How does your garden grow...

Mine is growing swell. I am getting so excited about it! I thought I would share how well things are going through pictures!

 My first tomato is making an appearance, and there are a lot of little flowers all over my tomato plants!

 My cucumber is getting vines and is starting to flower.

 My green beans are getting nice and tall(they started as seeds)

 My onions are starting to bend!

 Peppers are flowering.

Peas are starting to bud and form itty bitty pods!

We all know from yesterdays post how my broccoli is doing, hopefully I'm still able to save them.  I didn't get a picture of my carrots but they are tiny little buds starting to sprout!

Pesky Little worms

The other day I noticed my broccoli was getting holes in it.  I thought it was strange, but since I'm new to gardening I just didn't think much about it.  Well the next day the holes were bigger, and then today when I went outside to look at my plants guess what the leaves were almost gone.  I thought maybe it was a big animal eating my plants and I was starting to get a bit mad at them.  Especially since there is this cat that is always hanging around, I thought that little imp of a cat had gotten to my broccoli. Come to find out it was not a big animal, or a bird, or that little cat, it is and was something much smaller.  A broccoli worm- A LOT of broccoli worms.

I scoured the Internet and found out how to get rid of them. A product called DT- it has a really big long name (Bacillus thuringiensis) and can be found in both a powder and in an already mixed spray.  Everything I read said until it starts working just pluck the little buggers off the broccoli and kill them.  This product is organic and made of a bacteria that basically makes the worms stop eating and essentially they starve to death.  Sounds kind of harsh I guess, but I would like the opportunity to eat my broccoli and not to give it all away.  So off to work I go.  I'm gonna get these guys if it's the last thing I do!

Bedroom curtains

I needed to make some curtains for our bedroom as they were looking rather dull.  Also the fire escape window down there has had a blanket over the window since we moved in. It was definitely time for an update what do you think?

While searching pinterest one day I found a picture of some really pretty curtains.  I showed them to my husband and got to work on trying to mimic them.  I never looked to see if there was a tutorial attached to the picture I just got to work on making them.

First, I took a sheer curtain and cut it into strips.  I cut them 14" wide, and I believe it was like 32" long.  Anyway you would cut them to the length of the window you are making plus 2" for the top so a curtain rod can go through it and another 1/2" for seam allowance on the bottom.  If your curtain rod is wider, then you would obviously need to add more fabric to the length to make up for that difference.

Second, I then cut the grey fabric to 1.5X that length since it is going to have a ruffle in it. Make the top part for the curtain rod-I did this by just folding the top piece of fabric over to the wrong side of the fabric so they are wrong sides together and just stitched it up so you can slide the rod right through it. I hope that makes sense.

Third, once it is cut then you are going to do a gather stitch down the middle of the curtain.  Gather this up so that it is the same length as your other strips of curtain.

Forth, hem up all the bottom seams on everything to hold the gather in place.  Trim any loose ends of string off.

Fifth, Hang on the curtain rod. Looks much better don't you think.  Now I just need to make another one for the little window!

Reflections from Maternity Leave

God is so faithful and so good!- This is the main thing that was reiterated to us time and time again during my maternity leave.  Let's start from the beginning shall we?!

I went into labor at 35wks-I have to admit I was a bit nervous when they told me this was for real, but at the same time I knew the Lord's timing was everything and if this was the time ordained then so be, we would be ok and would pull through! Turns out they were able to stop the labor and I had to spend time in a hospital far far away from home(not really it was like an hr away, but still farther than I would have liked to have been).  When I was sent home I got put on bed rest, so guess what this started my maternity leave 4 wks earlier than we were planning, and we were barely budgeted for me taking 6wks off, now I have 10wks off and was missing those last 4wks of pay which we were really counting on.
Now to the good points:
* I got to see my church family in action-they stepped right up to the plate when I called the youth pastor and told him we were going to need someone to watch Elijah last minute because I was being rushed away!
* We got to see God provide in miraculous and marvelous ways through our family and friends and so far have not had to touch our savings to account for the missed work!
*We got to see some family-Greg's mother and brother came down to help us, since we thought baby was coming early.  We got to spend two weeks in fellowship with them and it was so refreshing.  They also pampered me by spending so much time taking care of Elijah, cooking, cleaning, and helping to get my kitchen here before baby arrived!
* We got to spend 4 wks together as a family before our newest addition arrived. It was a time of great revival and renewal for me since Greg and I had worked opposite shifts for over a year so one of us was always home with Elijah.
*Elijah got a lot of last minute attention before he was no longer king of the house! Haha-although he seems to like his baby sister quite a bit.
*We got to see that when you pick a name that means In the Lord's Timing-HE is GOING to prove it!!

