Donating!

***  Warning:  If you are one of my sisters, and you want to be surprised by this in person, read NO FARTHER!!!!!!!  ***

A couple weeks ago, I was combing Sweetpea's hair after a bath and I said "your hair is down to your butt!"  Her response was "oooohhhhh!  We should cut it and donate it!"  Now, she is only 3, so you can imagine my surprise.  Munch has donated her hair twice in her 11 years.  But not in the last 2 years.  It seemed hard to believe that Sweetpea could remember her sister doing that.  They must have talked about it at some time or another.  Ya know, as sisters are wont to do even if there is an 8 year difference between them.

We decided to wait until after the recital was over.  So I could more easily pin her hair back.

Last night after her bath, we downloaded the form from Locks of Love, and set to work.

Sweetpea is having a great time telling how it all happened.  Here's her version of it (in her words, but without her little Sweetpea accent):
First, we picked out a rubber band.  A pink one.
And mama put it in my hair in a pony tail.
I had to hold really still.
Then mama cut the pony tail off!
[fit of goofy girl giggles]
The whole pony tail!!
[hand motions and more giggles]

12 inches.  Oddly, this was very difficult for me.  I sorta felt like i was cutting off one of her limbs.  Like it would hurt her or something.  Not sure why I felt like that.  I'm usually not one to be so sentimental about things like that.  But...

I'm loving the new look!

So fresh and cute.

I think she's loving it too.

What Happens When Life Runs Away With You?

This.  This is what happens when it is heavy planting season and the recital is coming up and the house falls into a spiral of disorder and...  This is what happens when you find your kids saying "salad [or sandwiches or eggs] for dinner again?

But that's all over now.  We're into garden maintenance mode.  The costumes have been gathered or made and danced in. 

I've got some po-ta-toes to salvage!

(Hey, no one can say I can't grow anything!)

A Sister's Garden

I have 4 wonderful sisters.  We get together often and have a great time.  Last week, while 2 of my sisters went on a trip to North Carolina (welcome home!!!!!!!!!), I got the chance to hang with another one of my sisters twice!  Twice in one week!  She lives an hour away in PA, so we don't see each other as often as we'd like. 

This year, she decided that she wanted to plant a garden.  Much to my excitement, she asked me to help her design and plant it.  Early last week, I took the kids to her place, had a sleepover, and then planted her garden the next morning.  'Twas really fun!

Her garden, being her first ever garden, is 3ft by 12ft.  She wanted tomatoes, sweet peppers, hot peppers, green beans, and onions.  We chose 3 tomatoes - 1 Debaro paste, 1 Bellstar paste, and 1 Medford field; 2 sweet peppers - 1 King of the North bell, 1 Lipstick;  1 hot pepper - we had chosen a Hot Portugal, but a lil bunny ate it, so we replaced it with an Anaheim;  Provider green beans;  Black Eel zucchini;  and onions grown from onion sets. 

Right after planting.

Hurray for sprouting seeds!!!  Always one of the most exciting parts of gardening (next to harvesting the yummies, that is).

With bunny protection and replaced plants.

Isn't it cute?!  I think I'm just as excited about her garden as she is!  (Thanks for letting me be a part of it all, sis!!)

Gardening is a never ending spiral.  Once you start, you can't stop.  You constantly think of how next year's garden will be bigger, better, different.  You learn from your mistakes and from your successes.  Happy accidents happen.  Losses occur.  It's challenging and exciting.  Each year is different.  Gardening is dynamic.

This was one of the wettest springs I can remember.  We are just now caught up on getting things in the ground in our own garden.  Now that things have slowed a bit in the garden, I'm hoping to have the chance to take some pics of it and post them.  After all, this will be our last year of gardening at my sister in laws house.  Next year, we'll be able to garden at the farmhouse we bought.  Hopefully we'll be living there as well!  Right now, we are dealing with the challenges of buying an old farmhouse.  But!  We now have a working well.  That's some progress!

How does your garden grow?