March and Our Garden

Happy March! 

Getting St. Patrick's Day and Easter decorations out!

Things we like to do this month...

...Play in Aunt M's bed. 

They were in a cave, hiding from the crocodile storm.

 

...Garden! We planted our seeds and Handsome made a netting cover to protect our plants from birds and squirrels (and from cats who might get the wrong idea about what our garden box is.)

...Try on our swimsuits! Big Sis was SO excited and wore it pretty much the rest of the day. Can you tell she LOVES water and summer time? And it was Big Sis' idea to get Little Sis in her swimsuit too. Same-same!

...Hanging out with Dad on a Saturday morning. We love the weekends around here. Especially Saturdays with our Dad.

...Getting into EVERYTHING that is at her level. Little Sis loves pulling stuff off of the bottom shelves and inspecting the cart and toy stroller wheels. 

...Helping Aunt M in the kitchen. I LOVE Big Sis's new summer wardrobe (Thanks Aunt C and Cousin C!) I seriously wish I fit into the clothes from Children's Place.

...Trying our hand at cooking. 

Two little chefs making veggie soup.

...Playing outside. Boy we are excited for this lovely weather, now we just need to get rid of some colds so we can truly enjoy it.

...Gardening! I know I already mentioned it but it's part of our family now! Big Sis and Handsome take turns with the watering can.

We've got spinach,

marigolds,

Florida 91 tomatoes (bought these as starters),

zucchini,

and green beans.

Big Sis' zinnias. They are going to be pink and she picked them out on her own at the store.

Our most recent backyard visitor that Handsome caught and disposed of. We don't really like snakes hanging out in our backyard. Sorry if anyone out there loves them. Anyone know what to look for to identify if a snake is poisonous or not?

Our February

This green bucket from the dollar store provides quite a good time for our Little Sis. First, she explores all the toys and pulls them all out.

If things aren't coming out fast enough, the dump method is very effective.

And then you can get a good taste of the green bucket. 

We've had a lot of fun this month making felt food for Big and Little Sis' kitchen. We've got some chocolate chip cookies, heart shaped sugar cookies with frosting, sandwiches, and pancakes. Today Big Sis offered Handsome some syrup for his sandwich. Interesting combination...

Which reminds me, tonight we had chocolate pudding for dessert. There were still some spinach leaves on her plate and the next thing we knew she was dipping her spinach in the pudding and eating it all up. 

This year for our valentine's to the kiddos grandparents we tried out a pinterest idea. Around the feet it says "We love you from the top of our head to the tips of our toes." Sadly, I forgot to make one for us to keep, so we took a picture instead.

This Little Sis LOVES to tear up the grass. Let her have at it for long enough and you get a nice pulled up patch of grass. 

Big Sis LOVES to pick dandelions. Good thing we've got a bunch right in our backyard. We may or may not have gotten at least 5 dandelion puffs blown to bits just inside the door of our house on a windy day, which led to LOTS of dandelion seeds all over the kitchen.

Little Sis loves to get under things.

The couch cover...

 

  

The futon...

The exersaucer...

Maybe we have an aspiring mechanic on our hands.

We found a caterpillar about 2 weeks ago and I let Big Sis put it in a jar so we could look at it for the rest of the day. 

Well, turns out that caterpillar was ready to cocoon. 

And so it did. 

In our jar!

We've been working on food storage...a lot. It's one of our goals this year, to work up to our year supply of food. The leaders of our church council us to do so, and so that's what we're doing. Want to learn more, go here.

Figuring out where to put it all has been our main challenge, especially since we need to rotate it so nothing ever goes bad. Aunt M has been an AMAZING help with figuring that part out.

Here's our pantry after doing some organizing. No, not all the food fit in there. We stashed lots of it on the top most cupboard shelves, and I've got plans to make more shelving in our storage closet and laundry room.

We had a matchy-matchy morning and I snapped some shots of my smiley girls.

If you are ever getting bull-dozed by your big sis, just try to bite her head.

We are also attempting some gardening. We are really excited at the prospect of growing some of our own food. This season we are planting spinach, zucchini, green beans, and 2 types of tomatoes, plus some basil, marigolds, and zinnias. Big Sis chose the zinnias...bright pink ones. 

Here is our garden box made by Handsome and some of our friends who are also attempting gardening as well. They made 4 boxes. 

Before we moved it and filled it with dirt it was a magical play land in a sea of windy grass.

Remember that cocoon a few pictures back? Here is the beautiful butterfly! 

It only took about a week! I was so surprised that it happened that fast because I was expecting about 2 weeks. We missed watching it come out, but were glad to see that it didn't fly away. We let it go outside after we showed Handsome.

Reading their books. Little Sis did have hers open before I snapped the pictures.