Father’s Day DIY

-keri-

When I was a kid I was a creative little booger. Well that, and I was homeschooled during my younger years, so when I wasn’t watching The Price is Right I was brainstorming my next gift project for upcoming holidays. I’m a bit of a mush as well, so between the homemade craftiness and the sentimental, make-you-cry deep meaning behind it, we can just go ahead and say that I was the golden child. <insert the singing of angels here>

<insert me dodging lightening here>

Ok, ok, but for real.I actually was a good gift giver and made a majority of them. Until I had a kid.

I have become quite the homemade slacker the past couple of years. I think my family is silently worried about me. For Christmases two years in a row, they got gift cards. Gift cards that I was able to purchase at a drive through. Not even wrapped gift cards, but just nicely stuck in those decorative little cardboard holders gift cards!!!

To: Dad
From: Keri
Merry Christmas. Yawn.

The thing is, macaroni crafts get really confusing coming from a 26 year old. I mean really, it’s not like I can put my handprint in some playdough and frame it. But, now that I have a toddler who can do these things, I’m all over it! Break out the Kleenex, dear family. I’m back.

ANYWHO…Here’s a little DIY I Hazel made for the men in her life…

I noticed this little gem on Pinterest, of course.

Supplies:
Canvas in desired size
Painters tape. I recommend the green kind.
Finger paints
Xanax
Margarita

Those last two are optional.

Instructions: Tape off the letters you need (ie: “Dad”). Let kid go to town with finger paints. Let dry halfway. Pull off tape and let dry completely.

 

 

garden dreams & space ship squash

Whew. It’s been a week! Between births, weekend adventures, traveling, working & kiddos we have had to put our blog baby to the side.
Oh?? What’s that you said? You want a new blog post? You’ve been refreshing the page for days…waiting?! Ok,ok! Here ya go… 😉

-Morgan-

This weekend we ventured out to The Natural Gardener to get a few new baby veggies for our garden! We have about 400 sq feet of garden space in our backyard that we were ready to let the weeds overcome this year (since we had the worst garden ever last summer. Yay for Texas summers…) but at the last minute decided that would just be such a waste of perfect, earth worm infested, chicken crap filled, dark, rich, yummy soil. And that’s just NOT ok.
This year, we decided to just “take it easy, keep it simple” and stick with the two raised beds we have and not, definitely not work the in ground beds that have been completely taken over by crab grass and last years arugula. Oh. The things I wish I would have known about arugula…

Side note: Those suckers are pristine & completely free of weeds now…see!

I had a feeling “simple” wasnt gonna happen…

This may or may not be how a lot of things go in our marriage…

Our conversation at The Natural Gardener went something like this:

Aaron: ok babe, for real, just the stuff on the list.
Morgan: ok, got it. Just the list
…walk into the glory that is a garden store/nursery/chicken haven/goat lair/garden heaven…
Morgan: oooooooh aaaaahahhh
Aaron: remember, keep it simple.
Morgan: (walking towards the outdoor rugs & garden paraphernalia) riiiiiiiiight.
…after a few minutes of perusing things we will NEVER buy, Aaron pulls me away & back on mission…
Morgan: ok, wheres that list?… Oooooooh! Look! A raspberry…vine?…we should definitely try this!!!
Aaron: Baaaabe!!!
Morgan: right the list.
…after we walk in circles with one kid strapped on and the other in a wagon, we get what we need…
Hippie Girl working at NG: ohhhh, heyyy… If you like squash, try this one. It’s totally rad. It looks like a space ship.
Aaron: oh, I think we’re ok–…
Morgan: (butting in) oh great!! Thanks SO much!
( I am uncomfortable with saying “no,thank you” in these types of situations)
Hippie Girl: groovy.
Morgan: under breath, just put it back when shes not looking…
Aaron: yeaaaa we don’t need space ship squash.
…yeaaaa….

We get home and start planting in our beautiful soil previously nourished by our chickens…
I set out our 6 plants & Aaron and I look at each other obviously thinking the same thing…

Aaron: you know, I mean, if we are gonna do it, we might as well do it, right?
Morgan: yeah! Definitely! I mean I just spent two days pulling weeds….we should definitely use all the space…
Aaron: we could get a few more peppers…
Morgan: yeah! That’s great! 3 more…

Off to Shoal Creek Nursery I go.
Get there & quickly rush to the veggie section.
Wisely search for the perfect plants.
Find them and head out.
Get home…

Morgan: babe!! I have a surprise plant! It’s okra!!
Aaron: awesome babe! Wow…dang! There’s twelve plants here!!
Morgan: yeah, I know. I couldn’t help it…I got excited 🙂

Needless to say our small & simple garden turned into 20+ and we still haven’t planted our corn & sunflowers.
Oh & of course there is a space ship squash that we forgot to put back somewhere in there. Groovy.

Our *almost* finished garden.

We are excited to have learned from our flop of a garden last year & hope to get at least ONE edible piece of produce this year. That would be a vast improvement!

Do YOU have a garden? What’s your best ‘green thumb’ pearl of wisdom? Best large garden bounty  prayer? Chant? Rain dance? Anything!! We’re gonna need it!

Keep an eye out for some awesome stuff coming this week! Maybe even a giveawayyyyy!

Testing, Testing. Anybody out there?

Well, hello internets. This is a little baby dream we have had for quite some time now. This is a place for us to collaborate. A place for us to share our failed pinterest projects and awesome parenting moments. A place that hopefully, you might retreat to when you need a little encouragement, a recipe for dinner, or maybe just to feel like life ain’t so bad afterall. I mean, there’s nothing like reading about someone else’s burned dinner to make you feel better about the corn dogs you’re serving tonight. Hey, nothing wrong with some corndogs sister!

But seriously, in a world swimming with “mom blogs”, we wanted to create a place where its ok to not be ok. It’s ok to not have it all figured out. It’s ok to be honest in our journey and learn as we go, from each other. For us, for you.

Take a peek over to the right. As we add more blogs, those categories will get full of things related. One of these days we might even have ourselves a real big-girl domain site all of our own!

Some things you can find here are:

Kids. Not just pictures of them, but activities we do with them, want to do with them, wish we had the time or energy to do with them. Parenting tidbits we are learning along the way. Kid friendly foods, places, movies.

Ramblings. Let’s admit it. We like to talk. About life, Jesus, parenting, camping, cooking, the newest season of the Bachelor (Kidding. Maybe). What we write in our own journals will sometimes make their way to your viewing.

DIY projects. Some half finished, some only thought about, a few maybe actually completed and pretty.

Recipes, grocery finds, health goals, chocolate indulgences.

Links to our Pinterest accounts that you can peek in on if you feel like it!

Regular blog posts from “Mama Veterans”. You know, the ones who have more kids, years, gray hairs, and wisdom than we do? The ones who should really be blogging for us young’n’s to learn from.

Feature posts on places around our cities (Fort Worth and Austin). Lots of fun things happening in these places, and we don’t mind taste testing for you. Really, its ok.

So, join us. As we chase after Jesus, pursue our husbands, rear our children. We can’t promise to be right or even funny, but we can pat you on the shoulder and tell you its ok when you burn your dinner. And offer you some corn dogs.

Keri & Morgan

PS- Do you like our super cool blog header design? We do! It’s by the lovely and talented lady behind The Organic Bird. Seriously, she is brilliant. Check her out if you need design work done or if you just like looking at really pretty things.