Winter....

I really love snow! It is really beautiful to wake up in the morning after it has snowed all night. It is so quiet, hardly any noise until the snow plows start up. The snow covers all the leaves that didn't get raked, and anything that was left out from summer is covered up nicely.

It snowed here yesterday. Not very much, just an inch or two. But the snow was welcome. It has been below zero most of the week, so it really had to warm up to snow. Today was supposed to be more snow, but right now the skys are blue. I still hold out hope for more snow though!

My little dudes have been really sick lately. Well actually just Noah. He didn't keep anything down for nearly a week, but now he is totally making up for it. This morning it was just him and I for a few hours while everyone else was sleeping. In that time he had his baba, then a banana, then a cup of yogurt, then a muffin, then some bacon. You get the idea. He has always been a good eater, but now he is making up for lost time. He did get rather bony since he has been sick, so it is a welcome sight.

Sis, I think I am going to do the 365 project. I want to keep track of my life, and my babies too. So I think I will start that soon. Then I will have a reason to post here too!!

Hot summer.....

Here it is, 3 weeks until my birthday. I can't believe that it is so late in the year already. It seems like we are going to have Christmas again before we know it! Well with all the posts about my garden this spring, I think it fitting to write about the progress of the said garden. While I do have pictures in the camera of the garden, I write at work so I will have to post those later.

The garden has do amazingly well in my opinion. I have some ideas to make it even better next year, but for a first time gig, or at least the first successful garden, it is growing nicely. I think we should have corn before freezing. I have a million green tomatos growing, and some of them are pretty good sized. I have a whole bed of peppers that are growing nicely, and I have even harvested an Anhiem pepper that we had for breakfast. There is a nice bed of herbs growing as well. The carrots, green beans, and peas are all hurting right now. I did not stake or trellis them at all and they are kinda haywire. My zucchini and cucumbers are growing like crazy too. I think I have eaten zucchini at least every other day this past week with no end in sight.

On to other things. Beside my garden, my kids are also growing like weeds. I have been informed that Noah took is first steps without assistance or without encoragement today. I can't believe how grown up that child is. He has a way about him that just make Josh and I laugh. Eli is such a good big brother. While he has his moments, he also is remarkably patient when it comes to Noah. I can't wait for them to be a little older, and hopefully I can homeschool them. Noah learns so much from his brother right now, I can only imagine how much they can learn together.

A fun family picknic

I am trying to keep up with the blogging world, and also add my 2 cents here and there. So today I will talk about my darling boys. Really, the world wouldn't be the same without them. I want to talk about the weekend before last when we drove into the woods to have a picknic lunch.

We don't do a whole lot as a family in the way of getting out of the house. So it sounded like a good idea when a friend of mine suggested a family picknic. I work for the forest service, so you would think that I get into the woods frequently. But, this is just not so. So that morning, after our weekend trip to visit grandma, we got ready for our journey. I made some homemade potato salad (yum!) and pocket pies (also a major yum!) and brownies for desert. Noah had just woke from his nap and Eli was busy all morning outside with dad, so it was going to be ok to drive for an hour to get to the spot. We ended up at the Buck Springs campground for our picknic. It was a gorgeous day. We ate in peace and then explored the surroundings.

After lunch it was time to go home, or so we thought. The adults made the decision to drive around the long way and see the lake and look for wildlife rather than just drive back the way we came. It was a truly wonderful afternoon. The boys ended up napping most of the way back. We ended up finding a spot we could splash in the creek for a couple of minutes before be made it into town. I highly suggest a family picknic now, it does a family good!

Time flies when your having fun!!

Well here it is the middle of July, the dog days of summer in my book. Here is an update on some happenings in our lives.

Noah is a little stinker. He had a birthday, and it passed without him walking. When I say walking, I mean like taking steps away from whatever he is holding on to himself without our encouragement. He will gladly walk from mommy to daddy and back, but only for short distances. We know that he can do it, he is just happy crawling. He also has the special talent of climbing stairs like a monkey. He is fast.

