Farm Life

We spent Sunday planting a family garden at Allen's parent's house.  I am so excited to be doing a garden this big for the whole family to participate in.  I'm still going to plant my smaller garden at home too.  

Sydney, Garrett & their cousin Addison had so much fun outside getting their hands in the dirt.  Garrett would never come inside if he had it his way.  Sydney was a really big help planting everything.  I love that we're teaching our kids this great way of life!

All the girls decided to rock bandannas for the day.

We planted potatoes, onions, radishes, & several kinds of lettuce.  We'll be planting much more later.  My Mother-In-Law is going to teach me canning & I am so excited to learn!

Garrett really needs a hair cut!  I tried cutting it myself one time and gave him a very nerdy bowl cut on accident.  I decided to leave all hair cuts to the professionals!  {aka, my friend Roxanne}

We are raising chickens too.  I'm a little nervous about this part & hope seeing the ENTIRE process does not turn me vegetarian!  I think I can handle it.  It is difficult to find affordable, local, free range, antibiotic & hormone free chicken.

A few years ago, I would've never imagined myself doing these kinds of things & loving every minute of it.  Remember...

"It is never too late to be what you might have been."~George Eliot

The Avett Brothers ~ "November Blue"

Telekinesis

I really like Telekinesis & they are playing in Norman on Monday.  But I'm trying to decide if I have it in me to stay out late on a weeknight again!  Not to mention, figuring out the whole babysitter thing.  I hate to say no to affordable, good live music though.  What's a girl to do?

Date Night On A School Night

Allen & I had a little date night on a Tuesday night.  Whoa!  We are wild and crazy kids, I tell ya!  We went to see Heartless Bastards for the first time & were very impressed!  They sounded great & were very nice.  I was shocked at how few people showed up though.  Come on Oklahomans!  You had the chance to see Heartless Bastards for $12.  Where were you?

Since the crowd was so so small, we got to stand right in front of the stage & get a very up close experience.  It was awesome for me since I'm 5'2" & usually can't see a dang thing at concerts.  I mean,  I could see her shoes!  How cool is that?  She had very cute black heels with her jeans, by the way. 

 

I really liked one band that opened for them, Horse Thief.  Not to be confused with Horse Beef...which is what I thought they said at first.  Horse Thief makes much more sense. :)  They recently moved here and wrote a song about Oklahoma, which I loved!  It's called "Warrior".  You can listen to it here.

Allen & I had an annoying realization that night.  We're getting older.  Blah.  For a while, we were the oldest people in the room.  Then an older group came in.  Then I realized they were probably Horse Thief's parents.  Blah.  You know you're getting older when you feel hungover the next day & you didn't have a drop of alcohol.  I drank water all night & woke up feeling hungover & sore, simply because I did not get enough sleep.  Hello 30's.  On that note, here's Heartless Bastards singing "Done Got Old".  ;)

Laundry Room Is Back!

I cannot tell you how happy I am to have found this video posted back on YouTube.  This is the video that made me fall in love with The Avett Brothers & I used to watch it daily.  But then it disappeared from YouTube!  The best version of "Laundry Room" was gone for months....until now!  I get chills every time I watch this & it reminds me of my love for great music. 

Radiohead ~ "Lotus Flower"

Getting Out & Having Some Fun

The weather this week has been absolutely beautiful!  Only Oklahoma could have temps as low as -31 in places last week and temps of 79 this week!  We have been taking full advantage of the weather & making up for being cooped up for 2 weeks.  I took Garrett to this fun place called Unpluggits.  It has an indoor playground, painting, play doh, chalk and much more.  The kids can just run from thing to thing.  And most importantly, they have organic coffee for Moms! 

I take him to a "mommy & me" tumbling class once a week.  He really just runs around the gym and pretends to be a monster truck.  He doesn't have any interest in the actual tumbling aspect.  I'm not real sure why I spend the money, considering we have lots of land for him to run on!  But he has fun & gets to socialize. {ignore the poor quality phone pic}

We also went to the zoo.  I love taking the kids to the zoo & we are very lucky to have a pretty nice zoo close to us.

Riding this car has become our tradition at the end of our zoo trips.

And both mine & Garrett's favorite way to spend our days...outside! He has gotten his dirt fix that he has been missing for so long. I think being stuck in the house for so long has contributed to some very challenging 2 year old behavior lately. This boy is an outdoors man & needs his hands in the dirt at least once a day. Just look how happy he is!

We are anxiously awaiting the time to start planting this year's garden!  We have the ground prepped & ready to go.  Until then, the kids are enjoying using it as their own personal sand box.

Our poor gnome had a rough winter too.

HAPPY FRIDAY!

Peter, Bjorn And John ~ "Second Chance"

The Walkmen ~ "Angela Surf City"

Valentine's Day Fun

 We had some little surprises waiting for the kids on Valentine's morning. 

Heart shaped pancakes for breakfast has become our Valentine's morning tradition.

Garrett & I went to Sydney's school Valentine's Day party. 

The kids got to make several crafts & have ice cream & donuts.  Talk about a sugar high!

Then the class had a whip cream race.  They had to see who could eat the whip cream off the plate fastest without using their hands.  Sydney has a very fun teacher.  She did it with the kids & the kids thought it was hysterical.

Garrett is not sure what to think of all the kids.  I think he thinks the classroom is too loud.

When we got home, the kids ripped apart their boxes to check out the loot.  

Happy Valentine's Day

I thought long & hard about what song I wanted to post for mine & Allen's 13th Valentine's Day together.  I'm feeling nostalgic so I decided to go with the Foo Fighters ~ "Everlong".  This song was one of my favorites in the very beginning of our relationship back in 1997.  You know that feeling when a relationship is new & perfect & your head is in the clouds?  Well, this song was always playing in my stereo & in my head back in 1997 when I was all giddy about our relationship.  And here we are 14 (in June) years later & I'm still giddy...just in a much more mature & practical way! 

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY ALLEN!

The Cave Singers

Just checked out The Cave Singers.  I dig!

Snow Days...Round 2

We are having quite the winter wonderland in Oklahoma this year! 

Sydney has had more snow days from school this year than I think I had my entire childhood!  As a kid, I remember watching the school closings scroll across the tv screen.  Fingers crossed, anxiously hoping that our school's name would appear.  But it rarely did.  Our area never quite got enough snow to shut down school.  However, the last three winters we have had major snow storms.  It's kinda fun.  I admit, I was a little grumpy about being snowed in for 4 days last week.  But as soon as the snow melted, the weatherman warned us of round 2 coming & I was determined not to be a grump about it this time around. 

I actually love it when Sydney's school gets cancelled.  I don't have to set my alarm and do the drop off & pick up.  And Garrett & I love having her home with us!  I just fear that school will go on until June to make up for all these missed days!

I had two main goals for today.  1. Make valentine boxes for the kids and 2. NOT to make a chocolate cake!  I made snow ice cream instead.  I am a foodie, what can I say.  Too bad I don't have an excellent metabolism.  I used Paula Deen's recipe & it turned out extremely RICH.  I think I'll try the milk & sugar version next time.

8 c snow {clean!}
14 oz condensed milk
1 tsp vanilla

The kids loved it.  It was their first time having snow ice cream.

Sydney had fun making her Valentine box. 

She's having a party at school Monday & gets to bring it.  I'm taking Garrett to the party so I wanted him to have a box too.  But he had zero interest in decorating a box.

And yes, he stayed in his pajamas all day.  Don't judge me.  I did put new pj's on for bedtime. :)  Sydney was nice enough to decorate his box.  He was annoyed that she put hearts on it though.  He is a man's man.

For some reason, when I tell the kids to "say cheese", this is the look Garrett gives me.  Every time.

I also just had to share a picture of Barbie that made me giggle when I found her.  It looks like she's had a rough day.  Some days, I can really relate to this chick.  Although, my clothes are not nearly as stylish.

School is closed again tomorrow.  Yipppeee!