Chef Curley

-Posted from my iPhone

Garden gone wild

It's what happens to an overly-excited novice gardener... I knew I was planting way too many things and way too close together... But I did it anyway!


We are still getting lots of tomatoes...


And I have a couple of bell peppers growing too!


Beans decided to make a walking path right along the green beans so most of those plants are trampled. Everything else is still coming along, though a little crowded.





Posted from my iPhone

Sheep Spa

Leah and I headed over to the barn to help Aunt Leslie with some shepherding chores.


This was the first time to wear her new barn boots...


First, a few treats...


While Aunt Les and I chased the sheep all around the pen trying to catch them... Leah was carefully choosing some rocks for Grandpa. He had two handfuls by the time we were done.


Our chores weren't easy... but by the time we caught the last one we felt like pros. Leslie sat each one of them down, gave them their meds and a little pedicure.

You say tomato...

This is a tomato plant on steroids. Less than a month after the tiny tomato plant was transplanted... Every day it is bigger and bigger.




The day Leah harvested our first fruit there were 11 total tomatos growing on the vine. But only one was ready to be picked... This one!!!

She was only pretending in that picture but when we got inside and washed it she really wanted a bite.

After every bite she said "mmmmm... this is yummy" while making this face...




I think she had heard me go on and on about how yummy they were going to be that she had made her mind up to like them...




She gave it a good try...




And here are tomatoes 2,3 and 4! They were sooooooooooo yummy!




I lost tomato #5... It exploded right there on the vine... I let it get just a tad over-ripe... lesson learned.

NBA Champs!

Both the Mavericks and I were born in Dallas Texas in 1980.

And we have both been waiting a loooong time for a championship!

I was a little girl the first time I went to a game at Reunion Arena. I was watching when Jason Kidd played for us the first time. I was always a fan, but I remember when I went off to college in 1998.... and fell in love in my dorm room.

Over the next few years I watched Steve Nash and Dirk play some of the most exciting regular season and play-off games I had ever seen. I cant lie, it was always Nash i was more infatuated with. In my opinion there was no one more exciting to watch in all of basketball. And the combination of those two guys was a little bit magical!



Around the same time, Kevin and I were dating and I took him to a game for his birthday because his favorite team (Kobe, Shaq and the Lakers) were playing my Mavs. We sat on the very top row of the arena. :)

I had a hard time when we let Steve Nash get away... And I admit I even split my loyalty the first couple of years with Phoenix because I loved watching him play.

Then...my team made it to the NBA finals... And then we got swept. :(

But just look at them now! After a long road. So exciting! Wins like this are worth waiting for!!


I have been catching up on all the sleep I always miss during the NBA playoffs. After all the games I have to watch all the post-game coverage and interviews.... And then, especially after a win, I'm like a kid going to Disney World...
I'm just too excited to sleep!!!


For the last decade or so I have predicted every year to be "the year." And every year I am so sad for the NBA season to end... Not this year!!!! Go Mavs!!!!!

Warm Woolen Mittens

I just started sweating when I typed that title! But that is how the song goes...

At age 2 years and 4 months... wearing an old t-shirt of mine:

• Her favorite foods right now are chicken nuggets with ketchup, berries, watermelon and JELLO.
  


• Favorite shows are Veggietales... she chooses them over Disney movies and Sesame Street!?!
  


• Favorite outdoor activity is "Fwim in the Fwimming pool" (not sure when the 'fw' started, I thought it was only l's and r's that she rejected.) Both Grandparents houses are equipped with Kiddie pools too, so she is set for lots of summer fun.



• She loves to read. She has started reading several books to us. Her favorite right now is The Very Hungry Caterpillar... and she knows every word. If she picks up a book we haven't read in a long time she will open it and say "I don't know these words" and hand it to us so we can read it through a couple of times until she has it memorized. Then she'll read it to us.