Eli is ready to start his second year of school at the Montessori school. He is really excited and keeps asking if it is time to go to school. This summer Josh has been taking the boys to storytime nearly every wednesday and they love it. Eli has his very own library card and checks out books to read all week. It is super nice to have that activity to do and get out of the house.

Josh and I are super excited about the upcoming visits. I always love to get over to see my sis, and now she will definantely owe me a trip or two cause this will be the 3rd trip in 3 months. Then hopefully we will get the pleasure of hosting Christine and children (Jared is also welcome hint hint) for awhile. We kinda have a tradition of going to the county fair together and I really enjoy that time that we have. The in the end of September all of Josh's family will be coming to Burns for the first time. I simply can't wait! It will be the first time his brothers have met the boys, and his dad had only met Eli when he was an infant. I can't wait!

My garden is doing really well for my first year. The fencing has done it's job so far and kept the dear out. My only problem is weeds, they sure do grow fast! Josh has helped me a great deal with the garden too, and I am so lucky to have the help. I have harvested cilantro and am waiting for everything else to come on. Oh yeah, green onions too! The tomatos are growing fast with this heat wave, and the peppers have exploded too! I hope to feed all the coming visitors with garden fresh produce this fall!

I am going to keep up with the blog more in the future I hope..... Stay tuned!

Long time no write! :)

So I have been very bad at posting for a while now. Oops, my bad! It has been a very busy couple of weeks. Last week I had to go to Roseburg for 2 days for training, and I missed my family while I was gone. It sure is pretty over in that country though! The day after I got back from Roseburg, we went to the Boise zoo as a family. It was great. The zoo is not nearly as big as the one in Portland, but it was just the right size. We spent a couple of hours there and got to see most of the creatures. Eli had a pretty good time, and Noah had a blast. That kid (Noah) loves to be outside. He loves animals and is a happy camper if he is playing outside. The day after that we took grandma Diane and went to the wild west show in Prairie City. It was so awesome! We had a great time. There was a parade down town first, then they had the show later. So much fun!!! I promise to write more often, and quit being lazy! With pictures!

Cinnamon rolls

Wow, looks like it has been awhile since I posted! Well the most exciting news I have is that I made a first attempt at homemade cinnamon rolls, and they turned out super! I will never again buy one of those prepackaged refrigerated dough rolls from the store!

On that note, isn't it interesting how people have become so busy that they buy everything pre made and ready to go. I used to work at a grocery store, and I was so surprised at how much product they would throw away on a daily basis. Not only is all that food going to waste, but all the resources that went into making and packaging and delivering that product to the store were wasted. I think that we have a serious problem in this country in that we want everything done for us. We want to be able to come home from working all day and have something ready to pop into the microwave and eat it mere minutes later. And so as time goes by, we are conditioned to think that the stuff that we buy pre-made is actually food. But let me tell you something people, it is not. I am constantly amazed every time I make something from scratch at home. I cannot believe how different, and how DELICIOUS it tastes when I make it myself. My husband has recently been in charge of making all the bread we eat in our house, and it is far superior to the prepackaged "fluffy white bread" that we would otherwise buy at the store. How is it that we have become so obsessed with convenience? It doesn't take that much effort to fix a delicious meal from scratch. My family has slowly been changing from a family that would eat ramon noodles weekly (Josh and I in the Army) to nearly everyday home cooked meals. On the laziest of days we will order a pizza, but let me tell you something, my homemade pizza will rock that delivery pizza any day!! And it is cheaper! Sis, I know you are the only reader I have, and so I am preaching to the choir. But boy howdy, I think I finally get it!!

Sadness

I usually write about how nice the weather is and how much I want to be outside doing something. That really is still the case, and I sincerely hope that come late summer I will be posting about my wonderful tomatoes and such. But for today I want to talk about something else. I want to talk about sadness. Some things just make me sad. This morning I was puttering around the house doing small chores like laundry and such, and I glanced at my ever growing pile of recyclables. I have gotten my family trained to separate those items that recycle from the trash and now we are having a hard time throwing them away. I personally have noticed an increase in our trash by not recycling, and I think it is double the amount of trash now. This makes me sad. I don't want to throw these things in the garbage. I don't want to contribute to the filling of our landfill. So what are my options? The same landfill that takes our garbage offer LIMITED recycling. They don't take plastic or glass. THIS IS RIDICULOUS!!! There was another article in the newpaper about the troubles of the recycle place. The city wants to talk about their rent now because they had made a deal offering them the use of the place for no rent last year. Now they want their money again. I feel as though the city is OBLIGATED to the citizens to offer recycling. It might not be the case, but I think that it should be!

