outside time

Suzie came to visit a couple weeks. Before she left she decided to replenish the kids sand box.
Gabe was thrilled about the sand. He played in it for probably an hour when he realized it wasn't coming off his hands and had a melt down...
Molly building a castle.

In my attempt to calm Gabe and keep him outside a bit longer we decided to play in the sprinkler.

Who knew skipping a week of cutting the grass would be such a mess? It really didn't look long, but it was. The mower shut down on me a couple times. boo. Anyway the sprinkler was messier than the sand.

This is our first year gardening. We planted late so we decided to just plant 3 things.
zucchini. green peppers. tomatoes.
I've learned a few things. Did you know that your ground can be low in calcium? My zucchini kept growing about 6 inches long and then rotting. I mentioned that to my sister who informed me that if your soil is lacking calcium the flower won't fall off causing your plants to rot. I had no idea.
(Look at Gabe's watch. A couple weeks ago we were in Target. I was looking at the clearance bins in the jewelry section. Gabe saw a watch and asked if he could try it on. He then asked in the cutest most sincere Gabe voice "Mom I please have this watch? I take it home with me? I really like this watch." I told him it was a girl watch. He proceeded to ask if he could have a boy watch. I told him that we could look. Wouldn't you know they had a WWF watch for $1.74 The price was right so I told Gabe he could have the watch with the "strong man" on it. I thought he would wear it for a couple of days and then it would get lost in the bottom of the toy box with so many other toys. To my surprise Gabe has worn his watch everyday for the past couple weeks. He's so proud of it. He shows it to everyone. "See this is my watch. What time is it?" He carefully takes it off and puts it in the same place every night. It's adorable. )

I also learned that 9 tomato plants might be too many. I've been picking between 8-12 tomatoes a day.