June 2014: My first Garden

I just planted my first vegetable garden this week (with the help of my mom - thank you mom!!...and my husband who is the best darned tiller in all of Aitkin County). I have never planted a garden, I've had no experience with a garden..heck...I don't think I've ever even watered a garden! so for the past few months I've been talking to a lot of people to get ideas, suggestions, and tips (including my cousin Traci who has the hilton of all vegetable gardens! (Thanks Traci!)).

So I booked my mom to come up for a few days so that we could get started. Unfortunately, I didn't get started early enough to plan my own seeds (which have to be done inside anyway) so we set out to buy already sprouted veggies to plan in the garden...

(P.S...these two above pictures pretty much sums up my girls lately. Olivya is totally a go-with-the-flow kind of girl and just loves whatever life brings her. Adelyn is almost 3 and life just seems so hard for her! Everything is a struggle or a whining moment for her...not a fan of this stage). 

After buying our plants and prepping the garden (weeding it and tilling it - which my mom and husband did most of the work on actually), the garden was looking ready to go...

And then I mapped out where I wanted what to go, and we went to town digging and planting...

In the garden we planted tomatoes (2 different kinds), cucumbers, lettuce, asparagus, carotts, green beans, squash, red, yellow and green bell peppers, and jalapeno peppers! Yum!! Can't wait for the harvesting to begin

 

let it Grow...let it Grow... (sung to the tune of Frozen's Let it Go...let it go...which has been sung way too much in our house hold lately).

April 2014: Happy 1st Birthday Olivya!!!

Well, it's official. Olivya turned 1!!! What a blessed and crazy year it has been.

The night before Olivya's birthday, we headed to the cities in anticipation of our Carmack/Texas family flying into Minneapolis to celebrate. After picking them up from the airport, we checked into a hotel for a long weekend, took a quick swim in the pool, and then headed to my parent's house for a birthday dinner for Olivya, complete with her first experience with an ice cream cake!

(I had to take it away for a second to slice her a piece so the rest of us could enjoy some cake too, and this is the reaction that I got...)

But she calmed down quickly and waiting in anticipation as she got her cake back...

Finally!! My cake!! Yum:) 

The Saturday after Olivya's birthday, we lucked out with a gorgeous day for her birthday party!!! We held her birthday party at Teddy Bear Park (and had a Teddy Bear Picnic)  in Stillwater, and it was a great day celebrating this wonderful girl...we were so blessed by our amazing friends and family who came out to celebrate...

After some great playing and enjoying good food and company, we realized that we forgot the candles at home!!! (You can't have a 1st birthday without the birthday cake experience)! So luckily, we have some pretty amazing friends who went on an adventure downtown Stillwater to find some candles and matches (thanks SueLynn & Aaron!!), so that we could all see how Olivya would react to her 1st birthday cake experience...

Contemplating...

Testing the cake...

...And going for the kill! 

Success!!!! Olivya fell asleep shortly after this cake experience, so of course Dada had to come to the rescue and help her out...

And Adelyn made sure to get her fair share too...

Happy 1st Birthday to this sweet, loving, cuddly, and determined little girl!! We love you Olivya and are so blessed to have you in our lives!!

September 2013: Making Spaghetti Sauce...

One of the great things of living in small town USA is that a LOT of people garden and share fresh vegetables and bring over jars of homemade applesauce and pickles just to say hello (yes, we have gotten all of these things!). Well, the other week, a lady from my church brought us a whole box of yellow tomatoes and a head of cabbage! We ended up tossing the cabbage because we couldn't eat it before it went bad, but I knew I had to do something with the tomatoes!! There's so many possibilities of things to make with fresh tomatoes.

So, I decided to jump right in to small town living (not sure what it has to do with actually living in a small town, but I just feel like it seems right that we make all our own food from fresh ingredients!) and I had my first attempt at making my very own spaghetti sauce!

My little helper helped me gather the tomatoes and wash all the dirt off of them..

And I cut them and started to cook them (mashing them as they cooked)...lookin' good!!

My little helper of course had to taste test every once in awhile...

And I was so excited that the spaghetti sauce tasted pretty good!!!! To thicken it up a bit, I decided to put a little bit of corn starch into the tomato mixture, and I admit, it got a little thick, but the taste was still good...

Here's the true test...

But what I didn't know about corn starch is that it just keeps getting thicker and thicker as it sits and simmers!! So by the time I got my spaghetti and was ready to eat it, the sauce was so thick and jelly-like that it was NASTY!!!! I definitely learned my lesson about corn starch (get rid of that stuff!) and I consider my first attempt at making homemade spaghetti sauce a big. fat. fail. It was so bad that I couldn't even finish my dinner, and after tossing it in the garbage, I ended up with a peanut butter sandwich instead.

Ugh. All that work for nothing:). Maybe it will take me a little bit longer than I had hoped to get this small town living thing down... 

September 2013: Life in Aitkin...

I can't believe we have been living in Aitkin for almost a month!! We are loving it up here (except for the part about missing our friends and family!). We've gotten acquainted with the parks, found the local ice cream shop, become regulars at the local coffee shop, and put lots of miles on our stroller as we are able to walk everywhere!! Michael is enjoying remembering that the time is short that he GETS to be a stay at home dad, and continues to make the most of being home with the girls every day!! (I personally, think he is an incredible stay at home dad...he is going a little stir-crazy to be honest...but that will soon change, as it looks like he has secured a full time job!!! details to come later...).

Anyway, Michael keeps the girls busy with daily trips to the park, walks, playing outside, and their favorite thing to do is to explore!!! Addi makes sure she has her binoculars and the exploring begins...

(Notice the upside down AND backwards binoculars...she just loves them though!)

And of course, the daily trip to the park is a hit! They even stop by and see me at work once a week or so after they are done at the park...

And some of our favorite days are when we have visitors!! We were so lucky to have Addi's G.G. (Great Grandma) come and visit for us a day. Adelyn insisted on leading her all around town as we were out and about...

And some good story time with G.G. is just what was needed!

We have also been lucky to see Gramma, Papa, and Brady (aka my mom, dad, and nephew) a few times this month!! We all met in Brainerd last Saturday to celebrate my dad's and my birthday and then they all stayed the night...and then my mom stayed a few more days so that Michael and I could attend my first Pastor's theological conference (which by the way was just as boring as it sounds...except I got some good networking in with other youth pastors! So that made it worth it).

Adelyn has also been working on her camera skills lately and constantly takes pictures of her sister...(yes, that's her finger blocking 1/2 the pictures. But she is so proud when she gets a picture with Olivya's face in it, so I had to share)...

And Addi and Olivya got presents from their Aunt Amy!!! Addi was SOOOOOO excited to open this box of presents and play with all the tutu's and other things that her Aunt Amy got her!

And the new news with Olivya is that she is eating baby food now!!! So far she has had sweet potatoes (first food), pears, peas, and mango! She loves love LOVES when it is time to eat! 

Though, the other day she fell asleep as I was feeding her...and today, she was very dramatic when she had to poop when Michael was feeding her...

Bahahaha... I laughed so hard. Well, Aitkin has at lease allowed us to keep our sense of adventure and humor going...so far so good!! We're just livin' the good life up here in Aitkin...