So what am I going to do now? I guess I hope to start reducing my own intake of these items. I don't want to be a bigger part of the problem. I want to start canning my own foods to use glass jars that I can use over and over. And I also use reusable grocery bags. I just hope that the recycle place is able to open again soon!

Beautiful day

Today I have caught up in some blog reading and have found some inspiring words in them. I really admire my sister and think she is super cool. She is the reason that I use cloth diapers (most of the time) and she has inspired me to even think about sewing projects (none of which I have completed yet). As life goes, I am the parent in my family that has the full time job right now. So this leaves me with more plans to do projects than actual projects.

Because today is earth day, I would like to lay out my plan to live as sustainably as possible. I am super discouraged right now that I cannnot recycle as I was before, but I have faith that the recycle place will open again. All the things I do right now to reduce my waste include not using plastic water bottles(unless it is emergency like traveling), using reusable grocery bags (am doing much better now), buying in bulk as much as possible to reduce packaging, and overall reducing my packaging by making more things at home. I would love to continue finding doable ways to reduce my and my family's impact. I am stuck in a small town, and some things are limited. But what I can do personally is make sure that I live as sustainably as possible.

Harney County Spring

Today is yet another beautiful day. We have had our fair share of nice days in the past week or so. The funny thing about this place is that it will go from winter one day to summer the next. We will wake up one morning to find snow on the ground, and have it reach into the 70s that very same day. My problem with this is that I never know when to plant things. I feel like I should have some tomato plants ready to go when it is 80 outside, like today. But the good thing is that I know that I have to wait. I peeked at the weather for this weekend and what do ya know, there is snow again in the forcast! I love living in this place, but jeez, what am I supposed to think when we skip spring altogether!

Another spring day

The thing that sucks the worst about my new job is that I am away from my boys for so long. The second suckiest thing is that now that spring might have sprung, I am forced to sit inside looking out instead of enjoying the beautiful weather we are having. After such a long cold winter, it is downright cruel to be forced to sit inside while the sun is shining and the birds are singing. But a small consolation is that the weekend will be nice, and I can once again claim to work in the garden. I have big plans, like every other weekend, but soon I will need to start planting! It will be worth it this summer to have a lot of fresh produce and things to can that I grew personally.

Cheesecake, YUM!

So, on Monday night I was given the task of cooking dinner. We had cream of mushroom soup that was really chunky mushroom soup, and cheesecake. While we didn't actually get to eat the cheesecake until the next day, we did get to look at it and salivate for that whole time. I will post pictures when I finally get them off the camera. Delish

Easter

Easter happened to be yesterday, and with that came the easter bunny. I remember when I was a child and easter was something to look forward to. We would get a basket with See's candy that I would devour the same day. There was usually a ham or something, but what I remember the most was that candy. As a mother, I don't want my boys to remember candy for any holiday. I would rather make it someting fun we do as a family rather than scoring big on the sugar front. So for this year the boys got some toys, which were a huge hit. Josh did a great job picking out toys that the boys love. Eli got a transformer that is a hit. Noah got a bus toy that he is able to manipulate himself. I promise to get some pictures for the blog, they are the greatest kids and I love taking their pictures.

We also had a bbq at Uncle Louies house on easter. Eli dressed up in his good shirt and tie. Such a cutie. Once again I will include pics when I get them from the camera. It was a good time. My dad was quite drunk and I wonder how he is feeling this morning. Other than that it was fine. Awesome salsa!!!! More later...

