The hubby and I have been talking more and more about adding another bed in our yard since our current one is completely full. I decided to go ahead and plant some corn that will eventually go into the new bed and they’ve already sprouted after just a few days. All ten are peeking through 🙂
The pumpkins were finally to big for the bed so I moved them into individual pots. Hopefully they don’t suffer any serious shock from the move. Only time will tell…
Over the weekend we went up to Cuyamaca Rancho State Park to camp with some friends of ours. Little miss Lyla came along with us and to our huge surprise it was a great success! She loved it and behaved the whole time.
Are you taking your little ones camping this season? Here’s a few tips that may help make your trip go smoothly.
-Pack a snuggle suit to keep them warm in cold weather
-Hiking? Bring a baby hiking pack or baby carrier (with a sun shade!)
-Sunscreen! Sunscreen! There’s nothing worse than a burnt baby
-Lots of snacks (We brought puree packs, crackers, grapes and veggie sticks)
-Bring a pack-n-play (It was perfect for our baby to sleep in at night and to keep her off the dirt and away from the fire when we were hanging out)
-Glow lights (Your little one will LOVE these and it helps you see them better at night)
-We used a 2 room tent so there was a divider between where she was sleeping and where we were sleeping which was PERFECT! We were able to move around and go in and out of the tent without disturbing her.
31 days today! And what did we find? A tomato!
Unfortunately my strawberry plant is slowly being attacked by slugs and gnats! A wall of crushed up egg shells seemed to clear up the slug problem overnight. But I had to finally cave in and get some spray for the flying critters. I ended up purchasing a spray made by Natria due to the amazing reviews I found on it. My fingers are crossed that {A} it will actually work and {B} it wont harm any of the plants…
As you can see some random tulips are in the bed.. We bought those over Easter Weekend for inside the house and thought it would be nice to put them in the yard after everyone was gone but I haven’t had a chance to purchase a pretty pot for them so they are temporarily living in there.
The watermelon survivors that I managed to save the other day are doing GREAT! AND we already have another sprout from the solo cups so I moved him right on over to the blue pot.
If you haven’t noticed the strawberry plant has sent off runners towards the tomato plant and peppers so they will need to be cut down today. My three pumpkins are getting HUGE and also need to find permanent homes elsewhere soon. Maybe a second garden bed will be in the near future….;)
It’s only been about 23 or so days but man oh man has the garden grown!
Here’s the before…
And here’s where we’re at now..
So a few things happened… The pumpkins sprouted, a cat or something stole one of the pepper stakes and I added a trellis for the tomato plant. The other seven pumpkins didn’t make it through the massive rainstorm we had a couple of weeks back. Which is okay I guess since hubby was totally against me growing ten pumpkins in our small yard (its doable!)
In addition to the garden bed we’ve also added parsley to our flower box and are also growing a few watermelons. Originally I planted EIGHT (yes eight) watermelon seeds in our blue pot but I planted them so deep that they weren’t able to wiggle there way to the surface for sunlight. Ooops. Only two survived. So I managed to save the two I found buried in the soil by digging up the tiny roots they had and replanting them closer to the surface. I was really bummed only two made it so my little one and I decided to plant 4 more in solo cups today. We made sure to soak the seeds prior to planting them and didn’t plant them deep this time. Our fingers are crossed for big summer watermelons!
Oh and guess what we found today in the strawberry bush 🙂 Wa-hoo!!
My fabulous assistant…
This year my husband and I are hosting our whole family for Easter dinner. So this week I had to start working on decorations, grocery lists and EASTER BASKETS! I am one of those weird few who actually really enjoy gift giving so I loved making easter baskets for everyone this year. I was on a budget though so I made a stop at the Dollar Store before heading over to Walmart. The Dollar Store was perfect for grabbing basket filling and a few fun toys and candies. Walmart had a great $1-3 section of candies and toys to fill baskets as well.
For the little ones under 3 I tried to focus more on fun items to play with or healthy snacks vs the candy. So I found cute dollar books, puree fruit snack packs, crackers, bubbles, character water bottles, etc.
I couldn’t just leave the adults out of the fun so for our sisters and mothers we stuffed re-usable cups with a little filling and tossed in a Starbucks card and some pink lemonade powder packs. Cute, right?!
What Are You Putting In Your Easter Basket This Year??
We aren’t big fish eaters in our house but I could not resist trying this teriyaki salmon dish I came across the other night. Delicious!
