Fresh

I love summer...and seeds and soil and gardens and veggies and farmer's markets. And many times I wish that I lived on a lot of acres so I could have my own giant garden and fields and barns and animals (mostly chickens). And then I remember all the icky stuff that comes along with that wish. Um...I'll just stick with my three 4x4 garden beds and stopping at the farmer's market once a week because I don't like bugs and I don't like rodents and I really don't like snakes.

But I do like eating fresh produce. And canning. I really like canning. Today I pulled up not as many beets as I thought I had, but enough to make two of the four recipes I picked out for canning beets. And enough beet greens to double the pesto recipe I want to make.

I had just two little beets left over so I decided to add them to the CSA squash I had and saute it all up with the farmer's market onion I picked up last week and a few sprigs of oregano from our herb planters. The verdict is still out on the final results (I'm not going to name names, but not everyone in our family is a fan of squash and/or beets).

As a side note...aren't beets so pretty?

The rest of the week we'll be focusing on getting our beets pickled and marmaladed (pretty sure I just made up that word) and probably taking more pictures of beets because, you know...they're just so pretty.

Somewhere Out On the Rainbow

What, you may be wondering, could be so interesting in the back yard as to capture the attention of...

 

all three of our children...

 

for over an hour?

Here's a hint...

And another...

 

Ta da!

 

After two agonizing hours of practicing their patience, the Rainbow Man (notice I said "the," meaning one...uno...all by himself...in two hours...a feat that would have taken novices such as ourselves two weeks) made all of their back yard dreams come true when he came to the door and announced that he was finished.

 

Since that gloomy (just the weather) day in May, we've spent lots of time sliding (not the snow kind),

 

climbing,

 

rope-swinging,

 

baby-swinging,

 

and tire-swinging.

 

So this summer, if you can't find us, we're probably out back...on the "park," as the kids call it...swinging, under-dogging, pirating, rock-climbing, fire-fighting (the hose is a great free! accessory) and having as much fun as our imaginations can imagine!

Stopping by? Put on your sun goggles...

(and by sun goggles I mean those tiny plastic eye covers you're required to wear in a tanning bed so you don't burn your eyes out) because you're going to need to protect your retinas if you drive by at night.

To aleviate any confusion, this is NOT our house. That might actually be bearable...embarrassing, but bearable. No, the picture below is of the seizure-inducing house across the street from us that we see each and every time we dare look out our front window or door. We noticed the owners last weekend putting Christmas lights on their newly planted maple (the same one 12 - no I'm not exaggerating - other houses got one day in October; gotta love new construction) and thought it would look great since they spent so much time on it. Now we know why it took so long. They wrapped every single teeny tiny branch in those electric blue lights. You know, the ones that are impossible to focus on. Unfortunatley (or maybe it's not so unfortunate) the picture doesn't do it justice. If you're really curious you can drive by (make sure you stop to say "hello" since you're in the neighborhood and all), but don't say I didn't warn you.

Oops

In a home with three children age three and younger (oh yeah and two adults) who do you think would be responsible for the first major damage to the brand new house? One of the kids? Crayons on the wall, perhaps? Or a hole in the wall caused by careless use of a toy? Certainly it wouldn't be one of the responsible, ever-so-careful adults. Not possible!

Or...er...maybe it is possible.

Step 1: Open car door for preschooler to climb in
Step 2: Close door
Step 3: Don't notice that the garage door opener release is closed in car door
Step 4: Start car and back up
Step 5: Hear loud scrape
Step 6: Feel resistance
Step 7: See husband at door to house with bewildered look on his face
Step 8: Exit car to find out WHAT IN THE WORLD HAPPENED
Step 9: Notice released garage door closed slightly before you were able to get out of the garage
Step 10: Subsequently notice the dent in the garage door and the bent track preventing said garage door from going up (or down or anywhere for that matter)
Step 11: Leave preschooler buckled into car, go inside to tend to other small children while no-longer-bewildered husband fixes the problem
Step 12: Apologize to said husband over and over for breaking the new house
Step 13: Back out of garage (again) very very slowly
Step 14: Go to work to pay for repairs to garage door

