Home Base

Goodness! I let myself get 3 months behind again. Speed blogging! After we got home from our Utah trip in October, we had several events scheduled. Our favorite little buddy Spencer was turning 3 and all he wanted for his birthday was One. Then was Four's birthday and the day after was the adoption finalization for my sister Becky's family.

I wrapped One on Spencer's porch, then rang the doorbell.

And then his poor older sister stepped out on their package and got scraped up.

After they went to dinner, we joined them at the house for a PJ Masks-themed cake party. Four was thrilled to be Owlet.

Oh, how we missed our forest!

{Five and Momma}

{Three and a forest friend}

"Mom, look at how strong I am! Take a picture of me!"

{Three}

We also missed watching football.

{Five}

Okay, only some of us. I didn't. But I can appreciate the bonding and cuddle time it is for the kids with Shad.

{Shad, Two, Five}

More football time.

{Four, Three, Five}

{Two, One}

I don't remember what we were at my mom's house for, but the kids were so excited to find a mantis in the backyard.

Grandma's bar stools are fun.

{Five}

Lots of traveling means that we cross time zones, stay up late, wake up early, do lots of activities that throw off naps. So it takes a while to recalibrate when we get home.

{Four}

We got Scarlet back! Yay for bunny bonding!

{Scarlet, Five, Four}

{Two}

New food: Ramen with dried seaweed, boiled eggs (Instant Pot!), and beef base, soy sauce, sriracha broth. Also new: success in using chopsticks!

{Two}

I like to humidify in Colorado's dryness and the kids like to practice window steam art. I taught Two how to make "footprints" with her palm. And I teased Five by freezing his feet off on the window.

Also Amazon boxes.

Five gave me a Katy Perry concert

Quiet time: kids playing Minecraft together.

{One and Two}

Right before I took this picture Three was panicking about dying. Apparently One thought it was better NOT to set her up in Creative mode...

When I come downstairs and find the kids entertaining themselves with Just Dance on YouTube.

{Five, One, Four}

Or experimenting with body art.

{Three and Two}

And bare-legged piracy.

{Five}

Back to my routines: morning bunny yoga. She likes to maneuver herself into cuddle positions when I'm planking or doing sun salutations.

{Scarlet and I}

She acted innocent for the picture, but she took advantage of my plank position and helped herself to chewing on my drawstrings.

All tuckered out from yoga!

And then I had this day...I don't remember all that I was making, but I think over the course of two days, I made 4 8" round cakes, 1.5 gallons of yogurt, 15 cups of granola, soup and homemade bread, zucchini bread, homemade ground chili pepper. The latter is not for the faint of heart. You freeze the peppers (harvested from my self-watering buckets and frozen in September before leaving for Utah), dehydrate them, then throw them in the blender or food processor. At this point, gloves and mask are necessary because some of the powder gets so fine and floats up into the air. I know from firsthand experience what that nose burn feels like. After blending, you sift the pepper powder to separate the flakes that don't blend. Then you've got ground pepper and pepper flakes. Tastes soooooo good!

Update: Green Onions

And they just keep growing! This is just so fun for me to see the progress every time I step out into the garden.

See the original post here.

Growing Green Onions

Last spring I planted store-bought green onions in these self-watering buckets I have in my backyard.(I'll post about those soon when I have pictures of the process.) I quit tending my garden last July when I could no longer get off the couch due to my complicated pregnancy (that was being 1 month pregnant then).

In March, when I came out of the house from my hibernation, I was greeted by a pleasant surprise--the onions had wintered over! Now I know why they're called Spring Onions. Not only had they survived the winter, but they were thriving!

Here's what they looked like 2 weeks ago, still without any care from my hand.

That stalk is as thick as my thumb!

Here's what the bucket system looks like:

Green onions are like grass--they keep growing and you can just cut the greens to have perpetual use out of them. I haven't been using them fast enough and now they're so heavy with the pods at the top that they're falling over! I'm excited to see what the pods do. Last year I also planted radishes, and then when my garden got plowed over at summer's end, the seeds spread through the space. Now my whole garden is full of wild radishes! I still haven't done a thing! All those white blossoms are the radish plants.

What are your favorite things to grow? Have you tried anything experimental?