We are so excited that Spring is here! We've spent a lot of time the last couple of months reading and planning and purchasing supplies for our vegetable garden this year. We chose a spot for raised beds last fall and had some stuff composting there over winter to kill the grass. When the weather warmed a couple weeks ago, we borrowed a tiller and mixed it all up. There were still some clumps of viable grass, but the mulched leaves/grass clippings mixture on top had decomposed nicely into a crumblier texture. We looked into the Square Foot Gardening method and decided we would try many of its principles in this year's garden. Dwayne has been busy building the boxes (with little helpers), and I've been working on making and acquiring good dirt, planning plant locations, and starting many of our veggies from seed. Here are Dwayne, Simon and Stuart, drilling holes in the wood to make the beds.




Here is the first set of beds, set in the ground. It's three 4X4 boxes, dug in slightly, leveled, terraced, and screwed together. Only six more to go! I think they look great and thanks to Dwayne's attention to detail, they are precisely level and should drain well.



Here are some of my little veggie babies. We have a shop light hanging from the rod in the guest room closet. It's been easier than I thought it would be to get the plants going, but now they're getting bigger, and I'm not sure where they're all going to live until planting time in May.... Part of the problem is that I I planted 60+ tomato plants, planning to share many with family and friends, but by the time they're ready to plant outside, they'll be taking up some serious counter space. I might have to give them away a little early and make people find their own sunny window.

For our St. Patrick's Day breakfast, we had an apple puffy pancake with green sprinkles and a green chocolate banana smoothie. Here are two versions of the recipe (the riper the bananas, the sweeter the end result):

2-3 overripe bananas, peeled, cut up and frozen
1-2 cups milk
1-2 T. cocoa powder
green food coloring (or spinach if you have a VitaMix)

Now the dairy-free version (taught to me by Veronica):

2-3 overripe bananas, peeled, cut up and frozen
1-2 cups water
1 handful whole almonds
1-2 T. cocoa powder
green food coloring (or spinach if you have a VitaMix)

The almonds definitely blend up better in a VitaMix, but make a respectable smoothie in my Bosch blender as well. Here are some testaments to its yumminess!

So back to Star Wars: We found some fun video games online that we've let the boys (Dwayne is included here :-) play occasionally. After Simon had been playing for a while one day, I told him that if he wanted to stay on the computer, he needed to do some "learning" games, not just fun games. He said, "But Mom, Star Wars is a learning game."

"What do you mean?"

"We're learning to use the Force."

Trying to capitalize in an uplifting way on Simon and Stuart's intense interest in weapons and battles, we had a family home evening lesson on the Armour of God. Here is our makeshift armour.

We enjoyed having Brian and Veronica and family visit in January as they returned from Brian's internship in sunny Florida to mid-winter Boston. Ivy is such a treat to have around. She is one of the smiliest baby's I've ever met (especially in contrast to Daniel who is slow to bestow a smile on anyone).

Lance, Spencer, Simon and Stuart were all so excited to have extra friends around all week that they usually woke up and hour or two earlier than usual just to enjoy each other's company. Only problem was the resultant fatigue and bad moods that usually surfaced right after breakfast and sometimes lasted throughout the day. They really enjoyed drawing together, and we can definitely credit Lance for Simon's recent interest (or perhaps better put, obsession) with drawing all things machine-like, especially things from Star Wars.

Dwayne is the birthday cake decorator in our family. He's much more careful and patient than I could ever be with that kind of project. I realized as he was laying a new tile floor in our laundry room how cake decorating and tiling were quite similar. He enjoys both and does a great job, so I'm just grateful neither task falls on me.

Simon loved his cake, especially the action figures decorating the top. He turned five in January. It's going by so quickly! We had a small party at my parents' after a Sunday dinner.

Daniel is starting to test limits. He gets so much attention when he stands in his high chair that that's probably why he does it. Stuart uses a very stern voice and says, "Daniel, sit down on your bottom bum!"

Daniel also has two very large top front teeth (plus some since this posting is happening 3 months after the picture was taken!).