Duck Tales

Maybe not a duck, but water fowl (sort of) nonetheless. A few weeks ago we heard through the grapevine that our sod was going to be installed in the next few days. Woohoo! No more mud to wash off the boys and way less dust blowing into our house and dirtying up the window tracks. So off we went to the backyard one evening to check things out before the sod was laid and we heard this little Killdeer "yelling" at us. As we got closer we noticed a nest with some eggs in it - right there in the dirt. Well I couldn't let the sod guys (the SGs) come and destroy the nest and eggs so I called the DNR and the following conversation ensued:

Me: "I have a Killdeer nest in my backyard that needs to be moved before the 'sod guys' come in the next day or two."
DNR: "You can't move a migratory bird nest. There is a $600 fine if you're caught disturbing the nest." At this point I was very glad I hadn't identified myself when I got on the phone.
Me: "Well, the sodders are going to come and grade right over it. Wouldn't it be better to move it than have it destroyed?"
DNR: "You could grade and sod around it. Or I suppose you could apply for a permit to move it. Call the US Fish and Wildlife Services for that." This is starting to sound expensive...

So I dialed the number the DNR gave me for the US Fish and Wildlife permit office and got a voicemail. Needless to say, I didn't leave my contact information.

Meanwhile the SGs were here inspecting the yard with Sean and agreed to sod around the nest and then come back to patch the hole when the birds left. So the next day, the SGs showed up and got to work grading the yard.


Once it was graded, they put the rolls of sod onto this machine and rolled it out. You can see the small spot with the birds nest in the lower right hand corner of the picture.


The SGs showed up about 7 am and after 14 hours and a few dive-bombs by Mama Killdeer the backyard looked like this:


So after I rescued these birds I felt a sort of "mama bear" obsession with continuing to protect them (apparently their own mother wasn't good enough). Once the sod was laid, we started to get geese in our yard and they would go right up to the nest and eat whatever it is that they eat while Mama Killdeer squawked and dive-bombed the geese. Discontent with the effectiveness of the dive-bombing, I often marched out into the yard, broom in hand, to chase away the geese. Or sometimes I'd send Jack.

And given that I "rescued" the birds from the SGs and the geese, I felt I had every right to march up to the nest for a look-see and photo session. Here is Mama Killdeer:

Here are the eggs (look on the far left side of the nest):

Mama Killdeer did not agree with me. She's doing a "broken wing dance" in an attempt to distract me from the nest. Apparently since I stopped taking pictures of the nest to get video of this, it worked:

After that, I left her and the babies alone. Then one day I didn't see her on the nest so I went to check it out and she and the eggs were gone. After days and days of tirelessly chasing geese I was disappointed to find them missing and thought surely they had met a tragic end. However as I "researched" (read "followed one google link") Killdeer for this post, I learned that the babies can see and walk as soon as they hatch so I'm reassured that the babies survived and Mama Killdeer simply relocated her family to a more suitable environment. You know, one without loud equipment, SGs, thousands of treacherous geese and two active little boys in close proximity.

Somewhere...Over the Rainbow?

After a rain storm the other day, we saw a beautiful rainbow behind our house. Sean went out to get a couple pictures.

When he came back in, Jack wanted to take some pictures of the rainbow as well (remember our budding photographer?). This is Jack's version:

Dirt

We've all been playing in the dirt lately. In an effort to get some landscaping done before our sod is laid, we've spent nearly every evening over the last two weeks working outside. Sean scoured the neighborhood for boulders to use for a retaining wall. This project proved to use more brute force as well as creativity than he bargained for, I think. The final result looks fantastic, though. We followed up the wall with prepping the soil and finally getting about 20 plants into the ground. The kids helped us a little last Saturday when we were planting. By helped I mean dug holes in the garden, filled pots with dirt and followed up with plenty of water to make "fixins" for mud cake as Jack likes to call it. Jack is a little more cautious when it comes to getting dirty than Wesley is. Wes just dug right in.

After the mud cake, we let them play with the hose...

on the driveway...

in their underwear...

kind of like a very cold outdoor shower...

brrr.

New Dos, New Attitude, New Skills and a New House

The boys got haircuts this week. I was committed to keeping Wesley's hair long (to preserve the soft blond curls), but with summer looming I decided to go short in an effort to keep him cooler. We tried a new "barber" (as Jack calls it) and the cuts turned out great. Plus we saved $6 over going to Kids Hair.

