Claire Smiles
Landon’s hand comes tickling:
She can’t resist!
Garden Journal 2013-Volume I
It seems summer has finally decided to arrive at last. I just saw my first monarch butterfly four days ago, and three have flown by since then. There are not a whole lot of flowers to meet them though, because all the plant life is a month behind schedule. What a zany spring we have had! Ice storms in April, snow on May 1st, and a hard frost on May thirteenth, just two days before the last frost date! But, the weather is coming along nicely now, and there’s been plenty of rain to get things growing.
I started a lot of plants from seed this year, including zinnia, peppers, eggplant, cosmos, snapdragons, foxglove, and hollyhock. This is a snapdragon:
and one of my cosmos:
I was so excited by these little cosmos flowers. This was my first year of success with starting seedlings inside, and I had always felt a little bit like a cheater buying ready-made plants from the store. I felt like someone who called themselves a baker, yet only knew how to make a cake from a boxed mix!
Then I went to the store and saw this cosmos flower. While the ones I started from seed have flowers the size of my thumbnail, this flower is the size of my palm! I wonder what kind of fertilizer they used?
I guess I’m still a cake mix gardener at heart, because the cosmos and these (already blooming) snapdragons came home with me. : )
More store-bought flowers:
This is a bindweed seedling. My mortal enemy. Do not let their dainty, white, morning glory-like flowers fool you. They spread like mad, have a taproot that resists pulling more than any other weed I know, and climb other plants and strangle them to death. Last year I waged a terrible war against them, turning my back on thistles and crabgrass in order to pull every single seedling and dig up every last taproot. I was successful, for there are no adult bindweeds in my garden this year. I have to remain vigilant, though, and pull at least twenty of these seedlings every day!
The columbine are in full bloom. I have a new one this year, also, as a volunteer made it all the way to blooming. I think it is a cross between my pink and blue plant, for it’s pink with tiny purple veins throughout. It also has a unique creamy yellow trumpet, while both of the other plants have a white trumpet:
The blue parent plant:
The pink parent plant:
More store-bought flowers:
This is one of the pepper plants I started from seed. I have jalapeno, bell, and banana, but I won’t know which is which until they start setting fruit because I mixed them all out of order when I potted them.
The raspberries promise a bumper crop this year. I lost all my 2012 summer raspberries to last year’s zany spring. It was so warm that they flowered in March, and then an April frost came and nipped them.
Beets are my experiment this year. We tried baking some from the store in the winter, and despite the strong, earthy flavor, everybody liked them, even Johnathan! I’m really looking forward to seeing how they turn out.
Sugar snap peas:
Tomatoes from the store:
The chickens would love to come gobble up my entire garden, so Landon built a pen for them:
The Close of One Chapter…And the Beginning of the Next
The past week has been bittersweet, as it saw the end of the school activities that I have participated in since ever since I was little. Last Saturday was the performance of my last Drama Camp EVER. I have been participating in the annual homeschool drama production since I was just four years old. That’s a mind boggling fourteen years!!!
It’s a little hard to say goodbye to recitals, quiz bowls, and memorizing lines, but not quite as hard as I thought it would be. After eighteen years, there’s a sense of ‘it’s time’, and what is dawning on the horizon is much too exciting to spend much time looking back.
The next chapter is opening quickly. In two weeks class registration for college begins, and a brand new laptop is in my closet, waiting for classes this fall. I am going to my first job interview this afternoon, as I need to start working towards a car to call my own. Very soon, I shall be writing the next four year long chapter of my life.
Our Eggs Before and After the Rain
We have had a lot of rain in the last few weeks, and our grass, which was completely brown and dead, to grow like crazy. The chickens like eating the grass, and this deepened the color of the egg yolks dramatically:
Deeper colored yolks mean a more nutritious egg, so these must be really healthy!
Graduation Slideshow
Click on the link to watch the slideshow:
Senior Pictures
Photos by my Dad
Graduation
It’s hard to believe that the year is over, and four years of high school have passed already. Sunday our homeschool group had a graduation ceremony for the three homeschoolers in my group graduating this year.
Receiving my homeschool diploma from Dad:
Yay!
I decorated my table in blue and yellow, the same colors that are painted on my room walls (my ‘school colors’). : )
A hobby corner on my table featured pointe shoes, a trowel, teacup and saucer, spoon, knitting needles, parrots, and books.
This is the first picture of my whole family together since the addition of Claire:
Though it’s a little sad to be finished with high school activities such as quiz bowls and drama competitions, I’m really looking forward to fall. I’ll be attending school for nursing while still living here at home. I can’t wait to start!
Pictures by my Dad and Grandparents
Piece of History
I never knew we were being patriotic by keeping chickens!
Baby Photography Session
There are two things that make it extra fun to take pictures of little Claire: she is my first baby sister in 13 years, and she is the first baby to be born when I have had my big camera. So, and I’m learning a lot about baby photography. Claire still sleeps a LOT, so it has been really easy to pose her just how we want without waking her up. Maria has been helping me, collecting props and helping me adjust the super sweet subject.
Dominic and Claire
It took Dominic a little while to warm up to Baby Claire, and he pretty much ignored her for the first five days after she was born. He frequently pointed to himself, saying “Beebee,” as if to make sure we knew he still carried that title. But when she was six days old, Dominic acknowledged her for the first time. He called her, “beebee” and asked to hold her:
Ever since then he has been referring to both himself and Claire as ‘baby’ (still not quite ready to part with the name). He gives her a lot of love, asking to hold her and hugging her. When she is sleeping in her rocking cradle, Dominic rocks her gently singing “Roooooock-bye bee-beeeeeee,” in a sweet, high pitched voice. It is precious!
3 Days With Claire
Claire has been adjusting to life on the outside fairly well, and she doesn’t cry as much as some of the other boys did. I am able to soothe her quite easily by walking and rocking her, whereas newborn Dominic never let me calm him down once he was crying! She also is sleeping a lot, even when she is not being held. (Well, at least during the day. Night is another story.)
The family also has been adjusting nicely, and Landon, Maria, John, and I take turns staying up late and getting up early to hold her and let Mom sleep. I have had a few issues with pronouns, however. After five baby brothers in a row, it was becoming natural that all babies were referred to as ‘he’, so saying ‘she’ has been difficult. Mom has also caught herself a few times addressing Claire as a ‘sweet little baby bo-er -um-girl’.
Claire definitely likes being swaddled, so most of the time she’s wrapped up in her blanket like a burrito.
I love Baby Burritos, especially when they’re wrapped in a flower tortilla! (haha)
Mom calls the bewildered newborn expression the ‘Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore look’. I think that’s a perfect description for the thoughts that must be going on in this little head.
Welcome to the World!
Claire Monica was born at 9:02 AM, and weighed 7 lb 14 oz!
How to Pose an Almost Two Year Old
Two year olds are very hard to photograph. Even if they happen to be in a good mood, the usually don’t sit sit or face the camera for an instant. So, I tried out a recommendation from a photography book from the library and told Dominic to play peek a boo with me from around the corner. The result was some of the best toddler expressions I have ever caught on camera:
