Aidan's Green Thumb

Two weeks ago at the Carrboro Farmers' Market, they were giving away free tomato seedlings to children. Aidan and I picked up a Sun-gold cherry tomato seedling as well as a beautiful little basil plant. Building a garden for Aidan and I is something that I have wanted to do for a while--so this weekend, WE DID IT.

Here is Aidan the morning before the Farmers' Market, explaining his Van Gogh rendition of a "tower." He loves painting and drawing, and puts me to the test asking me to draw everything from tigers to toothbrushes. He recently told me that my best attempt at a horse did not look like a horse, "Mommy that looks like a person. I dont think you are good with drawing horses." Thanks, Aidan haha.

If you look just beyond Aidan's easel, you will see our backyard.

This is Phase 1--basically a little piece of yard untouched for over a year.

So, Thursday afternoon, with gloves, shovels and rakes in hand we started attacking the backyard. I say attack because that is literally what we did. We pulled up weeds, raked up straw and leaves and dug up more rocks than I ever knew were in our yard. By Thursday night we were exhausted! Friday afternoon we repeated the process over again, Aidan told me later that night, "Working with rocks and leaves is hard work! I was getting sweating and hot!" Too cute.

Friday night we planned out the next step--Phase 2 would be to build a raised garden bed. We found what seemed to be a good plan for one online and set off for Lowe's. We bought cedar planks, screws and stakes and then (finally) called it a night.

The next evening, Gordie/PopPop (my stepdad) came over and helped Aidan and I to put our garden bed together. Needless to say, Aidan was fascinated with the power drill. Aidan was a great helper and within no time, Aidan and Gordie had the garden bed built and put outside. Now all that was left to do was make the actual garden!

I am now a firm believer that if Aidan and I can make a garden, then anybody can do it. After gathering different tips from friends, online, and other gardeners, Aidan and I set out for Lowe's again today, this time to buy everything we needed to finish up the garden. We already had our plants, we bought them from a local woman in Cary--we just needed soil and compost. Wheeling around Lowe's with one of those flatbed carts was the highlight of Aidan's day, he also (to my amazement) actually was able to push it with 16 bags of compost on it!! (Hello NFL! haha)

We got home and began transporting the bags of soil from the front yard to the bag by way of Aidan's wagon, Im sure we looked like a pretty funny pair pulling those bags of soil in a wagon. Then, the dumping, mixing, dumping, mixing was next. It took a while, but eventually all the soil was mixed and we were ready to plant our plants!

If one part of the whole experience was Aidan's least favorite, it was this part. Once we got past planting the blueberry plants (which he, oh so slyly, found and put on the cart at Lowe's) Aidan's interest in this slow process was approximately zero. He did however like watering the plants afterwards. While I planted Aidan played Pirates with the tomato stakes we had just bought :)

By the time it was all said and done at 8 pm tonight, Aidan and I had planted three tomato plants, one green pepper plant, basil, oregano, cilantro, two cucumbers, blueberries, blackberries, and strawberries. We also got a weed guard down (mulch will just have to wait until tomorrow) as well as a netting to protect our baby plants from all the deer we have around here!

So, without further ado, Aidan and I present to you our garden!!!!

Happy Easter!

Easter weekend was such a good time for everybody! It started with an Easter Egg Hunt at Aidan's school--Aidan become a little disheartened when he figured out that the eggs did not have candy in them. While all the other children were searching for eggs Aidan proceeded to ask me approximately twenty questions as to why there was no candy in the eggs--and by the time I could get out an answer that he would agree to, the hunt was over. So much for that one, haha.

The highlight of the Easter Weekend was spending time with Enzo, we all went to the park, went out to eat, went to church, to the Yogurt Pump, and took walks together. Aidan had a wonderful time playing with his Daddy, especially at the park and having him read bedtime stories to him.

The Easter bunny came to see Aidan and Enzo on Sunday evening--after Aidan opened his Easter basket and went through his things he went to the screen door and yelled out, "Thank you very much Easter bunny! That was really nice of you! I like that very much!" It was pretty cute....

Below is a picture of Aidan and Enzo at the Chapel Hill Easter Egg Hunt at the Horace Williams House...two pretty handsome boys if I must say so myself :)

Aidan = All Boy

Aidan had an "all smiles" day yesterday at school so I decided that it was about time to take another trip to the infamous Yogurt Pump in Chapel Hill. Its a great frozen yogurt place on Franklin Street that Ive been going to since I first came to Chapel Hill. We always get our yogurt (shh! Aidan thinks its ice cream!) and sit on the bench next door and people watch on Franklin Street. Aidan asks lots of questions about people walking by, some of which I have an answer to, and some of which (if you know anything about some of the characters on Franklin Street) I don't.

