An Artistic Saturday Morning

Echo's sunflower

We had a great day yesterday and lots of time for art! After our weekly excursion to the farmer's market we came home and had some creative time as a family (sometimes my life is so delicious, I love our weekends!). We bought Echo a new sketchbook and I got one to match so we did some sketching together. Echo decided to draw a picture of a sunflower Eric had bought for her. It very exciting because this was her first time drawing from observation. She did an amazing job! Her artistic talent is really starting to blossom. 

Echo posing with her flower and her drawing. 

 I also spent some time encouraging Clover to draw with a variety of materials. She ended up producing her very first work on paper! Such a big day for both Echo and Clover artistically! Clover will still start to chew the art supplies eventually but she will draw for a little while first. In any case She is getting a good introduction to using art materials.

Clover's first work on paper.

 Echo and I have also been doing a lot of collaborative work. I often draw a fish and she will draw the background.

It's so exciting to see these girls develop their artistic talents and so much fun for me to get to make art with them!

May Photos

 May was a great month! I had a break from doctors offices, got to visit with old friends, make new friends, and spend time with immediate and extended family! I didn't get as many pictures as I'd like but here are the highlights.

On our way up to visit Logan we got to stop and see our long time friend Neil and her little boy Isaac. Unfortunately most of the pictures from that stop were terrible but here is a lovely one of Neil in her front lawn.

We went to a farmers market in Alexandria while we visited with Logan. Echo absolutely adored playing with him but i don't think I got any pictures of the two of them. I'll have to fix that when he comes to visit us in July.

 Pretty flowers and Clover tries Strawberries for the first time :-)

Lots of fountains to play in.

 Yay family!

 My Aunt, Uncle and Mom's cousin came for a surprise visit and we took them to the botanical gardens.

 They have a whole new section with a reflecting pool that we just loved!

We found a mommy duck sitting on some eggs.

 And Echo put on a show on the stage in the children's garden

We wore Clover out :-)

Annual Garden Photos

 Here is my little update on how my garden is panning out this year. As usually happens when I take garden pictures, the garden is actually much more lush now than when I snapped these photos. Oh well, I can't seem to keep up with these plants and the way they are shooting up like crazy :-)

Things have actually been growing really well in the garden over the past few weeks. After getting off to a slow start my plants have really been thriving on the combination of sunshine, heat and plentiful rain we have been having. So far my plan for growling low maintenance herbs and veggie has been coming along beautifully. In the top two photos we have my lemon grass on the left and cilantro (which is going to seed now that the weather is heating up) on the right

Here we have tomatillos on the left and cucumbers on the right.

And the ground cherry seeds that I saved from my plants last year actually sprouted and are doing well! I will have to try saving more seeds this year.

I'm growing a ton of poll beans this year. Previously I have just done bush beans but the poll beans are growing like crazy so maybe they are the way to go! Of course they haven't produced beans yet, just very large vines, so I will have to see how much they actually yield.

Echo's garden is actually doing the best of all! It is packed to the brim and producing lots of flowers, carrots, bush beans and catnip!

A Zinnia from Echo's garden, they are great for cutting and decorating our table.

The Rosemary that we planted by our mailbox a few years ago has exploded! We will never be short of Rosemary that's for sure.

A trellis box with poll beans and cucumbers, it is so much more overgrown now than when I took this photo just a week ago!

I also treated myself to a few new house plants this Spring (seriously, my house plant obsession is getting out of hand). I have a gorgeous Split Leaf Philodendron on the left and an African Violet on the right.

And last but not least a Gumby Jade Plant. I have been wanting one of these for a while.

My herbs didn't get pictured much but they are also coming along nicely and have been great for cooking with this Spring. It's fun to learn a little bit more about gardening and feel like I am being a bit more successful every year. I'm excited about the prospect of having larger yields this year (although it means having less variety). Hopefully I won't let everything die while I am recovering from surgery!