July Veggie Boxes

 Here are 3 of our 5 veggie boxes.

The rear one is all asparagus.

The middle and front boxes have a mixture of cucumbers, tomatoes, summer squashes (which have yet to take off), kale, lettuce, etc.
 











These two boxes were just moved.  The new tomatoes have set fruit.








  This is the box we made from a pallet.  The veggies have made a good start so far.

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Carrying Twins

 No, not me.  The boys.

They each had to have two babies in their carriers at the same time.

One carrier is the DIY Child's Ergo I made, and the other is the child-sized Moby I made.

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Toddler Activity: REAL Work! Vacuuming

 Vacuuming! Not for the faint of heart.

Okay- maybe it is.

But here he goes.  Again.  "Nay nay" and all.

It really is the preferred activity: real work.

 

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Pluot and Peach Harvest

From this tree, and the peach tree beside it, we got more than these bowls to harvest!

They were planted 4 falls/ winters ago, and they really fruited this year!

Minor aside: the peach is a "Saturn Peach" and there is nothing donut-looking about these peaches.  They are beautiful and delicious, but not flat and Saturn-looking.

Not shown is the fruit we've been nibbling for a few weeks and the baskets we gave to the neighbors (who have been incredibly generous with their figs, persimmons, and pomegranates over the years...).

As you can imagine, my littlest helper had to sample a few peaches, then put them back in the bowl if they weren't just right....

After this harvest, we pruned the trees such that light would hit the branches and the branches wouldn't hit the deer fencing.  We want each branch to get light and air and not be touching the other branches.

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Recipe: Low Carb Stuffed Peppers with Cream Cheese, Bacon, Egg, and Spinach

Preheat Oven to 350.
Seed two peppers and cut them in half.
Place a few pieces of spinach in each one.
Spoon 2T whipped (or regular) cream cheese into each one, on the open side.
Crack an egg into each on the closed side (the round one- otherwise, it will spill onto the cookie sheet).

Cut four bacon slices into three pieces.
Place on each pepper.
Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes, depending on how well done you like your bacon and the egg.

Option: Top with slided cheddar and melt it under broiler for an additional 3-5 minutes.

 

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World Map Quilt

This is my first "big" quilt.  Okay, it's not so big, but it is a quilt.  A machine-pieced quilt, but a quilt nonetheless.



It also wasn't my idea or design, and I cheated a bit on the binding.

My preschooler is almost 5 now, and he followed me around with the map fabric for about a week asking me to make a blanket before this project began.  Once I bought in, we (er, he) chose the back fabrics and we were up and running.

From that point, all I had to do was cut the back and middle fabrics to size.  One of the cut off pieces happened to be just right to cover a scissors design on the middle, between the panels (this is two panels).  I ironed it under on two sides, then sewed it down using a bit wider straight stitch.

This is the back.  I attached the two fabrics at the middle.

The quilting follows the lines on the map fabric going in one direction.

To cheater-bind it, I had some overlap from my cutting the back "to fit."  I folded this over and sewed it on.  There was no overlap on one side.  On this side, I took some excess scraps of the matching fabric, folded them under, and sewed them on.

The boys love it!

 

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Recipe: Low Carb Boursin Stuffed Mushrooms and Jalapenos

 

These low carb recipes are (mostly) from the Fat Fast Cookbook.

One is for stuffed mushrooms and they are delicious!  All you need to do is take the stems out of a pound of mushrooms and stuff them with Boursin cheese.  For the stems, I salted them and put a tablespoon of olive oil on them and roasted them with the other items.

The jalapenos got seeded and stuffed with Boursin, then each got a piece of bacon wrapped around and attached with a toothpick.

This whole tray was roasted at 375 for half an hour.

The jalapenos had a huge kick~ such a big one, in fact, that if I make them again, I will take the mushrooms off and cook them for an additional 10-20 minutes to try and mellow them out a bit.

Good recipes overall.

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Special Delivery!

 

How fun for me to come out from putting "the baby" to sleep for his nap and have my little mailman deliver this package!

Spoiler alert: inside was a spiral notebook full of blank paper.

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Widening Pant Legs

 

My younger son happens to be obsessed with this fabric.  He only wants to wear the "apples" fabric (he is two).

So I only had enough left in my 'stash to make him a pair of shorts.  I made them.  Then they were too narrow in the legs.  So I made a slit on each leg and sewed in a triangle on each side.

Viola!  Favorites immediately!

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Pomegranate Flowers

 

These are all going to be fruits in the fall/ winter!!

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Self Directed Painting

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Keepin' Cool in the Heat

These are old Home Depot buckets with hose water in them.

Ahhh.... cool water...

Man, it's hot....

Maybe if I dip my hat....

Nah... maybe if I dip my feet, and stay in the shade....

Hey- if he did it, maybe it works??!!??

 

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