And it is almost Easter

Here it is, another grey day in normally sunny eastern Oregon. Hopefully this weekend will be beautiful, both because I would love to work some more in my garden and because I like it when children hunt easter eggs in warmth! So here is to wishing everyone a good easter sunday!

Grey day

Just kidding. While the morning was pretty dull, as soon as I returned from work the sun peeked out from behind the clouds. I am a huge fan of winter, I love snow and cold weather. But I also love the way spring feels after many months of indoor activities. The earth smells divine when it thaws and I almost can't wait for that first smell of fresh cut lawn. But alas, that signals a long summer of mowing..... Something to look forward to!

Food and stuff

I am such a huge fan of people's food blogs. I can't get enough recipes and ideas from various food blogs. So it seems unfair that I don't really post my own food adventures. First of all, let me tell you what a wonderful cook my husband is. Since I have been working full time, Josh has become chief cook along with his already designated bottle washer job. I think that we have slightly different cooking styles. I will slather everything in butter or a sauce, but Josh does such a wonderful job of cooking things without the excess. I really appreciate everything he does at home.

Let me outline his wonderful cooking by describing last night's dinner. He came up with the idea to have a shrimp filled pastry pocket, and they were delicious. It had shrimp, bell peppers, onions bread crumbs and avocado (and probably numerous other tasties that I haven't mentioned). All this was wrapped in a pastry puff shell and baked. So good!! For desert we had fruit cups with strawberry and blueberry and white chocolate in a ramakin with a puff pastry top. Them puppies were so good!!! Once again, Josh is a gourmet chef in my eyes!!!

One other culinary adventure was the purchase of a food dehydrator. I wanted to make jerky and so last week I conned Josh into getting one. I had high hopes for the jerky. I started with some bananas and apples just to "get my feet wet". I am not sure what happened there, but it took FOREVER for them to dry. So I was a little apprehensive about trying the jerky. It had marinated in the Good Eats recipe for about 2 days (longer than recommended) so I figured that we had better get to processing that batch. The jerky dried in about 5 hours, so 2 days shorter than the fruit. That stuff is like crack. I can't get enough. Note to the blogging world, make your own jerky, it is worth it!

Compost

So now that the weather has turned poopy again, I am thinking that I need to build a compost bin for my new garden. So just today I printed plans and hopefully I can get this project completed soon. I had such big plans to get my fence built around my garden and get my raised beds set, but so far I have half of the beds done and one out of ten fence posts dug. Progress is slow, but I have great intentions. There is no way I will fail myself in the garden area this year after so much effort already and also after purchasing many materials ie fencing and posts.

Hopefully by planting time, so about another month or so, I will have everything completed and ready to go.

Happy monday

Here it is, another weekend bites the dust. While I had tremendous plans for the weekend, not a whole lot of production took place. We did get the posts for my garden fence bought. They were on sale so that was important. I got one and a half holes dug, on post is in a hole but not concreted in yet. So really I have a post in a hole. I did get on of the raised beds set, so only 3 more to do. And at least my lack of production was not from laziness, just extenuating circumstances.

Josh was busy this weekend as well. He did a wonderful job, with Eli's help that is, building a window box in my kitchen. It is a bench for seating and a storage devise. I absolutely love it!! Now we just need to figure out a cushion situation for comfort. That shouldn't be a big deal though. So while my weekend kinda sucked, I love this new addition! This only means one thing, I can now buy more kitchen gadgets!

Friday

Here we are once again to friday. Tomorrow is my dad's birthday, so happy birthday dad! It is such a freakin cold day here today that I can't believe the weather forcast when it says that tomorrow will be sunny and 50, then sunday will be sunny and 60. But I sincerely hope that is the case!! Here's to hopin everyone has a great weekend!!

Noah's new trick

Noah is such a cutie. I think I need to preface every comment I make on him with that statement. Anyways, lately he has been doing so many firsts, like first walk along the couch, when I am at work. Because I have mostly been home when these things happen, it really sucks that now I work full time and am missing these moments. But today when I was home for lunch, Noah figured out how to feed himself finger foods. Yay!! So now we can put him at the table and put out some cheerios, and as long as someone is close by he will feed himself! Exciting times in the ward household!!!

