End Of The Month Recap

Hello! It's been awhile. Not a lot happening over here. I feel like we've became homebodies this winter. We have a few places that we go (my moms, the library, shands, target, and the grocery), but other than those spots we have been staying put at home. We are REALLY missing Disney and haven't gone since October or November. I can't even remember at this point, because hello Measles outbreak!! We are allowed to go and she'll wear her mask, but she's still on a pretty high steroid dose atm and she'll be starting a new med soon. With all of those added immune suppressing meds, it's just not a good idea right now. For those of you that don't know, she can't get any live vaccines. So, she would be at risk for anything she's not immunized against.

I feel like we are flying through Livi's school work. This week we are on letter R. We are still just using Pre-k and Kindergarten books that I've purchased at Dollar Tree and Walmart. We've probably gone through 1-3 Number books and I've had to purchase a few different learning sticker books because she loves them and we finish them quick. She can now recognize 27 sight words, which I think is pretty awesome. All of the crafts that she does I find on Pinterest. You can find everything on there. I've found a few books that have everything in them and I plan on reviewing them with her over the summer. She'll be doing Florida Virtual School for Kindergarten. Eekk! I can't believe I'm even saying Kindergarten. I'm not ready for that yet!

Since being glued at home, we've been doing all of the puzzles, Highlights Hidden Picture books, paper dolls, book reading, coloring, and crafts. Obviously, we watch movies and tv too when we have time. Spring is in full swing over here, so we can't stay outside long unless we want to be covered in pollen. I'm looking forward to planting our zinnia's and sprucing up our flower beds when some of the pollen is gone. 

We had a little Galentine's get together this year. It was so cute and fun! The girls did a craft, we ate some yummy snacks, and they did lots of playing. So much that they didn't want to leave each other at the end which was so sweet. My girl needs that time. <3

Despite all of the news we've been receiving lately, I finally feel a little better about everything. Olivia is at a point right now where her attitude is better. Which has helped a lot. We know it was the steroids making her act that way, but it made everything tough for awhile and once we start tapering down on them, we know it'll happen again. Until then, we are just taking one day at a time and enjoying it with each other. I can only control so much, so we just have to roll with it. 

Trying to remember what else we've been up to...

Olivia had a sleepover with her granny and g-pa one night which meant a date night at home for Dannie and I. That meant we got to order pizza that we like and not just cheese for Livi. She's had lots of testing done this month and we've got back all of the results. Meaning lots to talk about, but I'll save that for another post once she starts the new meds. 

Lots of library trips and we even stopped at a Free Little Library after our Shands trip last week. I could drive around Gainesville all day because it's so pretty.

Just counting down the days until I can take pictures of our zinnias and Livi playing in the pool. It's coming. <3

December Recap

Most of our December was spent cuddling on the couch watching Christmas movies. If we weren't doing that, then it was either crafts, reading books, or eating sweets. We didn't do a lot of family stuff at the beginning of the month because there was a lot of sickness going around, so we quarantined ourselves to the house. That was hard because we missed family, but we made it work and mainly just tried to keep Olivia entertained. 

We also took a lot of sunset walks around the neighborhood. Olivia chose to drive. 

We got to see family on Christmas. Woo hoo for Olivia spending the day with all her cousins. <3

On Dannie's birthday we went to Red Robin to enjoy some of our favorite burgers. If you haven't gone yet, you have to! I usually just get the bacon cheeseburger, but it's SO good! Olivia brought along Camille. 

It just blows me away how big she is getting. 

Big smiles with Peyton Rae!

And this is the delicious burger I was talking about from Red Robin. My mouth is watering looking back at this photo. 

Fancy Nancy and her daddy on Christmas morning after breakfast. I love making breakfast with these two on Christmas day. Then again, I love doing that every morning with them. 

Olivia helped me make cookies this year. We had a girls day with the family and made some, but it was a no peanut cookie day. So, Olivia and I made no bake cookies and peanut butter cookies another day. They were delicious and she was such a good helper. 

New Christmas Pj's! Paw Patrol is on a roll! 