INGREDIENTS:
1 TBS Cornstarch
1/4 C Soy Sauce
1/4 C Brown Sugar
1/2 TSP Ground Ginger
1/4 TSP Garlic Powder
2 TBS Honey
2 Salmon Filets
Cooked Rice (To Serve On)
1 TBS Sesame Seeds and 1/4 C Sliced Green Onions To Garnish If You’re Feeling Fancy
Cream Sauce:
1/2 C Mayo
3 TBS Sriracha
1 1/2 TBS Sweetened Condensed Milk
CREATE:
1. Mix cream sauce ingredients together in a small bowl.
2. In a saucepan combine the soy sauce, brown sugar, ginger, garlic powder, honey and 1 C of water. Simmer.
3. In a separate small bowl whisk together your cornstarch and 1/4 C water.
4. Slowly stir in your cornstarch mixture into the saucepan. Continue cooking for 2-3 minutes.
5. Allow to cool and then marinate salmon filets for a minimum of 30 minutes. I prefer overnight.
6. Bake fillets along with marinade for 20 minutes at 400* in a greased 8×8 baking dish.
7. Serve fillets over rice and drizzle cream sauce over. Garnish. Enjoy
*My cooking directions are different than the original recipe because I found the extra steps taken to thicken the marinade were not necessary 🙂
Ingredients For The Cream Sauce
Marinating…
Toppings
After a few weeks of letting our potted plants sprout some leaves… only the carrots survived! A friend accidentally kicked over two of our pots and the plants didn’t make it.
Lyla was thrilled that the carrots started to sprout and kept going outside every day to “pet” them.
2 Weeks Old
Eventually it was time to put in our raised bed that we were able to purchase at Lowe’s Our yard doesn’t have suitable soil and is mainly rock, clay and concrete under our bark. So the raised bed seemed like the only reasonable option. Since our other plants didn’t make it we picked out some nursery plants and pumpkin seeds while we were out.
-Tomatoes
-Strawberries
-Green Peppers
-Jalapeños
-Carrots (Transfered from pot to bed)
-Pumpkin Seeds (Planted 3 in the bed and 7 in a milk carton)
Yard Before…
Yard After!
As you know my sailor is home 🙂 Which means I have my guinea pig back to try out all of the recipes I’ve been saving. I was really anxious to try out this barbecue beer can chicken recipe I came across awhile back. It turned out phenomenal! I served it along with some potato chips and coleslaw. Delicious. Hubby gave me the approval to make it again 🙂
INGREDIENTS:
6 Large Skinless, Boneless Chicken Breasts
1 TBSP Paprika
1 TBSP Onion Powder
2 Garlic Cloves, Minced
1/2 TSP Black Pepper
1/2 TSP Salt
1 Cup Beer (I used Stella)
3 1/2 C Barbecue Sauce
DIRECTIONS:
1. Add ALL of the ingredients into your crockpot (except the chicken)
2. Stir well to mix everything. Then add the chicken (coat with the mixture)
3. Cook on low for 6 hours
4. Shred the chicken right in the crockpot
5. Toast a bun and add a heaping spoonful of the chicken
6. ENJOY!
I had a lot of leftovers so I will definitely cut this recipe in half next time. You can find the original recipe here.
I’ve been lacking a little lately with posts because….. My sailor is back from deployment : )
I purchased a bunch of oranges the other day since my local grocery store was running a sale on them. It turned out to be great because I came across this fun DIY candle! Supposedly it should make your house smell of oranges but I found it didn’t smell like anything when I first tried this. So I went to Walmart and bought a small vile of orange oil from their candle and incense aisle. Half a tablespoon of orange oil mixed in with cooking oil made it smell fantastic!
First cut around the orange being careful to only cut the skin. Then peel back (careful, dont tear) half the skin.
Carefully peel off the other half of skin and cut a fun design into it. {Make sure its large enough to let a flame breathe}
Fill up your orange with half a tablespoon of orange oil and then fill the rest up with cooking oil until you’ve almost covered the wick. Make sure to leave just a tiny bit sticking out so you can light it.
Light your wick with a match or grill lighter. You will have to hold your lighter over the wick for several seconds before it will finally light.
Place the lid on top and let your house fill with oranges!
((My orange burned for almost 2 hours! Never leave candles unattended))
DON’T FORGET TO ENJOY THAT ORANGE : )
Being Mrs. Jancuska 