My darling niece....

Ok, so while I am blessed with two beautiful boys, my sister has a darling girl named Daphne. Daphne is 2 years and some change and her mother is a wonderful photographer. Here are some very cute recent photos of my darling niece.

On another note, Daphne has a nickname when she visits auntie's house. We fondly have named her hurricane Daphne. She has an uncanny knack to find those things in my house that are better left alone. And any order that there is at the beginning of the visit is quickly destroyed in the span of a few seconds. Don't get me wrong, I love for my sis and her baby to visit. Nothing is cooler than having them come. And Eli also loves his cousin and looks forward to visits. So please Auntie, come and visit!!

Funny boys

Here are a few pictures of my boys being typical boys. Eli is such a cutie, but has decided that he doesn't want to be in pictures as much anymore. And Noah is a riot. Enough said.....

Bathroom wall-COMPLETE!!

So even though this project has been in the works for awhile, we really did most of the work 2 weekends ago. Yesterday Josh finished assembling the shelf and so I will say this in now complete. I really think it looks great. The only thing left is to use the shelf and the pegs. Let me know what you think.

2 teeth! and some pics

So my little man has gotten two more teeth today. He is growing up so fast, one day very soon he is going to start walking on his own. He cruises around the furniture and will climb up things. He is so interested in what his brother is doing, always crawling over to him to help play cars or whatever he is doing. Eli is really good with him, but will take things away from him if he wants to. Haven't posted many pictures so here are some of my babies.

Gray day

Well another gray day here in Eastern Oregon. Yesterday was so darn beautiful and I was stuck inside working. Really not a fan of being trapped inside on the nice days. Looking forward to this weekend's forcast, we should have a beautiful weekend! Might check out the bird festival and work on the garden and just enjoy my family! But it also looks like the days leading up to the weekend will be very blah. So I just hope to get through the blah and move onto the beautiful!

Now what?(Recycling)

Since I posted about the last day of recycling on Saturday, I thought I would write about how terrible it is to not have an opportunity to recycle anymore. Burns is a small community distanced from major towns by quite a distance. We have had a volunteer recycle program for many years, then recently we had a commercial recycle place take over. This made the volunteer program unnecessary so we were left in the hands of the large commercial venture. I loved the program. They would take your stuff and sort it for you. They were open 6 days a week. Then the unthinkable happened. The stuff isn’t worth anything anymore. Now they are no longer in business and our community is left with no recycling at all. I consider myself a “green” person. I recycle. I have even trained my family to separate the recyclable stuff from the easier to dispose of trash. Now what am I to do? I feel like it is not an option to throw the stuff away. I think that our local government should provide that service. Perhaps they need to subsidize the recycle business, hiring him as a contractor so he can provide this service. What I don’t think is right is that we don’t have any option to recycle now. How can such an important issue be without solution in this day and age? And what do I do now?

Here it is, monday again. So this weekend was very eventful in the Ward household. Saturday was a halfway pleasent day full of cloudy skies and mild temperatures. After a trip out to grandmas house, we started our backyard bonfire complete with branches and weeds to burn. It was something that needed to be done as we had 2 years worth of christmas trees in the pile. Then we started cleaning out the garage and took 2 loads of cardboard to the recycle place because it was the last day of business for them. Good thing is now our garage can be organized. I say can be because it isn't that way yet.... Hey, have to save something for next weekend, right?

So the last thing to be completed was the building of the raised beds for my garden. That was duly accomplished as well before the end of the day.Sunday was a real shitter of a day. Cold and windy with snow trying to come down. But the good news was that we got to spend the day together inside as a family and do some cooking. Josh has been making our bread for the past week in my bread machine. We have vowed to not buy another loaf because it is too easy to make in the machine. So Josh cranked out a wonderful garlic loaf in the morning. We also baked a ham (delish) and made stuffing with all sorts of left over bits of homemade bread and bagels from the freezer. It was also delish. We also made cookies and rice krispy treats, however I varied the treats and used special k cereal as well. It was awesome that way. So there we have our productive weekend in a nutshell!!