So now for the part of my maternity leave that happened after she arrived! She arrived April 6th, via C-section.  Now I had one with Elijah so I wasn't really nervous about how it was going to go, but I will admit I was a bit worried about what would happen after the fact.  Our family had already come out, so now we were going to have a new baby with me just having major surgery and a baby still at home! YIKES! I prayed very hard every day leading up to the birth that things would fall into place and be taken care of both on a financial aspect and for help taking care of Elijah. (I couldn't lift anything over 10lbs and he is 26lbs and not walking!)
The good points:
*We got to watch God carefully ordain everything again!
*Our church family was amazing yet again-Someone came to help me during the day with Elijah and others brought us meals.  Can I just say they are absolutely amazing and we couldn't have done it without them.  
*A wonderful lady and friend from work came by everyday when she got off and helped me out in the afternoons until Greg got home.  She also started teaching me how to garden(something I really wanted to learn well) A blessing in disguise that I definitely wasn't expecting!
*6 more weeks of family time! It has been so amazing to watch Elijah interact with his new sister and to help us form some what of a routine with our new little one-which is still changing since she is still young!
*I got a much needed, longer than expected break from a stressful job-and now I think they appreciate me a bit more! -Always a good thing in my book! (I will say the did appreciate me before as well-I think haha)
* My dad came down and stayed for a week, he helped with the kiddos, did the dishes and he helped me plant a garden(something I had been praying we would be able to do this year, I love the unexpected blessings!)

I have seen God work in so many amazing ways during this maternity leave that it is absolutely amazing.  I can say with more confidence than ever that he works all things together for the good of those who love him! I know there are more blessings that I am forgetting to list and maybe I will come back and add them, but this was getting long.  I am blessed beyond measure and completely treasured my time with my family, and although I am sad to go back to work I know it is what must be done at this point in our lives.  Until then I continue to pray that one day I will get to stay home with my family all day, but until then I will remain content and confident that I am where God wants me at this point in time.

Garden-1

Well all of my little seeds that I have planted have begun to sprout.  They are turning into some fine looking plants.  Although I seem to have an animal that is liking to bite the tops off of some of my plants which makes me not too happy.  Overall they are doing extremely well though!

I started weeding the garden today.  Yes you heard that right, just now starting.  Since I have not planted anything before I wanted to make sure I knew what was a plant and what was a weed.  So I got to work today on it.  It is only about half weeded but for me getting started is half the battle, especially with two little ones running around.  I have found it a bit hard some days to get out there and just makes sure to water the plants.  We shall see how it all goes over once I go back to work-which I'm sad to say is Monday. Man did this time fly by, but it has been a huge blessing but more on that later!

I still can't see much of my carrots which makes me a bit sad because Elijah loves carrots! I do however see my bean and pea plants growing leaps and bounds everyday.  Same with my onion and garlic.  My tomato and cucumber plants have not grown too much at this point in time but they are starting to flower which makes me very excited.  My pepper plants are growing but no flowers yet, and this weekend I have to get my herbs planted in my planters.  We are also hopefully going to get some compost and put our new grass seed in to see if we can get the front lawn looking any better.  If it works there maybe next year we will tackle the back yard a bit harder!

On a side note- if anyone know a really good homemade salsa recipe I would love to have it.  I don't like salsa but my husband does and I would like to make some with all our fresh herbs and veggies we are growing. I'm just not so good at making up recipes when I don't like the taste of it to start, makes it hard to know when I found a good one!  I'm also looking for a good spaghetti sauce recipe but I will probably just try to make some of those up since I love spaghetti, but if you have a good starting recipe that would be amazing!

A wedding!

This is a bit late, but it has been quite crazy around here, with getting everything unpacked, children back on schedules, and resting up from a busy but totally and completly fun filled weeked.  We got to see so many friends and family and best of all we got to see my brother in law get married!!   We couldn't have asked for anyone better and she is the perfect match for our brother Matt! So here is our weekend through pictures! The best way to tell a story!