We mixed some coloring time and reading! Love The Nutcracker! 

Our yummy cookies! I swear rolling the cookie dough in sugar before baking made a huge difference. It was also my first time making homemade peanut butter cookies. Usually we just do slice and bake. 

Lots of hot chocolate, coffee, and cuddles. Especially, on cold days. 

We did school work from bed a few times also. Whatever helps get it done. We had some pretty rough days, so if I could keep her focused on school work, it didn't matter where we were at. 

I miss our tree already! It was so pretty to look at. 

We took Olivia off-roading to look for bear prints. Didn't see any, but we snapped this cute photo of her. This is Christmas in Florida- sunshine, shorts, and jeep riding. 

We missed the Ocala Christmas parade, so we went to the Dunnellon one. First timers over here! But, it was so much fun. Not too long, which was good and it wasn't too cold out either. 

Some of the crafts we did. 

Another day, another Christmas movie. 

She had finished this entire coloring book within two weeks. Girl loves to color. 

Can't forget out library trips! We usually make our rounds between Dunnellon, Belleview, and Freedom library. We like them all and they all offer a pretty good selection of books. 

Can't forget New Year's! We finished off the month watching the ball drop in New York on tv. Olivia and I were barely awake by midnight, but we made it and "cheersed" our champagne and sparkling juice. Lots to look forward to in 2019! 

Lessons In Gardening

When I decided to plant another garden, I wasn't sure how successful it was going to be. I had pretty high expectations since it did pretty well last year. We had an endless supply of tomatoes and cucumbers for awhile, but that eventually changed. So, I wasn't sure what to expect this year. It's pretty satisfying when your vegetables actually take off and your able to eat what your growing though. Like anything else, it takes a lot of work and dedication to successfully keep up with it.

We tilled up a much bigger space than we did last year. I was sure that we chose a space that had enough sunlight, but I couldn't be sure until things started sprouting up. We added cow manure in after we tilled up the spot and spread that around. Here in Florida, we just have sand and it's horrible to plant anything in. Olivia and I made a trip to Walmart and we picked out a few different veggies and flowers. We chose cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet peppers, corn, carrots, radishes, corn, zinnias, marigolds, and lettuce. We really hyped it up and talked about it a lot and Livi was super excited to help out. We let her plant most of the seeds and she really enjoyed that. 

I think it took 3-4 weeks before we saw any sprouts. Our lettuce and green beans grew the fastest and we were soon able to add lettuce to our salads. I had to change the location of our cucumbers because they were in a pretty shady spot and nothing was happening. Once those started coming up, we stuck some garden stakes in the ground and weaved a piece of metal fencing through them. Once the cucumbers got big and started to vine, we weaved them through the fence. We also purchased some tomato cages from Walmart. They were affordable and only ended up costing us around $4. 

Unfortunately, about a month after we planted everything, we had a month long drought. I would water in the morning and evening, but it wasn't enough for some things. We only got 6 cucumbers and only 1 looked normal. The others were deformed and mushy in the center. When I Googled why that could have happened, it mentioned too much sunlight or not enough water. We probably won't plant corn again because its hard to say if it will grow again. It was more of an experiment anyway, because I wasn't sure how it would do here. Green beans did the best for us and we were happy with that because they were tasty.

Ants slowly started taking over everything by Mid-June. I tried a few things, but they continued eating through. I eventually pulled a lot out and just kept the cucumbers and tomatoes because that was all that was growing by then. Our Zinnia's were my favorite part of the garden. They were constantly blooming and I could bring a different bouquet into the house weekly. If we decide to put in a garden next year, we will have it in the ground by April, maybe. It isn't as hot then as it is in the summer months. We might look into building raised beds also to see if that helps. Experimenting and learning new things is pretty exciting when growing new crops. I think it was a learning lesson for all of us between patience, dealing with the sun and ants, and all of the other sweaty work we put into it.

One of our first Zinnias.

Cutting some lettuce for dinner.

Barefoot and Zinnias. 

Olivia cutting some lettuce.

Some of the beautiful Zinnias we picked.