• She loves to hear the stories we make up. She particularly loves one Kevin made up about best friends Rocky Raccoon and Philip Fox. She asks him for this story repeatedly. In the car with me she'll ask "Mommy can you tell me the story about the Jesus and the sheep?" This is a story I've told her about 200 times by now. She can tell it back to me too, which I love. I love hearing her little voice say "I don't like it when all the sheep go away from Jesus." She says it every time. :)



• She loves to sing. ALL SONGS. She loves nursery songs and any Veggitales song, especially Larry the Cucumber's hairbrush song. A new favorite is Dolly Parton's "Rockin Chairs" And I recently heard her singing Jimmy Buffett's "Apocalyspo" after she heard me singing it. You may have also heard her singing her hymns from time to time. She's been known to sing "Trust and Obey" several dozen times in a row at increasingly higher and higher volumes. I love to hear "Ho-Wee, Ho-Wee, Hooo-Weeeeeee."



• She LOVES cars and trains like a good little tom-boy... especially Thomas the tank engine and Lighning McQueen... but she also loves Barbies and baby dolls.



• She loves it when we pass a construction site and I can tell her about all the machinery... excavators, bulldozers, front-end loaders, bobcats and cranes. She always asks me what things are first and then immediately says "Oh wow, look at that Exa-Bater!" (I don't know them all... so everything falls into one of those categories...)



• She loves shopping - her favorite stores are Cabela's, Target and the grocery store. (FYI - she spotted a Cabela's billboard from the car at almost a half a mile away)
  

There aren't many things that Leah Curley doesn't REALLY like... and even love! Every time we leave an event, no matter what it is, she says "I had so much fun at _____!" and "I love ____ SOOOOO much!" So coming up with her favorite things is getting more difficult. I think it might be easier to just list things that aren't her favorites.

There is definitely one thing she currently doesn't care for... walruses... aka wasps. I told her one time to take a good look at them and make sure she doesn't ever touch one because wasps can sting you (and we have lots around our house... I think they like our flowers and vegetables and our covered patio.) So now every time she sees one she says "I don't like walruses! They can bite me!"

sowing with leah

Several weeks ago, Leah and her daddy went to the home improvement store to pick up a few things... and came back with a little project...

A Lightning McQueen planting kit. (Leah loves all things Cars and can spot the logo from a mile away!)

The kit came with some marigold seeds and soil, so she and dad got to work. I think they planted on 4/3.

I told her that her flower seeds would probably grow even faster if we put a nice worm in there to help the soil. She agreed and we dug up a "nice wormy" and Leah put him in the pot too.

In about 10 days the seeds had sprouted... and within 3 weeks we had a small plant.

4/27

Leah's main job was watering and making sure it was still growing taller.

...on 5/9...

In the meantime, she decided she wanted to plant something else, so she filled 2 more Leah-sized pots with dirt and we planted green beans and Swiss chard.

The day her first marigold bloom opened up, her green beans erupted the soil as well!

The Swiss chard was a fail.... I'm pretty sure we drowned it... so I transplanted some of my extra okra plants to that pot.

Leah with her marigolds, green beans and okra plants

Beans could have 40 dog bowls of fresh water, but she prefers to drink from puddles or straight from the watering can. She's just waiting for the pour...

Oil Spill Anniversary Post

Lately we have been playing in the kiddie pool every single day... and Leah's CONSTANT chattering while she swims and plays always brings this video to my mind... one of her greatest hits, to be certain.

It just so happens that I posted it for the first time exactly one year ago today.

Some things will never change.

late bloomers

Leah has been doing lots of watering and planting and gardening with me lately. She especially loves her "pretty pee-TOON-ee-yuhs" that we picked out of the clearance rack at Lowes. I'm guessing they were priced at about $1.50 because they weren't blooming... so no one else wanted them. But we did! So we planted them in a pot, put a few bugs in there and gave them some TLC... and a little bit of water. (She carries her watering can very cautiously... the first few times.)

To Leah, a little bit of water is about 16 watering cans full. Thank goodness we live in Texas where the concept of too much water pretty much doesn't exist.

And within a few sunny days, we had all these beautiful blooms!





She is my sunshine!!



- Posted from my iPhone

Gymboree

Leah and I have been going to Gymboree class every week for many months now. But I never remember to take pictures. I have found that the more fun we are having, the fewer pictures I take. :)

Climbing on the equipment...


