It's garden time!

Here is our garden finally back in shape. There are a few remnants from last year, the herbs and eggplant. A rose bush that we thought we got rid of suddenly popped up out of nowhere. The lime tree is finally making its presence known.

Here is our great compost bin. It's all Nate's doing. In fact, the garden is mostly Nate's doing. He had the big plans and put them together. We have tons of great compost for the garden.

mommy and Jakey

Sorry I keep posting so many pictures of me and Jacob. That was us yesterday at church. We had it outside, so I dressed him in his Peru clothes from Uncle Peter. Anyway, I'm bummed. I just got back from the doctor's office where we saw a new doctor. One of the first things the doctor said was, "Wow! He really doesn't look anything like you." How could he say that to a mother? Do I really look that different from my son? He doesn't look exactly like me, but I think you can tell we're related. What a party pooper.

Happy Mother's Day

This year was my first Mother's Day, and I had the pleasure of spending it with my parents and Jacob. It was great. Grandma gave Jacob (and me) a great present. She got us Little Hoot, the book I mentioned in a previous blog. I also had the opportunity to share a little about my experiences as a first time mom at church today and led our congregation in a prayer for mothers. It is such a good prayer that I would like to share it with all of you mothers out there.

Prayer for Mothers

God our Creator, we pray:

for new mothers, coming to terms with new responsibility ;
for expectant mothers, wondering and waiting;
for those who are tired, stressed or depressed;
for those who struggle to balance the tasks of work and family;
for those who are unable to feed their children due to poverty;
for those whose children have physical, mental or emotional disabilities;
for those who have children they do not want;
for those who raise children on their own;
for those who have lost a child;
for those who care for the children of others;
for those whose children have left home;
and for those whose desire to be a mother has not been fulfilled.

Bless all mothers, that their love may be deep and tender,
and that they may lead their children to know and do what is good,
living not for themselves alone, but for God and for others.

Amen.

I made these books from the tutorial mentioned on Angry Chicken's blog. These are notebooks made from recycled paper. The Jacob notebook was for his Grandma.

Rolling Over

Jacob has been rolling over for about a month now, but this is the first time we've caught it on camera.

gDiapers

For those of you who read my post about Earth Day, you know that I am in the process of trying out cloth diapers. I didn't actually get much farther than making the covers and trying them with some cloth diapers I bought at Babiesrus. Bad choice. I then ordered some better quality diapers and covers online. Then, I found that I would need different laundry soap to wash all of these products. While waiting for all of this to come together, I discovered gDiapers. These are diapers with breathable covers and liners that you can flush or compost. We already compost, and of course we have a toilet. Hmmm. Very tempting. For all of you moms out there who use cloth or disposables, would you mind taking a look at gDiapers and letting me know what you think about this. I'm very tempted. A) because I feel like I'm already swamped with laundry without cloth B) because my son goes to daycare, and they would probably be more willing to work with me on a flushable liner than cloth diapers C) these diapers are slimmer and not as bulky so I would be able to put him in the same clothes he is wearing now. Let me know what you all think. Give your honest opinions please.

Buried treasure

I go to estate sales whenever they look promising, which turns out to be about once a month. I usually look for key words like fabric, linens, monterey, craftsman and vintage. This week I didn't get the Penny Saver in the mail which is usually my guidebook on local estate sales, so I checked on Craigslist to see what was out there. I found one that looked promising--it mentioned a sewing machine and fabric. When I got there, I drove down the street where I thought the sale was located, but there were no signs or people around which was very unusual. I decided to check the address again, and it matched with a house that had the garage door open. A man was sitting in front of the open garage door smoking. I decided to try my luck. Sure enough, it was the right address. He told me to dig around and see what I could find. Digging around was the right term for what I had to do. Everything was kind of dusty and dark and things were piled everywhere. However there were a few gems to be found. There were a few large pieces of uncut wool fabric. There were vintage upholstery scraps, some linens, vintage plates wool blankets (not pictured) and the greatest old wooden suitcase. There were a few of these, but this one was in the best condition. The gnome was not part of the haul, but I thought he looked good next to the suitcase.

9 months old

Jacob is 9 months old this week. He has started to whistle, and really communicate the past couple of weeks. It sounds like he is saying mama--although I know he's too young to know what he is saying. He says mama or meh meh and ba ba all the time. He has started to roll over, more from his back to his stomach. He also loves playing with his little toys and going for walks. This time last year, he was just a little bump in my tummy. I had no idea how much joy and love was in store for us.

Little Hoot

On Friday Nate and I had a family date. We have started doing those to take advantage of our unique work schedule. We get off work at 11:30 on Friday, so we have an extra afternoon to ourselves. We may not have this schedule for long, so we are trying to make the most of it. So our excursion this Friday took us the the Rancho Santa Ana Botanical Gardens in Claremont. We had lunch at a great restaurant in the downtown area. While browsing through stores there, we found this store full of wonderful things: Paper products, unique children's items, soaps and bath stuff, handmade bags and other treasures. One of my favorite children's book finds was this one called Little Hoot. I love the illustrations, and I love the story. I wanted to buy it, but have too many children's books already. I'll have to think about it. But it looks like a very fun book. I also like it because Jacob started whistling the other day and the little owl sort of reminds me of the way he looks when he whistles.