It's Growing Season!

It's growing season all around here at apartment 307.  We decided to go ahead with doing an organic garden this year, just something small since we live on the third floor and have just a small balcony to work with.  With the early spring weather, we were able to start planting about a month and a half early!  And as of yesterday, we've already enjoyed two rounds of lettuce and one round of beans!  Normally down here you wouldn't be planting until after April 15th, so we were spoiled with a warmer than usual winter!  This year we are growing stringless bush beans, zucchini, bell pepper, loose leaf lettuce, herbs (spearmint, basil, cilantro, parsley, thyme, dill), strawberries, green onions, and two avocado trees.  We started everything from seed except the strawberries.  It is so fun to come home and slice off a handful of lettuce and enjoy a fresh salad for dinner.  So worth it!

baby beans after about 2 months of growth from seed

lettuce after about 2 months of growth from seed

first cilantro sprout

Lettuce at 3 months, after our first harvest.

beans and zucchini coming right along, planted in 5 gallon buckets

Our first meal including lettuce from the garden - topped with whole food black bean burger, roasted asparagus, and avocado.  Heaven on a plate!!!

Also growing at an extremely fast rate is our little nugget.  Austin has six teeth now!  Two on the bottom and four on top!  The top set came all together last week.  He has been handling his teething pretty well this time, we barely knew they were coming until the day they cut through.

Grandma Sarah - this turned out to be Austin's favorite new toy.  :)  Coming in a close second is a chip clip he snagged from the fridge door.

naked time on his potty  (Elimination Communication for anyone wondering)

My boys in their polos.  Love!  A's first day in 12 month clothes. (7 months old here)

Austin is also outgrowing all of his clothes.  Well, at least it seems that way!  He weighed in on Tuesday at his check up at 25 pounds!  (I forgot his height measurement, but he was in the 25th percentile for height.)  I'm sure every mom feels this way at some point of their child's life, but I've got to say I feel like I'm upgrading his clothing size every week!  Haha!  What fit last week fits no more!

We had a fabulous Easter, which started off with a gorgeous early morning breakfast and traditional service at a church we visited in South Carolina.  As we left the service, the youth of the church released a few dozen butterflies at the large cross on the lawn just outside the church doors.  It was about 9:00am and the sun was streaming down thick rays through the clouds.  It was a beautiful experience and the perfect way to honor Christ!  We then went to our church for a second breakfast at Christ Lutheran and the contemporary service to follow.  So we had quite the mix of everything on Easter, and we loved it!  Enjoyed a walk on the greenway in the afternoon and Yoforia before heading home.  I think we will always cherish Austin's first Easter and what a perfect day it was.

Austins' first Easter basket!  The cookies are for mom and dad.  ;)

crawling over to his Easter basket

pictures by the cross and lilies in the sanctuary

Couldn't get him to hold still long enough for a solo picture.  He thought it was so funny to grab the flowers.

Walking on the greenway on the beautiful Easter afternoon!

Here are a few videos of the cutie pie growing up!

Oh yes, and I must mention what happened to us two weeks ago.  We had gotten a babysitter for the first time and had her at the apartment set up with Austin.  Now I wish I could say we had a big date planned, however no.  We were in our office room working on the business plan and financial projections for our future business we plan to open soon.  We had four hours carved out with the sitter, and we had just sat down to start plugging numbers when there was a *knock*knock*knock* at the door.  Dave and I were pretty surprised, because we never get a knock at our door.  And I really mean never, like never in the 10 months we have lived here except for the occasional package from UPS.  I hesitantly answered, expecting to find a salesperson of some sort.  But it was our neighbor from across the breezeway.  She accidentally backed into our car!  Thankfully we had pulled in with the back of the car facing outward this time (usually Dave will back in to a spot with the front of the car facing out.  God had our back on this one!).  So Dave spent the next couple hours working out the details with a police office and insurance.  We drove the sitter home an hour early, because there was no way we could focus on our work after that.  And we haven't had the chance to touch our project since.  Ahhhh, parenthood.  :)

The damage.  Just a few scrapes and broke the light cover.  The light fixture was A.Okay!