Well, for a couple of days all I have been feeling is blah. I don't know if it is because the days are getting fairly spring like and I am stuck inside or what. I hope that this weekend I can get some more work done and start feeling good about myself again. Like I said before, gardening is my big push this weekend, and I would love to clean out my garage too. It would feel so good to be organized and not have piles of stuff everywhere that has no purpose.
That being said, I think that if something has been in my garage for 2 years with no use, it can safely be given away. I would love to be able to use my garage, and not for the cars like most normal people would but for projects like woodwork or the like. So hopefully my family and I can be very useful and productive this weekend and get our lives and house organized! Wish me luck.....

So here it is, the end of another work day. It is only a couple of days til the weedend and the promise of better weather. Today was funky with snow and wind, but it is supposed to get better towards the weekend. I really want to do garden and yard work. I miss being able to be outside everyday and can't wait till it is time to garden and grow my own produce. My dream is to be able to start my own CSA and hopefully have animals too in a coop type situation. But that is sometime in the future and for now I will be happy to grow food for myself and my family.

It was so great to work on one project. Now I have big plans to do other big projects. One thing that is very high on the list is planning and working in my garden. I have a good idea what I want to plant and how I will lay out the planting boxes. Now I just have to do the manual labor part as far as getting rid of the weeds and getting the raised beds in. Then a fence built. And hopefully by the end of summer we will have an abundance of fresh produce grown by me personally. I can't wait to finally eat something from my garden.

Well here it is, Tuesday, and now I can brag about how much we accomplished this weekend. It was pretty chilly and snowing so we were forced to work inside. I will post pictures when the project is finally complete, but right now we are just working on finishing touches.
We put up bead board on the biggest wall in the downstairs bathroom. It got a couple of coats of a pale blue paint. Then I painstakingly taped the top of the wall to paint stripes. It sucked, and I mean like big time. But after working on the painting project all weekend, it is finally finished. The top has red and blue stripes and looks really cool. We bought a jigsaw to cut out the light switch part and learned how to use it. It is so cool! Josh also made a pegboard for the wall that looks awesome. He also cut out custome brackets for the shelf and it looks so cool. The last thing to do is finish putting the shelf up on the wall and stain it. Then I will post the pictures.
It felt really good to work on something and see the results. Both days I fell into bed completely exhausted, but very happy with the progress.

Well here it is Friday, and boy oh boy am I ready for the weekend. While it doesn't seem like I work very hard at my new job, it is so nice to be able to do whatever I want for a couple of days. Last weekend we (being me and Josh) accomplished so much moving thing around in our house and all around tidying up the place. I hope to at least match that production and at least get some of my garden tilled and my raised beds built. It does look like we are expecting crappy weather, but I don't want to let that stop me. I also want to get some inside work done. I want to at least start on my quilt and plan my bathroom remodel (just some paint and a little changing on the wall). So TGIF and heres to hoping that I will accomplish something this weekend.

Here is a cute picture of Noah from when we were eating out at Red Lobster.(The food sucked monkey balls, even Noah who eats everything puked up some of my french fries...) He will take the straw and put it in his mouth like a dog. He even makes a noise to go with it. Hilarious, for reals!

So, I logged into my blog account and saw that the last time was two years ago! That is so crazy! And then I thought to myself, self, you can do better than that. What a way to keep up your writing skills and document all the happenings in your life. So here it is sis, my only blog reader, my blog. So since the last post I have had another child and watched Eli grow up some. Went through, (and still am) a rough patch in my marriage. Refinanced my house, or at least am in the process. Got a new job. Finished college, or at least finished one degree. So while all of these things are monumental, they all have happened in that past 2 years. Now my sis is having another baby and I am beginning to realize that if I don’t write some of this stuff down, then I am going to forget these stories. And really, I don’t want to forget! So I hope to turn over a new leaf and start documenting my life. In the process I will talk a lot about my wonderful babies, and some about my husband, and some about the rest of my family because these are the most important things in my life. Perhaps some great truth will surface and I will have the question that holds the meaning to life (Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy reference there). Enjoy sis 