Garden Update

We have been busy the last few weeks...and things are starting to payoff. Here are some pictures of our garden a few weeks ago

Tiny lettuce sprouts.

At this point, all our garden beds were not quite finished.

Here is the garden now. Most everything has been planted. Today we actually harvested a bunch of spinach. Everyday we check to see what has gotten bigger and weed a bit. It is humbling to grow something - to witness the miracle of planting a small seed in the ground and watching it sprout and grow bigger and just seeing what is was meant to do.

Giant sunflowers that are just a few inches now.

Here is our lettuce...ready to harvest now!

A Needed Adventure

Today was one of those amazing summer days where you just want to be outside

so we went on a little adventure.

We went to Denver and has to seize the opportunity for Blake to take a picture in front of her street. Everyone should have their own street. It should be a law. Please let me know if you ever see Brecken Avenue or Quinn Way.

Brecken is rockin some new braids...if you look close, you can see a few of her purple highlights.

We found ourselves at the Denver Chalk Art Festival. I was so inspired by how these artists can make something so amazing out of chalk and a piece of pavement.

We also were able to put our creativity on the streets of Denver as well.

After the Chalk Art Festival, we had to find a place to cool down so

off we went to the fountains.

The girls loved running through the water...Quinn was not so sure about the fountains.

We had so much fun. Today was one of those days where you just the weekend

could start all over again just so we could have more fun. Here's to more weekends!

My Brecken Hope is turning three today. Exiting the twos is something I have been looking forward to for awhile now. The last few weeks I feel like I can see her getting bigger and more grown up every single day. She is becoming more comfortable and more at home all the time. I wish her Ethiopian Mama could see her now and see how she has grown and how truly beautiful she is and see how much we love her.

Yesterday we had a little picnic party to celebrate. She has been so excited about her birthday. Here are some pictures:

Brecken you bless us everyday and we are honored to have you as our daughter.

Thrift Store Scores

I love those days when the thrifting universe aligns and brings me amazing, wonderful things. Those days make me want to become a profession thrift store scorer when I grow up...that's a valid career...right? Here are my finds from today:

We have big plans for our backyard. A few years ago I started reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and The Backyard Homestead and since then, I have wanted to have a huge garden that can support my family of vegetarians all year-round. Last year we used a tarp to cover our future garden area and a few weeks ago, Andy started tilling the area. This week he started making the raised beds for the garden so we can start planting all the cool weather crops.

We are so excited about our greenhouse. We are hoping that is will be a major tomato growing factory for all the salsa and tomato sauce we want to can for winter. We will have 17 garden raised garden beds, a pumpkin patch, and the greenhouse...not to mention 9 chickens for eggs. Between our garden and our amazing CSA we should be set!

Mother Earth News has a really great online garden planner that I started testing out a few days ago...check it out!