What's growing in our garden

Okay, so it turns out that we're not so bad at this gardening thing, after all. The green bell peppers are doing wonderfully. The peppermint really is growing like a weed. We had gotten this tiny pot of peppermint from the grocery store and it specifically stated not to plant it, and I assumed you shouldn't plant it because it doesn't grow. Then Mike planted it without my knowledge, and it's thriving! Yay. The onions were planted some time last year. They had died, or so we thought. We never even watered that particular earth bucket, and were surprised when onion shoots came up. Now we are watering them, and hoping for a nice crop. The brussels sprouts are doing really well, too. We also have tomatoes growing, but they are not doing that well. They all seem to look really good and healthy at first, but inevitably begin rotting right there on the vine. They did this last year also. We do have some white flies and need to figure out how to get rid of them. We still have so much to learn about gardening. I'm happy enough with the results we are getting now.

A monster for Zoe....

Mike saw a book on knitting monsters and thought we had to own it. He bought it and even asked me for knitting lessons so he could make a monster (he's partial to monsters). The knitting lessons never went beyond the first one, and I decided I was interested enough to learn the magic loop method by making a monster myself. He (or she, we're undecided) is still missing his grin. I bought some white felt for it last time I was at Michaels and then totally misplaced the bag! So, this little monster will need to wait a little while longer before he can have his face completed. Mike and Zoe are both absolutely delighted with this little thing.

mittens!

While I already had Lilly in the front yard modelling her hats, I also made her wear a mitten I just finished yesterday (have started on the second). I used Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's Cloisonee pattern. As you can see, the mitten does not fit Lilly. I really just wanted to see if I could make sense of the pattern, so I didn't worry about little things like gauge. ;-) Now I'm stuck having to make the second mitten using the same size needles, but that's alright. These mittens work up fast, and are bound to fit somebody in this house!

Herminone hearts Ron hat

Here is my daughter, Lilly, modelling my just-finished Hermione-hearts-Ron hat in a cheap acrylic yarn (the green), and a nicer wool (the red yarn). It is a fun pattern - I also made it in brown and in blue.

We spent this past weekend in the backyard. Mike and his father spent all of Friday and some on Saturday fixing our fence (it was leaning). Mike then continued to work in the backyard with the kids. Christopher did a lot of weedwacking, Annika and Lilly raked weeds, and Zoe played on our dirt mound and took advantage of the swings. I'm totally excited about what plans Mike has for next weekend! He's made so much progress over the last few months. Now that the kids are older, they can help us so much more with home improvement projects. The weather right now is also perfect for this kind of work.

Cat on Annika's homework

Here are a couple of pictures showing what happens when George, our family cat, decides he needs attention during school hours. Annika had just sat down with her math homework when the cat jumped onto her desk and made himself comfortable. His fur is soft like velvet, so we do enjoy petting him, but in the middle of homework? Seriously, George! Although, Annika probably welcomed the distration.....

a picture of Zoe

Zoe had just held up her arms to me for a big hug and I asked her to do it again for the camera, but she much preferred to just smile at me instead. :-)