Growing Gardens

For all of you dying to know how my garden is doing, here is a quick update:-) The squash, zucchini, and cucumbers are thriving... Or were at least in these pictures. As of a week ago, the temperature has spiked to a good 95-100 degrees daily and has taken its toll on the squash. (far left). The cucumbers and zucchini seem to be doing alright still, but I'm afraid the squash has given up the ghost.

Here is my awesome tomato plant which is doing great... Also up until a week ago:-) Instead of the heat giving us trouble this time, it seems to be worms! Army stripe worms to be specific, and they keep eating my stinking tomatoes! Well, I had Seth spray them with some wicked bug killer, and we shall see if they persist....

While I like my vegetables, the soft spot in my heart belongs to my flowers. Here they are looking so beautiful! But, like the rest of the items in my garden, the last week proved to be the harbinger of death for a lot of my plants. The pink petunias to the left of the plant suddenly died last week with no symptoms whatsoever, and now two more of my alyssum plants have been turning brown. While I believe the petunias succumbed to Southern Blight, a nasty bacterial infection for plants, I think the alyssum are just being fried by their location in the planter.

While the tags I did plant my flowers with boasted "full sun", I don't think these particular flowers were designed for heat this intense. I have watered, fertilized, and sprayed for bugs to no avail. A majority of my front garden is still doing well, but I have learned that even the best care cannot always protect your flowers from nasties like Southern Blight.

Overall, it has been very rewarding having my own little gardens. I loved watching my small little plants fill out and grow so bright and beautiful. Even though it is painful to pull a dead plant that you worked so hard for, you learn how to avoid that problem in the future and move on. Next year will be even more fun now that I know what I am doing, (kinda:-), and I know what I like. And as a side note, I would like to say thank you to Pam/Mom for all her help with my gardening questions and her great advice:-) Hopefully the next photos of my garden are as pretty as these!

The Daddy Returns!

It was just like any other Saturday. Oliver and I got up at 6 am to go jogging, came home for a late breakfast, and played on the floor awhile. When, drum roll please, we realized for the millionth time that today was the day Daddy was coming home!!!

As you can see Oliver was overjoyed at the fact that he would no longer be the only male in the house:-) So, while we were spending our last solo day together, Mamma decided to start making dinner for the Daddy. Oliver protested that he too would like to help with the dinner, and was staked out under his booster seat near my feet and throwing out comments about what spices to use and what else to put into the salad. When I insisted that cinnamon should not be added to the rice, he raised himself to his full height of 27 inches, for the very first time, and voiced his opinion on the matter. He did lose some of his gusto though after he bonked his noggin on the bottom of the chair and was silent on the matter of the cinnamon for the remainder of the preparation of dinner.

This is him showing me how he can now pull himself to standing, even though he does not pick the best places to stand.

This is the cake I made for Seth on Father's Day. It was a yellow cake mix with a box of vanilla instant pudding mixed in to make it extra moist. I then frosted the cake with two cans of chocolate frosting and 8 ounces of cream cheese to add calories and flavor:-) After the cake was layered and frosted, I put it in the freezer for a couple of days to make it even more moist, and there you go. The best cake EVER. Actually, the meal before this cake was just as wonderful complete with steak, baked potatoes, fresh green salad, and grilled pineapple. Glorious.

This was Oliver showing Seth how happy he was to see him again. He would first smile at him, then bend down and give him a nice slobbery raspberry on the cheek.

As you can see, both my boys are very happy to be together again, and nothing makes the Mommy happier.

Aother Wilde Week!

It's amazing how time flies when you are sole care giver to the world's most wonderful, adorable, sweet, loving, good smelling, best giggling, fastest army crawling, amazing, CUTE baby boy in the world. I am so very blessed to be able to spend my days at home with this terrific critter! Everyday is an adventure and I am loving every minute of it:-) Since just last week, Oliver has cut another tooth which makes that three so far! i cannot believe how fast he is getting all these teeth! He has handled the teething quite well and is still sleeping through the night. (knock on wood). Thank you very much Infant Tylenol!