Wesley is sharing a teddy graham with you

About a month after Jack turned 3 I thought, "Who are you and what have you done with Jack?" This is because may angelic, compliant, sweet 3-year-old turned into a crabby monster. And this has been status quo until last night when, once again I thought, "Who are you and what have you done with Jack?" He was polite during dinner (not having a tantrum because we interrupted his play time), he was ready and willing to take a bath that didn't involve constant reminders not to splash water outside the tub and a tantrum when it was time to get out, he put on his pajamas without whining about how it was too hard and he went to bed without telling me over and over that he was afraid or thirsty or that it was too dark or... He'll be 3 1/2 on Saturday - maybe we're on the downhill slide into an easier year being 4.



Elise turned 5 months old yesterday. The newborn stage is not my favorite and I'm always relieved when my children pass the 3 month mark, but this time going from 3 months to 5 months went way too fast. Elise has had some new developments in the last few weeks. Since baby girl loves to eat (check out the rolls on her arms and legs), she had me up twice a night for a couple weeks and, at four months old, I was not on board with that plan. So we started cereal. She started younger than both Jack and Wesley, but she's bigger than they were at this age so we dove in early. She's doing great with the cereal and we've added bananas and prunes to her menu too. She loves it all. She has also learned how to sit on her own which makes her a much happier baby when it comes time to play. Jack especially likes this stage of Elise's development because, being a new sitter and all, she occasionally tips over, which always elicits rolling laughter from her bigger brother.

Oh, and we moved three weeks ago. The million dollar question has changed from "Are they all yours?" followed by the obligatory "You must be busy" to "Are you settled yet?" The answer is a resounding "NO." I had a goal to have all the boxes on the main floor unpacked by the end of the first week. We still have boxes on the main floor. I don't really have unpacking goals anymore. Real life crept in and now we're lucky to get one box unpacked each week. (See below for a funny tangent that just doesn't fit here). The "to do" list has extended beyond reality so we just ignore the list and do whatever we feel like doing at the moment.

Last weekend we focused on landscape. Now we have a half-built retaining wall and a bunch of boulders sitting in our front yard.

The week before that we were focused on window treatments. The windows are still bare (except for Jack's because it was vital that we stopped the sun from coming in his room at 5:00 each morning prompting him to come in to our room with a rousing "It's morning, Mommy, it's morning, Daddy" no matter what day of the week it was). The good news is, the week that we focused on window treatments, we placed an order for blinds that are supposed to ship tomorrow so by the end of next week we should be able to stop flashing the neighbors every morning when we get in the shower.

This week I've been focused on toys and getting them put away. Of course the organizer in me sees all the toys that need to be sorted and grouped according to age, color, size, set, owner and manufacturer (I'm only being a little dramatic here) and it prompts me to want to spend hundreds of dollars at Pottery Barn Kids on multiple fashionable yet functional storage units (check out the Cameron Wall collection). Instead, I'm making due with what we have and dreaming big about the day when we win the lottery (except we don't gamble) and I can buy all the toy storage I could ever want and need...I guess I'll always just dream.

Next week? Finally getting my clothes put away. (I'll let you know how that goes).

Tangent:
The city of Shakopee has a welcome wagon type of program and one of the representatives visited last night to drop off a folder of materials. She saw the toys in the family room and said "Oh, you have a little one." "Three little ones," I replied. "Oh, how old?" she asked. "Three and a half, one and a half and 5 months," I said. Then with an astonished gasp she replied, "Oh, bless you. You're a super mom." I began to wonder why she thought I was a "super mom" because I had so many children. Why didn't she just think "Wow! She's fertile."? And this is how the story ties in above: Real life with three young children doesn't allow me to be a super mom. Many days, we just get by.

A Little (and I Stress Little) Color

The siding has been going up on the house this week and I'm a little nervous about the end result. We didn't have a lot of color choices and we went with the "boldest" options they had (green on the bottom, tan on the top), but it still looks a little drab to me. I'm hopeful that when the garage doors go on (they're white), the door is painted (it will be the color you see on the upper story) and the pillars are on (green with white trim) that it will all pull together and the colors will look a little bolder. Here's to hope...

Progress

We're making progress on the move:

• Our house is beginning to fill up with boxes.


