A Boy and His Garden

Shortly after Phoenix Home and Garden visited our home we got to work on a garden bed just for Justin. We began small to make sure that he could tend it on his own (which he almost, sort of does). He chose the plants that he most desired: corn, watermelon, strawberries, and tomatoes.

Justin's corn harvest. One ear had only one piece of corn on it. Oh well.

He planted with the help of Ryan, he waters with the help of Ryan, but he mostly harvests all on his own (with Tyler occasionally stealing cherry tomatoes straight from the garden). He is always so proud when he gets to eat his own vegetables. It gives him a good sense of pride and a healthy self esteem. Yay for gardening with kids!

Geny

I have found my new Posie Patch for diaper covers. The business is called Geny. She only makes covers, and they are really cute. She has great boy's prints. That, I like! It is so hard to find boy's prints for diapers and covers. I purchased two of her covers when she was on Etsy and I love them. They are side snap covers with pul on the inside and a printed cotton on the outside. They are pretty pricey. 18.00 a pop but I wait for stuff to go on clearance and buy cheaper and get free shipping. Here's the website .

Can you See the Box?

On Saturday evening our heater broke. Ryan pulled out the fuses and thought that that was our problem since our unit is brand new. He left the fuse out for me so that I could stop by the store on Monday to have it checked. No problem. But, by Sunday evening Ryan had alternate plans. This is how our conversation went down.

Ryan: I've been thinking about how to keep our house warm.

Me: If it involves anything other than calling our heater guy and getting him to fix our heater, I don't want to hear this.

Ryan: Laughing. There were these people that were protesting oil drilling. They bought big oil drums and painted them black. They filled them with water and put them on their fences. It ended up heating their whole house.

Me: So, you want to buy oil drums, paint them black, fill them with water and put them on our fence? Yeah, that'll look good. This is ridiculous, Ryan!

Ryan: No, I have an idea of something that I can make in the yard to keep the house warm.

Me: Laughing. We can keep our house warm by fixing the heater. You know, Ryan, some people use the phrase thinking outside of the box when someone has a good idea. But can you see the box Ryan? Where is the box? You are so far away from the box that you cannot see it? I want you to keep a finger on the box at all times.

Retarded absolutely retarded. Just get the heater fixed! Now, I know that you are probably disappointed that you will not see his white trash invention come to fruition, but I think you can handle it. There's only enough room for a few white trash ideas around these parts.

When retelling this tale to Ryan's family I've also coined a name for my stand up comedy routine wherein I am Becky's opening act, my portion of the gig is called, "White Trash Genius"! I think I'll be rakin' in the dough!

Feet or Butt?

What do your boys smell like?

Worm Ride, Anyone?

Justin and Tyler have spent a lot of time outdoors lately. Mainly because I need some space. I turn on the hose and try to lock them out. Oh, and the boys love to be outside too. This Saturday was no different. Tyler and Justin played in the mud making mud balls to throw at the wall and building volcanoes. Ryan was busy trying to de-grassify our back bed so I can plant wildflowers. As he did this Justin began collecting potato bugs and worms. Justin came running in the house at one point, to find me eating bon bons and watching survivor reruns, to ask an important question. "Can I use the wagon for worms?" "Sure," was my response. And he ran out the door.

Later in the day Ryan informed me that Justin suggested that the worms were bored. He thought that they would enjoy a ride in the wagon. I had to check it out for myself. Sure enough, Justin had created a mound, filled the wagon with worms and was indeed pushing them down the hill. When I asked him about it he kept saying, "Do you think they're scared? Do you think they like it? I think they're having fun." It was probably one of the cutest dang things that boy has ever done. He was so serious about all of it too. He was genuinely concerned for the boredom of his worms. Oh, man! You gotta' love boys!

Who's Afraid of a Grub?

It’s gardening time at the Sauer home. We’ve been readying our beds, pulling out weeds, and planting seeds and most of all finding grubs. Icky, gross disgusting wriggly grubs. Last week Ryan and Justin were pulling out the compost for our backyard garden. As they were sifting through it they were pulling out the grubs and collecting them in a large bucket. Justin loves to find bugs. He also likes to show me the bugs before he throws them out into the street. I try not to be a sissy mom especially since I have two boys, but come one, who wants to look at a bucket full of wiggly grubs? Not me.

Justin convinced me to look. Then he convinced me to watch as he dumped them in the street. This is the scene that took place...Grubs were strewn about the hot asphalt. They hurried their little bodies and wiggled about inching their way to what they thought was freedom. Tyler, who wanted to be with daddy, made his way out into the street but was so freaked out by the massive crowd of wiggling grubs that he stopped dead still and began shrieking for help. Daddy rescued him, but come on…this is just wrong. Is this how the rest of my life with boys will play out? In the street watching grubs wiggle away for their lives? Ick!

But at least, I’ll have lettuce and broccoli and other such good things to eat from our gardens. The troubles we go through for food. Ay yi yi!

Ryan recently surprised me with a bout of in-home leadership. It was so pleasing to see that I lit up, got giggly and began kissing him. “I knew this day would come!” I beamed as I kissed him on my tip toes. “I knew you would lead our family!” I know it sounds gay, and trust me it was, but I couldn’t help myself. Anyway, Ryan has been feeling like we are near a recession and has been rethinking our finances and future planning of funds. He actually suggested that we increase our food storage, save our vacation money for a surplus, and increase our home food production. I was shocked and humbled and excited and mostly felt inspirited by my leading husband.

Over the next few days we concocted plans and goals as to how we would go about this. We’ve also decided that once we paint our house (because nothing can happen until we paint our house, because I lead too) that we will convert our front yard into a bit of a mini orchard. We are thinking mango, banana, avocado, cherry, and apricot trees will take over the space that is currently being wasted by our beautiful but often dead grass. It all reminds me of a book I’d like to read but never will called Food not Lawns. It’s right up Ryan’s alley. I’m sure if I bought it, he would read it. Maybe Christmas. So, when all is said and done and no one can afford gas we will bike to and from our places of being and eat from our garden and orchard and read from the light produced from our solar panels. I think we’ll be pretty set. Now I wonder how much power it takes to run my DVR and TV simultaneously. Hmmm.

Children and Healthy Eating Habits

I've been thinking about food a lot lately as I have been going through some allergy testing. I've also been around a lot of different people lately with different eating habits than my own, good and bad. Here are some thoughts I have about children and eating.

Justin has always been a good eater. He goes through stages though when he hates certain foods and then he will love them again. It's odd. Lately he has found many of my dinner choices to be gross. We've been trying to teach Justin not to say, "This is nasty!" or "this is de-scusting!" Instead, we would like him to say, "No thank you, I don't think I want this." Honestly, it just hurts my feelings (I already have picky Ryan poking at his plate and moving around beans, so I don't want another one of these on my hands), and he needs to learn how to react when someone puts foods in front of him that he doesn't like. We don't force him to eat food, but I'm trying to teach him to eat around the foods that he doesn't like and just eat the ones he enjoys. I try my best to not change the meal or pick out items that he doesn't like. That is his job.

Over several years Ryan and I have made some changes to our food cupboards and general eating habits. Junk foods such as chips have to have a purpose. We don't purchase them as snacks. We allow ourselves a bag of chips if Ryan is bbqing hamburgers for example. In fact, Justin calls them, "Those chips we have with hamburbers." Then of course we finish them off as snacks and when they are gone they are gone. Now, this is not to say that we never have chips as a snack, on occasion I splurge but I always try to come up with a good excuse, like friends are coming over and we're eating sandwiches, or something.

When it comes to most other junk foods, my personal philosophy is that if you don't have them in your home, or don't offer them to your child they don't even know they exist. We don't do juice, or processed foods or frozen meals, or anything like that. Now, that's not to say that Justin doesn't have the occasional mac and cheese or PBJ, but when he does I buy mac and cheese with real cheese and we use organic pb and fruit preserves on wheat bread. I just try to be choosey.
It's not that I'm against junk food, in fact I love junk food. I always have some chocolate in my home and I enjoy ice cream a lot. But I try to bake most of my own sweets and I buy small pint size ice creams. Again, when they are gone, they're gone. It's pretty simple really. If you don't want your kid to have it, or you don't want to be tempted by it yourself, then don't buy it and don't bring it in your house.

Just a quick rant...I get irritated when I hear women say, "All my kid will eat is a pbj and juice!" or whatever their story is. I want to roll my eyes and walk away. Are you kidding me? Who is in charge here? As mothers it is our job to grocery shop, make meals and provide them to our children. If your child is only eating pbjs and juice, that's because you are giving it to him. Arg!

Just a silly story. Well, first off, since I've been on my Glairegg free diet I've been making a lot of new recipes. Lots of beans and different types on grains and legumes. I love quinoa, barley and lentils. I recently bought some millet after attending chef Brad's class. One evening, Justin was helping me cook. While I was pulling out the brown rice he got so excited and screamed, "Yay! millet! I like millet. We have it at school with that sweet soy sauce. That dif'rent kind of soy sauce that's sweet. When can we get that dif'rent sauce?" I was laughing so hard. What five year old busts a gut in excitement over millet? What a nerd my boy is. He has also been requesting salad specifically with spinach for his school lunches and he loves mango and likes to mix them. Weird yes, healthy too? Yes! I'm proud of his eating habits. I feel like I am offering him a variety of healthy food choices and he is growing into some great food tastes.

A New Crew Member?

What? What's that? Ryan's joined the crew of Jesse's Landscaping, you say? No way! No way is right! It's worse, that would make him sane. A job is job, right? No, no, he has now taken to flagging down innocent landscapers and begging them for their grass clippings and other organic goods that they have nicely loaded into the back of their trucks. He slyly gets them to follow him home as he trots next to their trucks and then then quickly pounces onto the truck, garden fork in hand and steals their goods. Poor spanish speaking guys never knew what hit them, or that this handsome spanish speaking fly-for-a-white-guy could be so persuasive. Frankly, I think they took pity on him because clearly, he is insane. And one should never be mean to someone without all their wits about them. Ah, well. Let's hope Ryan sticks to poor unassuming landscapers and stays out of landfills. Seriously, fingers crossed guys, or someday I could be sending my boys off, gloves in hand, to help out their compost crazed father at the landfill!

Check Out the Size of My Berries

Jealous much?

The life of a berry in the hands of a one year old.

Berry lover in a tree.