 Arrived at the hotel, all pooped out! My babies are starting to like snuggling each other and that makes me a very happy mommy!

 The family got to meet Athaiah for the first time!

 Rehersal was Friday evening with a wonderful dinner to follow! It was an amazing time spent with family!

 Wedding day is here! (doesn't my little man look so handsome)

 The ring bearers are ready to go-those are some good lookin boys!

 Daddy with his little girl.  A kiss before he had to go line up!

 It's official-The Mr. and Mrs Mathew Turley!

 I love flowers-these were on some of the tables at the reception!

 We got to see a bunch of the people that we grew up with, which was amazing!

We got to see my family in addition to seeing his!

All in all it was a fabulous and busy weekend.  I wish we were all still together though it was so nice to see so many people from home! We know we are were we are supposed to be but hopefully some day soon God will lead us closer to the ones we love! Until next time!

Cake Batter Milkshake

I love pinterest and all of the exciting things that you can find there.  It was through pinterest that I found this link http://abeautifulmess.typepad.com/my_weblog/ She has some really cool things in there, but the one I am talking about today is her cake batter milkshake.

I cannot take any credit for this except to tell you that I made it and it was absolutely amazing!! I'm convinced that anyone who likes cake batter or chocolate should try this out.  I made the chocolate one, although she does give you a couple of other other recipes to chose from!

Here is a picture of mine:

Just a heads up, these are really super rich and it took me like an hour to finish this small glass.  My husband on the other hand downed it in about 5min flat raving about how absolutely wonderful it was:) I just thought I would share this link with all because it is so worth trying!

My daddy was here...

It was so wonderful to have my dad here this past week.  We had a ton of fun with him and he really helped us out around the house.  So good to have such a wonderful dad who is always willing to help us out when he is on vacation.

First, he started working more with Elijah on his walking.  I have to say in the week he was here, Elijah has gotten quite a bit better. He still will not let go of us when standing still-he's not totally sure he is brave enough to stand on his own yet! But I'm not rushing it too much, he likes to get into everything like every good child does, so I'm fine with just crawling at this point!

Second, he snuggled Athaiah a lot.  Which is great, because she loves to be held.  She knows the instant you put her down and will usually start fussing so she can get back into your arms. She definitely loves to snuggle(which always makes me happy-there is not much better than baby snuggles)

Third, he did the dishes! This is huge for me since usually I'm the only one that does them here, so it was absolutely amazing to have them done after every meal and to not see a huge pile in the sink(like there is now).

Forth, we got a lot of good talks in and did a lot of catching up and reminiscing which is always a wonderful thing to get to do, since I don't get to see family very often being so far away.

Fifth, he totally updated my yard/garden for me.  I told him I wanted to dig out a whole area of plants and put in veggies, so guess what he did.  He dug it all up and now I have all kinds of veggie plants growing! 

Then I told him I really needed to clean out the other flower beds and rearrange some stuff, and put some more perennials in so that I didn't have to plant so many flowers every year.  So guess what? He got out the shovel and dug up a bunch of plants to thin it out and organize it. He also bought us a beautiful Rose bush, and some perenial seeds!

Put a new flower bed out in front of the house-which I have been wanting to do since we moved in. 

He even worked with Greg on putting landscape timbers in to give the beds some slight definition!  Let's just say I love it all so very much!  Don't you think it looks great? (disclaimer-don't mind some of the wilty looking plants, those are some that we transplanted but will come back looking better next year since they were already starting to bloom when we dug them up)

I will follow up my gardening in some other posts, because I will admit I don't have the greenest thumb, although it does run deep in my family so hopefully I will be able to tap into it for all these wonderful new plants!

He also bought us some fertilizer/dandilion killer, and some new grass seed.  Needless to say our yard looks a bit sad, but will look much better.  I will do a follow up on this one also since you can't see the fertilizer or grass seed!

It was an amazing week and we were all very sad to see him leave yesterday, but look forward to hopefully seeing him sometime soon! Now we are looking forward to this coming weekend when we travel via plane(for the first time with children) to KY for my brother in laws wedding! YEAH more family time, and a wonderful addition to the Turley family!