• We have finalized our housing for the time between closing on our current home and our new home. We'll be renting a house in Burnsville from a couple that goes to our church. Once again, God is demonstrating His perfect timing.


• We booked the movers for our move to the temporary house as well as our new house (we were able to lock in the lower rates by booking now).


• We've started selling our extra stuff on Craig's List (less to move - woohoo!).


• We have walls on our new house and the shingles are on the roof...at least, in the package.

Details

It has come to my attention that I may have been too hasty in my last post because I have had several requests for details on our new house. I'll try to answer all the questions I've received so far and any I think may come up.

Where is it? Shakopee - it's a few blocks south of where Hwy 169 and Hwy 101 meet.

Why did you choose Shakopee? We didn't really choose Shakopee, it just happens to be where this new development is. However, it will reduce our daily commute to work by at least 15 minutes because of the location.

How many bedrooms? It has 4 bedrooms upstairs with the option of adding a fifth in the basement when that is finished. It also has a loft and laundry on the second floor. It's a big open floor plan, which will be great for the necessary multitasking that takes place on a daily basis.

How many bathrooms? It has 2 full bathrooms upstairs and a 1/2 bath on the main floor. We will add a 3/4 bath in the basement when it gets finished. Our current house doesn't have a dedicated master bathroom, but it only shares with one other bedroom on the second floor. The new house has a nice master bathroom with a huge soaking tub. We decided not to upgrade to the one with whirlpool jets - I couldn't think of a single time in the next 5 years when I would have even 10 minutes to sit and relax in a bath. Which reminds me of an amusing exchange I had with the electrician last week when we were doing our "electrical walk-through" - a two-hour session staring at a blueprint of each level of the house deciding where outlets and light switches should go and, of course, finalizing any "options" (read expensive upgrades) we may want. One of those upgrades was a light above the tub, you know, something to set the mood and help me relax, so says the electrician, to which I responded, "did Sean tell you we have three children age three and under? I don't take baths." Although the private master bathroom is a nice feature, I am most excited about the main floor bathroom and the pedestal sink. It's nothing fancy, but I've wanted a pedestal sink in my house for a long time...a dream come true :)

What is the lot like? I'm not sure what the size of the lot is - 1/4 acre maybe? The backyard is mostly flat with a small hill at the back that goes down to a pond. Just beyond the pond is a walking/biking path (one of many that go throughout the development). Just beyond that is a wetland and just beyond that is a farm - this is definitely Jack's favorite feature so far. I'm not sure it will be our favorite feature in the summer when the "farm fragrances" come wafting our way.

I can't think of anything else. If you do have other questions, feel free to post a comment and I'll add it to the list.

Homeless

Life is never simple...

The good news is we found a house:

Front of house

Kitchen

View of dining room and family room from kitchen

View of dining room and kitchen from family room

Loft at the top of the stairs

Master bedroom

Master bathroom

The bad news is that the pictures above are the model and our house actually looks like this:

Mid May is the estimated move-in date. We close on our current house on March 31st. That means at least 6 weeks of homelessness for the Starkeys. On the bright side, the weather usually warms up a little in April so we won't be quite so cold sleeping on the streets.

Going...Going...Gone

It's with sadness, joy and relief that I write these words:
We sold our house

Why sadness? This is the first place we really called home; this is where we brought our babies home; this is the place where we invested all of our "sweat equity"; this is the place that welcomed us each time we came home for the last 6 years. And I love it. I love the new green paint, the paver stone driveway, the wrap-around porch, the fabulous pantry, the chalkboard wall in Jack's room, the ample attic storage, our new low maintenance deck (this one made me consider not selling the house), the white millwork (a small detail taken for granted until you realize how hard it is to find), the dormer windows...sigh.

Why joy? We get to find a new home that fits our family a little better - all bedrooms on one level, a family room big enough for 3 kids, a kitchen where we can all eat together.

Why relief? No more showings! Okay, I'll be the first to admit that I had it really easy - we only showed the house a handful of times - but when you're trying to round up three young children, pick up toys, take out the garbage, work in a feeding, make sure you have plenty of diapers before leaving the house and, oh yeah, figure out where to go for an hour with these three young children, one showing feels like ten.

One final look: