Garden Update

Our garden, as of Monday.  Please excuse the chaos that is the outside of our house.  It's being worked on.

 Our tomato plants are huge.  They quickly outgrew the cages around them, and a couple are taller than I am.  In fact, the vines droop over the top and almost back down to the ground on at least one of the plants.  It's ridiculous.  They're so tall and heavy that we walked out one morning and several of the cages had been pulled out of the ground from the weight of the plants and had toppled over.  Nathan had to stake them really well to stand them back up.

However, there are some problems with my tomatoes, mostly having to do with pests.  For one thing, the stink bugs are attracted to one of the plants and are sucking some of the tomatoes dry.  But the bigger problem are some caterpillars that I have yet to correctly identify--they are on every single plant, and they are decimating portions of my tomatoes.  See all the holes in the leaves?  Caterpillars! AAAARGH!

 In my zeal to get rid of them, I doused my plants in soapy water, hoping that would do it (it didn't), and I made too strong of a concentration, which made a lot of leaves turn brown.  On the upside, now I know what "disease" discolored some of my tomato leaves last year, an issue that drove me up the wall because no one had an answer for me.  But on the downside, I killed several leaves on my plants this year.  Oh well.  It's not like the plants are stunted or anything!

Closest in this picture are the tomatoes I started from seed, which are smaller than the others.

The squash and watermelon plants are out of control.  Seriously, last year's squash never got this big, and it's only May.  It's spilling onto the driveway.  So far, I've harvested one nicely sized yellow squash and one big zucchini.  The watermelon vines (closest to you in the pic) are sprawling onto the grass.  It doesn't look that attractive, but I will probably let it happen for this summer and plan a neater looking garden next year.

This and That

Sarah's name "in lights" on the night of her concert.  

 

By the way, I know which concert I didn't want to see. ;)

Janey, watching the dough mix in the bread machine.  I love her curls.

 Noah and me at his Mother's Day party at Mother's Day Out.

 

 This week, we went to Waco to visit Nathan's parents for a few days.  While we were there, we visited Baylor's Mayborn Museum, which is one of our favorites.  They have an awesome children's section, by the way.  I'd highly recommend it.

 

  

Grandpa took Noah to his second baseball game.  (He also took him to his first one a few weeks ago.)  Noah actually did great for the entire game--they didn't get home until after 10:30!  He also got to bump fists with Ken Starr and the Big 12 Commissioner, and he got to see Baylor receive the Big 12 trophy after the game.

And he also got another game ball. I told Nathan's dad that baseball is going to be sacred to him now!

 On the way to the zoo, wearing matching Baylor hats.

I really can't get over how cute Jane looks in a baseball cap.

And, by the way, that is one big puppy, isn't it? :)

The Joys of Being a Homeowner

How can I be so constantly busy yet feel I have so little to show for it?!

This week, the projects revolve around fixing up some things on our house:

1. A huge tree branch fell ON NATHAN'S CAR this weekend, dented it, and scared my dad (who found it) because he said it would have killed one of the kids if they had been playing in the driveway.  Task #1: Have the tree taken down or seriously trimmed.  Texas peeps, evidently because of last year's drought that is continuing into this summer, even if your tree is green, you need to be careful, because it could have some bad branches or even be on its way out.
2. Task #2: Start on our downstairs bathroom renovation.  The room is literally falling apart--seriously, a light fell from the ceiling and shattered a few days ago while we were out one evening.  The shower is cracking, and there are some other problems.  Time to jump on that project before the baby comes.  Getting an estimate soon.
3. Task #3: Get quotes to have our overgrown and overwhelming backyard landscaped, or at least, to have everything dug up, cut down, or pulled out.  That is a serious job, people, and Nathan simply does not have the time for it.  Our yard is an eyesore and needs to be taken care of.  One problem I'm having with finding a landscaper, though, is that this is their busy time, and one woman told me it'd probably be the end of July before they could take another job on (!).  I do have one guy coming out to give us a quote this weekend.  Hopefully he works out.

Last week, it was sick kids, dead car battery, urgent oil change, and a trip to Waco.  This week, it is house stuff.

Whenever I get time, I'll post some recent pictures and do a garden update.  Until then, you know what I'll be working on!

Happy Mother's Day!

 For Mother's Day, Nathan made video interviews of the kids.  I love them! 

Here's Jane's.  As you can tell, she was pretty distracted: first by the camera, and later by the cat.  Well, she's two.  She doesn't usually stay with anything for a long time.  But this video also highlights how girly she is and how much she loves things like painted toenails.  Nathan said he's got some great outtakes to put together, too.  She is so precious!



Here's Noah's video.  It's great!  This one, too, shows Noah for who he really is: sweet, chatty, and interested in how things work (the car).  It also reveals how much he cherishes physical affection and quality time with me.  And what is with the Iron Chef business?  Ha!  He is just sweet and hilarious.