A monkey in a barrel...



Bubble time. Here she is showing me that she caught a little bubble on her finger.


She loves her class and her teacher "my friend Miss Katie"


- Posted from my iPhone

Bread-n-Bows

It all started with some ladybugs and a little lamb.

Back when Leah was sick with a pretty bad cough, the only way to keep her still and quiet was to sit in front of PBS all day long for a couple of days. After I'd seen enough quality, educational, children's programming to make myself sick, I decided to do a little project I'd been putting off for a few weeks.

Leah's favorite bow (ladybug ribbon) was purchased at the Farmersville Farmers and Fleas market. She picked it out and wanted to wear it with EVERYTHING. One day it fell apart and she said "that's ok... mommy can fix it." (???) I guess that's because I'm always claiming I can fix things... and sometimes I can.

I'm not what you'd call crafty. But I REALLY wish I was. So, with my mind numbed by the sounds of da-DA-da-DA El-mo's wooooorld, I completely took apart the remnants of the ladybug bow and fiddled with it awhile. I used some fishing line and a dab of hot glue and I liked the finished product even better than the original!

Don't get me started... on anything... cause its awfully hard for me to stop. I immediately decided that I needed to make Leah a sheep bow... you know, because her Aunt Leslie is a shepherd... and by the end of the next day this is what I had:

And here's the sheep bow: If I was sitting still, I was making bows. I was doing alot of experimenting. My first batch was mostly made of scraps from my gift wrap and craft boxes. I've gotten better now, and I have more of a system. And I have a full-fledged supply of ribbon and accessories. I've given most of that first batch away, plus another 30 or so.

My new passion for bow making was temporarily tempered by my newer passion for bread making! I LOVE IT! Kneading just might be one of my favorite pastimes.

My friend Brandie brought her recipe and her yeast all the way from Forney to help me make my first batch. It takes a good portion of the day but I think the smell in the house alone makes it all worth it.

Here's my first loaf. It was not dense enough (sorry McAnally's) but I've since fixed that along with some of my other issues.

Here is my second batch... a small loaf, dinner rolls, garlic rolls and a few sad looking cinnamon rolls. I've made MANY batches since these and I've finally found a good method for my cinnamon rolls. Its SOOOOOOOO addicting! We haven't purchased a loaf of bread since the first batch with Brandie. Thank you, my friend! Leah and Kevin and all our neighbors thank you too. :)

Let me know if you need a bow or some bread!

Thumb Check

We know what color my neck is, thanks to my dear husband's influence. Let's see what color my thumb is!

The garden plot was just a grass-covered part of our yard. I dug up the grass (the hardest part of the whole thing) and then turned in a little added top soil after I laid the stones down.

We are outside ALOT lately, but Leah's record has been speding 4 straight hours in the garden with me while we planted. I was impressed with her stamina.

Leah helped me plant all the seeds... which will explain some of the funny places things are sprouting up, and why there are about 27 okra plants bunched up together. But we had a ball!

5/4/11 - after our marathon of planting

We planted yellow squash, zucchini, cucumbers, okra, carrots, green beans, watermelon, cantaloupe, bell peppers and jalapeno peppers. Our garden plot isn't quite large enough for all this... but I got carried away. We'll see what happens!

5/9/11 - less than 5 days later... we have SPROUTS!!!
Pointing at an okra sprout...

Green bean sprouts (I think)

Only the cantaloupes, carrots and bell peppers hadn't sprouted that day... we had a GREAT sense of satisfaction. Look at my little smiling sprout. :)
5/12/11 - And only 8 days after the seeds were planted..... It looks like a real garden!! Only everything is way too close together.

Leah would rather be outside than just about anywhere. She LOVES the garden and is always saying "I want to go work in the garden" or "I want to go check on my beggibles." When it rains she says "Thank you God for giving my beggibels a niiiiiiice drink."

I'll post a current pic soon. These look like such babies compared to what they look like now! The only thing that still hasn't sprouted is carrots... so maybe those won't happen. Stay tuned!