Last week we had cousins Jack, Eddie and Norah come to stay with us on our home base. Jack and Ed loved being outside where they caught a frog and played with the neighbors Rylyn and Estrella, and Oliver mauled Norah constantly for her binky and just for her adorable face. (Oliver wants to formally apologize to Norah for all the attempted binky snatchings and face grabbings... no hard feelings?) Aunt Jess also accompanied the trio of kiddlettes and we were able to have some grown up chats at the end of the day, (even though she passed out at nine every night!);-) We all had a wonderful time and love having family come to visit! I have to say it is an awesome blessing to have family so close, especially when one's husband is gone:-) While they were here, we were able to visit Swan Lake, a beautiful park that, needless to say, had tons of different types of swans. Eddie and Norah were giggling like crazy at the relentless geese, Jack was giving them whole slices of bread being the generous man that he is, and Oliver stoically eyed the geese as if pondering the the question, "Which came first, the egg or the goose?" Seriously, getting Ollie to crack a smile is quite an accomplishment. While the Olligator truly is a very happy man, he makes you really work for it, which makes it that much more rewarding when he flashes you that heart melting grin. Posted below are some of those wonderful smiles you have all been waiting for:-) Enjoy!

Ollie and Barry.

My sweet smile!

You're killin' me Mom!

The lineup

Binky: Snatched!!!

Cruisin' by the pool

What a face!!! :-)

Lord Stanley's Cup Finals

So I'm going to the first game of the Stanley Cup Finals tomorrow!!!!!

Talk about a once in a lifetime opportunity! I happen to be only 3 1/2 hours away from Detroit where the Red Wings will host the first two games against the Penguins. I happened to catch the last game of the Western Conferance Finals and see Detroit beat Chicago. Which, got me to thinking... I'm not too far from Detroit, or Pitsburg for that matter! Fortunately Game 1 is on a Saturday which means I can go and don't have to miss class to get there and back!

What are the odds that I happend to find the last game in the Western Conference finals on TV, I am within driving Distance of not just one, but BOTH of the final two teams hometown, and my beautiful wife was able to call yesterday morning right as tickets went on sale and get me one? All the planets must have aligned, or I must have had an angel flipping TV channels for me or something!!!

I cannot even BEGIN to express how excited I am! Look for me on NBC tomorrow, LIVE at 8PM eastern...

On the move!

While Oliver may not yet be crawling, that does not necessarily mean that he is still immobile. Turns out our son is a wonderful "creeper" and likes to army crawl around the house. (I have also heard this termed "alligator crawling" and "creeping" but to me it just looks like an army crawl.) I can't say that I blame him for sliding on his tummy, because our floor is so ridiculously hard that it must hurt his little knees to try and crawl with his belly up. There is nothing more precious than watching him drag his baby body all over the house and it is also especially sweet when he follows me from room to room. He always appears so proud of himself when he finds me loading the dishwasher in the kitchen or in the hallway. Once he has found me he immediately attacks my feet and/or shoes and loves to end the game by being tossed in the air a few times and set back on his tummy in the opposite direction. Oliver also has a new best friend in the form of a bear carving in our living room. He is constantly having conversations with said bear, and if the bear gets too lippy or shows too much cheek, Oliver sobers him up with a few sharp slaps to his belly. I have to say, watching these encounters are far more entertaining than any book or movie and I truly feel blessed to have the most wonderful job in the world.

Following up on the teething experience, Oliver is now the owner of TWO teeth! Daddy discovered the second tooth when he was home for the weekend, and since then Oliver has been putting his new teeth to good use:-) He is now becoming a pro at getting Cheerios into his mouth with his newly developed pincher grasp and loves to receive little pieces of fruit or veggies with his breakfast and dinner. Ollie has also discovered "biter biscuits" and loves not only their taste, but the exquisite mess they make of him and anything surrounding him. :-)

Seth was also able to come home this last weekend for memorial day:-) It was so wonderful having him home again that this past week has been pretty tough without him. It was so cute watching Seth and Oliver play together and also watching Seth's reactions to all the new things Ollie was doing that he wasn't doing before he left. Seth was over the moon about Oliver sliding around the house and was found on several occasions rolling toys across the floor and watching Oliver chase them:-) Watching these two hang out was the highlight of the weekend for me, plus the fact that Seth made me some fantastic dinners while he was home AND he loaded the dishwasher! :-) Only three more weeks from tomorrow and my sweet pickle will be home again!

Oliver's first picture of him showing off his new teeth! (And some leftover breakfast!:-)

Flashing me that amazing smile!

Here he is on his 8 month birthday!!!

Norah and Ollie... (at least SHE thought my face was funny...)

Reminds me of the snowman from Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer... The beard?

Here is a video of our creeping child:-) Enjoy!!!