"Lauren's To Do List," or "Procrastination by Way of Writing a Blog Post"

What I've already done today:

1. Attended both kids' Mother's Day parties at Mother's Day Out.
2. Went to Lowe's and picked up a bunch of gardening stuff.
3. Made some overdue phone calls.
4. Completely doused nearly my entire garden in soapy water to try to get rid of bugs--particularly some stink bug nymphs and some nasty little caterpillars that I have found eating leaves on nearly every plant. My dress is wet and a little soapy in the front.

Things I still need to do today:

1. Prep a lesson for Noah's Kingdom Kids group today--it's my turn to teach.
2. Prep for a talk I'm giving to my mom's middle school class tomorrow.  Sigh.  I don't have the first clue about how to talk to middle schoolers.  Plus, it's at 8am; we might need some divine help to get us out of the house in time.
3. Use our borrowed carpet shampooer, because our carpet is starting to bother me.
4. Drop off some drycleaning.
5. Run by the bank.
6. Make tonight's dinner for my family and start to prep the dinner I'm taking to a group of 10 tomorrow.
7. Go over the harmonies I'll be singing with Sarah at her concert on Thursday, because there's a rehearsal tonight.

Just about all of that has to be done within the next two hours.  Can I do it?!?!

Easter

We spent Easter this year with Grandma and Grandpa Benesh in Waco.

The kids got to have an Easter egg hunt in their front yard, which, of course, they very much enjoyed.

 

Perhaps this is the first egg hunt Jane will remember.  If so, she'll remember how delighted she was!

Happy girl.  She picked out her Easter dress for the day, by the way.

 

I think Noah is pleased with what's in his basket. ;)

Here's hoping you all had a happy and blessed Easter season this year!

21 Weeks

As of today, I'm 21 weeks along in my pregnancy.  Wow!  The first half has gone by so quickly!  However, I think that this second half will be quite a bit harder--it's already getting more difficult, for several reasons.

1. Probably about two thirds of the people who ask me when I'm due say, "Oh, you're going to have to go through the Texas summer!"  Insert dread here.  There have already been some days when the heat and humidity have had this odd sapping effect on me as soon as I walk outside. And as soon as I walk back inside, I'm fine.

2. I'm due September 13, but I'll have a C-section sometime during the week before (I was close to having a baby on my birthday, which is September 14!).  So, technically, I have about 18 weeks to go.  However, I am already huge.  And I'm not just saying that because I have some skewed perception of myself because I'm looking with biased eyes.  I truly do have a large pregnant belly.  I remember that when I was at about 20 weeks with Noah, an older lady told me, with popping eyes, that I looked like I was about to deliver.  I was fairly horrified, but that was my first pregnancy, when I was disturbed by all the crazy things happening to my body.  At this point, I am over all of that, and, of course, since this is my third pregnancy, I'm bigger than I was in my first.  Yesterday, I spoke with a woman who clearly thought I was about to have this baby, and I was not offended at all; on the contrary, I find it a bit amusing to tell people that, no, I'm actually only halfway there.  (And then they cover their shock by saying, as you might predict, "Oh no, you'll have to go through the Houston summer!")

3. The thing about having a large baby belly is not so much the spectacle of it but the discomfort of it.  Last weekend, I was very hungry and wanted to eat all the time.  As soon as I realized it, I knew what was happening: I was about to pop some more.  This baby and all those support systems my body has built were growing.  And, sure enough, a couple of days later, I was noticeably larger.  (And, as it turns out, since I unexpectedly had two ultrasounds two weeks apart, I found out that the baby did go from 8 oz. to 12 oz. in that period.  I mean, they do grow fast, but still!  There was definitely a growth spurt in there!)  And as soon as I got that little bit bigger, I suddenly started feeling uncomfortable.  I had trouble putting socks on.  In fact, bending over for any reason got harder.  I still have the same level of energy, thank goodness, but I can tell that I'm going to get pretty huge this round, and I can't say I am looking forward to how I'll be feeling and getting around those last couple of months.  It's one reason to be thankful I'll be having this baby a week early instead of a week late, like the last two!

4. A few weeks ago, I was very sick for about a week.  In the end, it looked like I caught a virus from Noah and Jane, but whereas it only took them down for about 24 hours, it took me down for close to a week.  It was also accompanied by a monster headache, which is what precipitated the early ultrasound--the headache was so severe (even Vicodin + Tylenol didn't eradicate it) that we wanted to make sure the baby was okay.  This doesn't really affect how I'll be feeling for the remainder of my pregnancy, but I actually did feel a bit of shock that I felt so very bad.  This pregnancy had been fairly easy so far--definitely the smoothest of the three--and since no one knew what was wrong with me for several days, and since my symptoms pointed to something that was possibly ongoing and not just my body fighting off a virus and making me feel crummy, it made me feel as if it was the demarcation point from smooth sailing to rougher seas.  Thankfully, there's nothing really wrong with me or the baby, healthwise.  Hopefully, nothing more than a giant belly and a hot summer!

Two Yellow Pears!

We picked our first tomatoes of the season today!

There were two yellow pear tomatoes--one for Noah and one for Jane.  They loved them!  Jane let me have a little bite of hers, and it was awfully tasty.  Here's to a prolific summer!

(Also, I just noticed that those tomato plants are already taller than Noah.  Sheesh!  And we have months to go!)