long we had had him and told people he was 4 years old.

Ella took this picture with her own camera, from her point of view, I think what it lacks in focus it makes up for in perspective and raw emotion.

I enjoyed his company when I washed the dishes, he liked it when we lit a candle near his bowl, he danced with the flicker of the candlelight.
He meant a lot to the girls, one of their first jobs was to feed Santo his fish flakes, one fed him in the morning the other in the evening.

Not to sound callous, but one thing he meant to me was not having a different sort of high maintenance pet, Santo only needed a little food here and there, his water changed once in a while, he was really pretty easy.

Yesterday, Santo left us. The years he spent with us have meant a lot to our family. I asked the girls if they wanted to say anything about him and here are their replies,

Ella -"We loved Santo, he gets to go with his brother again, we had him for so long, we had him for almost three years. He used to swim a lot around. He will be happy with his brother."

Liana - "Santo died a little, now he will swim to Heavenly Father."

Thank you Santo for giving my daughters the thrill of having a pet but not making my life any harder, we will miss you.

Facebook, or How I found my self again.

OK so it took me a long time to get bloggin, but it took me even longer to join the on line world that is Facebook. I don't want to plug a product, but I am amazed. You know the people that used to mean so much to you but you somehow lost touch with them?
They are lurking there in the shadows, and all it takes is a little search of their name.
I have in the last few weeks reconnected with friends from High school and college, corresponded with people from across the country and across the ocean.
I know that everyone is doing this, I am nothing special, but I've been thinking, "What is it that I am really getting out of this?"
In addition to reconnecting with friends, I am reconnecting with myself. (If that isn't destined for a Hallmark Card what is?)

I think it is too easy as a SAHM (Stay At Home Mom for those of you who, like me, have not yet joined the texting nation.), too easy for us to get absorbed into the lives of our children, we lose track of pieces of ourselves while we are keeping track of check-ups, diaper changes, school, dance classes, sports etc. In the recent weeks, I have remembered a bit of who I was in High School.

There were a lot of things about High School that make me glad not to be there anymore, Braces, Acne, Frizzy Hair, coke bottle glasses surrounded by 3 lbs. of pink acrylic, etc. But there were a lot of things about High School that were turning points in my life, things that make me, ... me.

There was the first time I auditioned for anything and when I failed, the techies welcomed me into the dark side of Theatre. The fellow choir members who let me tag along with them at Disneyland on our music trip to Florida. The friends who taught me not too take myself too seriously, the crushes who barely acknowledged my existence, and the foolish underclassmen who had a crush on me in my senior year, you taught me that everything in life is about perspective.

I owe my love of quality Theatre and my education, training, and eventually even my career in acting to my High School Drama teacher Mr. Collins who had enough faith in me to cast me in several roles, and to nominate me for a State theatre scholarship camp. Though I didn't make the cut of 12 students, I made #13 which was enough to convince me that with a little actual training maybe I might be good.

SO thank you Tenafly High School, thank you to my first crushes and best friends, my confidants and even to those "beautiful people" who didn't even know I existed. Now that I know how to find you on Facebook, I'll try not to lose you or the parts of me you inspired again.

Gardening on purpose (or with a purpose)

So my accidental flower was such a success (to me at least) that I decided to go ahead and branch out, the first year here we bought a $1.00 can of wildflower mix and let Ella age 2 1/2 sprinkle to her hearts content. Soon we had Zinnias popping out everywhere, a nice thing to have when you have a girl who loves to pick flowers.
Since the flowers were blooming and we still didn't have a definite landscape plan I decided to reap some benefits from our dirt and plant some produce.

(WARNING EXCESSIVE DISCUSSION OF MY PLANTS AHEAD, FEEL FREE TO STOP READING NOW! -Or you could scroll through and at least look at the pictures.)

I had the brilliant idea to plant a 6-pack variety of tomatoes and a six pack of yellow pear tomatoes (these are really great for kids, they look like little pears and are usually very sweet). Tomatoes are wonderful things however, for those of you who can add that's 12 plants and a billion tomatoes, especially since Eddie is allergic to fresh tomatoes. The bright side was that we made friends with the neighbors who were happy to take them off my hands, especially because I had also invested in a Basil plant and was constantly pruning to keep it from going to seed. I also made my own pasta sauces several times that summer. Even so a lot of tomatoes fell to the ground which worked out well because I haven't bought a tomato plant since, I just thin out the million seedlings that pop up each spring and keep 1 or two. I don't recommend this if you want big tomatoes, because all I get are the cherry/salad size ones.

The next year we planted carrots, another kid pleaser because they can pick them by themselves and they can pick them early or let them wait a while, in fact there were a few that were picked really tiny and Ella just replanted them, they grew bigger and she got to pick them again.Peas are also nice because they hide so well that it is almost a treasure hunt to the girls to find them. Of course when they get bored they go to the strawberry patch and enjoy easier hunting. Our strawberries are small and often as much seed as fruit, but they taste wonderful and they give the girls a reason to go outside every morning.

That year I also added pumpkins and zucchini squash. The pumpkin didn't turn orange until almost Thanksgiving, and it was strawberry shaped much to the delight of the small people in my life.

Last year I planted earlier and grew 4 decent sized pumpkins which turned orange in August. I was a little perturbed but I remembered that before refrigeration and imported produce people had squash in winter. I brought them in out of the sun and they were still good to carve for Halloween and make pumpkin mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving.
Zucchini and I seem to have a love hate relationship, the first year I tried it they came out great, lovely green oblongs that we grilled on the BBQ all summer and into the fall. Then last year, I think they had an illicit relationship with my pumpkin plants, really who could blame them for falling in love with such lovely vines and blossoms. The result however was a large, seedy, half-orange-too-firm creature that didn't taste enough like zucchini or pumpkin to be any good. This year I am again planting both, but in different locations and I started my zucchini first so maybe the timing will work out in my favor.

My favorite addition to our garden rotation has been the corn/sunflower section of the yard, we have a 1 foot wide strip of earth running the side of the yard I planted corn all along and a cluster of sunflowers every 6 feet or so. The Sunflowers grow so fast and tall that they give you something to watch and measure while you wait for the corn. The corn is worth waiting for, our ears didn't grow any longer than 6 inches and some cobs had only a few mutant kernels, but it was sweet and to Liana it was better than candy. I have begun a new endeavor to take some of the larger rocks out of that strip in hopes of getting longer and fuller corn ears, we will see what happens.

I think the reasons I like to garden are simple, I see a tangible rewards for faith and hard work, I spend time in the out doors breathing fresh air (such as it is this close to LA) and most of all, I see my children excited about eating fruits and vegetables.