Well On Our Way

We are well on our way to finally having a garden this summer! Hurray! Thursday was Brad's day off so after I got home from work, we set to the task of getting the garden planted. Brad's parents had quite an assemblage of strawberries growing in yard that were about to overthrow all the other plants in the garden, so we happily took some of the plants off of their hands. In addition we were able to plant quite a few tomato plants and some peppers. We still have to plants some squash, cucumbers, carrots, and corn. That is our goal for this evening. It would have been nice to get it all done on Thursday, but despite our attempts at distracting Ellie from the dirt with enticings such as cheerios, graham crackers, and toys, she decided that dirt was ore interesting. And as probably most parents know, you don't just dirty yourself with dirt when you are 10 months old, you must taste the dirt. So once Ellie discovered dirt, we had to end the project for the time being. But! We are well on our way!

We are also well on our way to a happy, clean, and newly painted piano. I am using a lot of guidance on this project from Allthingsthrifty. This week we got some paint stripper to finish the job that elbow grease just couldn't cut. We took off all the panels to show the innards of the piano, and vacuumed the lovely instrument out. We also took off all the keys to the paino. That was an adventure! Who knew so much stuff was hiding underneath those piano keys! We found 3 earings, who knows how much loose change (mostly pennies), stickers, and mouse poop. Pretty gross to think that mice were once upon a time tickling the underside of those ivories. Yuck! Anyway, the piano is now in the garage awaiting some paint stripping and some final sanding. Then it is onto paint! Oh, and I don't think it will be done by May (Brad just tells me to have faith).

And our little Ellie is well on her way to being a one year old. That's right, she is going to be 11 months old on Monday. Only one more month until we reach that milestone. She is so much fun to have around. This past week I have really noticed how much fun she his having putting stuff in things. She loves to play with the little red bucket in the picture. She pulls it out of the bottom drawer in the kitchen and dumps everything out of it. This is followed by attempting to refill it, but most often she gets distracted by one thing or another that she is putting in it, and forgets about the task. This of course means I am left to clean up the mess. That's okay though. She now has 4 pearly white teeth. I think another is wanting to pop through too. She is saying all sorts of words too. When it tickle her back she says "ticka ticka." She points to the window by the neighbor's house and says "da" (dog). She points to Dad and says "da." She picks up her monkey and says "ee-ee-oo-oo." She doesn't say "ma" when I'm around, but Dad said she says it when I'm gone. Anyway, as usual, we are loving her.