a summer friday...

friday was a blessing of a day.
we had good friends over, swam in the pool
enjoying the coolness of the water
and the warmth of summer.
talking, giggling, playing, learning, exploring.
it was a good friday indeed :)

lupine, the fox doll

Weeks ago, Nat wanted me to make her a little twig and yarn doll and of course, she wanted to help make it. I had her wind the dress for her fox (at her suggestion) and I told her I would do the rest. Of course, life can get busy and the poor little branch fox got put off until finally the other day. I sewed her little head on her body and 'put' on her gray sweater. Natalie has named her 'lupine' not after wolves but after the flowers...

What the kids are doing

Twice a week Nat and I head over to Caring for Life where I watch her and a couple of her friends for a few hours. We've decided to tear up the backyard and hopefully start a garden. I take pictures of the kids hard at work (don't worry, they still have plenty of fun) and post them in an album on my facebook. Here are a few from last week...

what's around

tiny bugs and tiny sprouts

Can you spot the tiny spider?

Natalie found this little grasshopper. I took the above photo, she took the one below.

More things growing. Some might be my seeds and some might just be more weeds :)

paper apples and such

The other Nat and I decided to do a few crafts centering on apples. The first of course, was apple printing!

I cut an apple in half and she had fun painting it red or yellow and then stamping it on paper over and over.

The night was still early and we had a few brown paper bags my dad had with the take out food. I told her this would be a great recycling craft idea. We filled the paper bag with pages of a catalog from a recycle bin, twisted the top and she set off to paint it red and brown. After we glued to leaves also from the catalog and presto! Paper bag apple :)

The next day we still had apples in mind so we made a little tin bank for my friend's daughter who we call apple cheeks. It resembles a strawberry a bit more especially after I added apple seeds around Nat's drawing of our little friend :)

We also made a paper pumpkin too!

little weeds or my little seeds?

It's been awhile since I have updated about our little plants and such so I thought I would! Here are the very first seeds we planted, our little lavender. Though it will be awhile until we will see those pretty purples, it already has a faint smell of lavender!

My borage definitely has courage! After our trip to Monterey I got sick and was put out for a few days. Those days were vital and some of our plants suffered for it including the borage. Thankfully it's coming back but I can't say the same for some of nat's little buds in her teacup garden and for our cerinthe and sage. I planted new cerinthe seeds and am still trying to get the sage back up, so we will see.

These are the two that are doing quite well in her teacup garden (too bad I have forgotten what've I planted where!) I can always go back and look to see though..

Calendula, almost looking it was a bit lost too but is doing much better.

Remember our little silver mist plant we bought? well, it's grown and looks happy too!

And I can't forget Natalie's Hawaiian Tomatoe Plant with nice green little orbs (she is delighted!)

Now to the part of my entry where I am not too sure what what is (does that make sense?) We have begun to plant seeds directly in the soil now and since we have been watering more because of the seeds, weeds are sprouting too. SO this is where I need help if any one is knowledgable in plants, herbs, flowers and/or weeds.

One of the first little tin container seeds we planted was lupine (russell brand). After doing really in the container, the three that had sprouted started wilting. I replanted them straight into the soil (and then found out that they don't really like being transplanted) and only one sprout has survived. Now if you look closely to the right of the photo (a bit out of focus too) there are two sprouts. I am not sure what they are especially since most sprouts I have seen (which isn't too many I must confess) all seem to come out with the two little leaves opposite each other.

The next little sproutling is where I threw a few moonflower seeds that had been soaked already and was not doing well (or taking waaaay too long) in Nat's egg carton container. I am not sure if this little stalk is from that or from a weed.

In this next photo, we planted a few black hollyhock seeds (the watcherman) but I did not mark the ground as to exactly where. There seems to be three different kinds of things growing there, I just hope one of them is the hollyhock.

The next two photos are where we planted apricot sunflowers and mark the ground after we made the seed markers. I am not sure if it's the sunflowers growing or something else.

This next one are clovers growing and something else, can anyone tell me what? This is also by where I threw a few moonflower seeds.

The last photo is a little tree/bush we have and yet another unidentified sprout growth.

If anyone knows what any of these are or might have an idea, please feel free to let me know! :)