Then and Now

I took a picture of Clara today and felt a moment of deja vu. Sure enough, I took a very similar picture last summer! Here they are - on the left she is 10 months and on the right she is just shy of 20 months.

I can't believe both how different she is and how the same. I knew she had grown, but seeing where the couch hit her before and where it does today was a shocker! Also, she has 100 times more hair than she did. :) Interestingly enough, though her body shape is totally different, the diaper cover is on the exact same settings - her waist and rise haven't changed much, although her inseam certainly has!

My baby girl is getting so grown up, which is both wonderful and heartbreaking.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cheesecake with Pretzel Crust

Over here. My, oh my, this is delicious!

Our garden is coming to life!

Slowly but surely, spring is coming and our garden for the summer is beginning to take shape. This year, I am nearly tripling the size of last year's garden. It's a big project, but SO exciting! Our new bed runs the entire length of our front yard, next to the road. A somewhat unlikely spot for a garden, but it gets the most sun of anywhere and we want to put a fence there eventually, so we decided to go with a "green fence" for now.

The bed is 3' x 70' - a lot of space! We started by clearing the sod off the sunniest half, which is where our tomatoes will go. I cut the sod into strips with the shovel while Luke and Clara started pulling it up (finding lots of worms along the way!).

 

By the end of day one, we hadn't gotten very far - about 10 ft. But all the sod was cut, which was a time-consuming task.

 

Clara and I put in some more hard work on sunny days here and there and got the top half of the bed completely cleared of sod! 

It was a big job and I was ready to be done with clearing. Another 105 square feet did not sound like a good idea. I had been toying with the idea of lasagna gardening and decided to give it a shot for the second half of the bed. Since we are starting mid-spring and don't have lots of time to gather materials, our layers will not be as thick as they should be but that's okay - we'll just add more this fall! Today, Clara and I layered the bottom 24 ft. of the bed with newspaper, ashes, half-composted leaves from last fall, and a topsoil/compost mix so that we can plant right into it, hopefully tomorrow!

 

We have about 12' of grass left to cover tomorrow and then we will start planting! Peas will go in first in the lasagna half of the garden. I'll plant some tomorrow and some in a couple of weeks. I'm also planning to put lettuce and maybe some other green leafies there. Tomatoes and probably some basil will go in the top half of the bed. Our backyard garden, which doesn't get as much sun, will house lots of bush-type green beans (which flourished there last year), while the side garden will have butternut squash and cucumbers. I'm hoping to add in a few other plants as well, we'll see how the season goes! 

Also, my daffodils were so close to blooming today. I can't wait to see them tomorrow!