After dinner tonight Aidan and I went on a worm excursion. Our mission: find worms hidden underneath the "dirts, rocks, and mud" as Aidan told me. Tools for the mission: one toddler size plastic shovel. Needless to say, the mission was not quite successful but we had a great time trying, or should I say Aidan had a great time flinging dirt everywhere while I dodged trying to snap a picture!

This was too sweet to not get a picture of--Aidan reading to himself before he goes to sleep. Tonight's choice was The Ear Book and I could hear him softly saying "ears hear, tock tock tick tick.." Eventually he fell asleep and the book fell beside the bed but it makes my heart melt when I realize how fast he is growing up!

Till next time....

Nuts over Banana Nut Muffins

Even though Aidan got two frowns today at school (he had a hard time using "listening" ears today) he and I managed to turn his frowns upside down (sorry, bad joke but I had to) and make scrumptious banana nut muffins.

Of course, Aidan was an integral part of making the muffins--he knew exactly what pan we were going to have to use and that we were going to need to spray the pans before we put the muffins in. He also quickly reminded me that "hey hey we need to wear our cooking clothes, dont forget about that!" So I dug out our aprons :)

The muffins had plain fat free yogurt in them in place of oil, I cut down on the butter by 2 TB (4 instead of 6) and used all WW flour--they turned out pretty good per Aidan's request for 2 muffins with his dinner (he managed to talk me into giving him 1 and 1/2, partly because that meant I got another 1/2 of a muffin, I mean you can't just leave half of a muffin sitting there can you?!)

On the way to the grocery store tonight, Aidan starts singing "A is for apple like acorn like alligator like Ashton (a friend from school) like AIDAN!" He was very excited about the A is for Aidan part. It makes me really excited that that he is learning so much and telling me and showing me new things that he knows everyday...I love my little man!

Sunshine Finally!

It was so nice to finally see the sunshine this weekend and Aidan and I took advantage of it as much as possible. Saturday was a fun filled morning at the Farmers Market, where Aidan helped me pick out lots of yummy veggies and a huge bag of North Carolina pink lady apples--they are so good! Later that night we had a great time hanging out with some of my friends from work and had lots of great laughs when Aidan told us all stories of the princess and the giant.

Today we got to eat lunch outside at Whole Foods and Aidan learned about doing "thumbs up." Later on, we went trail walking and then played hide-and-seek in the woods. It was so hard not to laugh at Aidan trying to hide, he would get behind a tree but the hiding spot was only good for about 10 seconds because after about that much time he'd take off to hide behind another tree because "the first spot was getting old."

Aidan is getting really excited about Enzo coming over Easter weekend, he told me last week that he was not going to sleep until Daddy got here :-)

Chocolate Chip Cookie Night

Aidan came back from being with his Nana today since this past Sunday and I thought it would be nice to make some cookies together once we got home. Aidan is not a huge fan of chocolate but he does like chocolate chip cookies so we whipped up some wholesome, low fat, low sugar cookies that turned out pretty good! Id say its safe to say that Aidan is in the minority of three year olds who are baking with whole wheat pastry flour and natural cane sugar. Here's some pictures from our cookie night...

Haircuts, All Smiles and Spelling

We have finally found a place to get a good haircut for Aidan that is pain free for both him and I. Peek-a-Doo salon is good at what they do, keeping kids calm and entertained while they get a decent haircut. I guess I wouldn't be as bored during a haircut either if I got to watch my favorite shows....

Each day at school, Aidan gets a "report card" that gives him smiles or frowns for each of the things that he did during the day. Of course, we love all smiles but this does not happen everyday. Last week, we had 3 out of 5 days with all smiles. That's a pretty good week--here's what an "All Smiles" note looks like-when he gets these he is able to watch one 1/2 hour show on tv that night while I am cooking dinner, otherwise, its no tv that day.
When Aidan came home with this at the end of January, I was so proud of him--its hanging up in my room now along with a few other drawings of his. I look at this all the time and can't believe how fast the time has gone and how he is growing up right before my eyes. He loves to ask me how to spell his name, even though he's convinced at times that there is a "G" somewhere in his name, we're getting there, slowly but surely :) At the gym last week, he pointed to the letter "F" posted on a sign and said, "Look Mommy, that looks like fox and four." I told him right then and there he was the smartest little boy I knew.