Going for the Gold

It's been Olympic fever here. We hardly ever watch TV, but we've been tuning in pretty much every day since the games started. With all the furor over the young Chinese gymnasts at the Olympics, Mirabel told us she was old enough to go for the gold. She has been practicing on the double arching bars and is working really hard to stick her landings. We told her it would help her scores if she could stand on her own and she assured us she was working on it. Her practice was cut short by a round of spit-up, but we've been very impressed with her work ethic. Go for it, sweetie!

Wonderful Mirabel...

I'll chunk out my entries. Going back to work has gone pretty smoothly, but I'm so glad I'm easing in. Three days at work, four days at home makes the week easier to take than if I'd jumped right back to full time. Our little peanut is growing fast! I weighed her today by getting on the scale with and without her, and she's somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 lbs. Her 4 month checkup is coming up the end of this month, so we'll get the official measurements then. Mirabel is a really happy baby. I'm thrilled to be done with the crying that permeated weeks 4-6. She smiles, vocalizes, and has started to entertain herself. She is very interested in what is going on around her and studies patterns and people (including herself.) She found her thumb last week, though it's not a regular habit yet. She doesn't really nap consistently, but does usually sleep through the night. I guess I'd prefer that vs. napping and up lots of time during the night. We're looking forward to getting to know more and more about her as she grows and reveals her personality!

I took these pictures of Mirabel and Dave this past week and posted my favorite one here. (I uploaded the series online and will add more pics when I have time. Probably later this week.) Mirabel August Pics

Whirlwind week...

For those of you who haunt our blog (mom and Heather...at least...) we've been busy over the past week! Mirabel has been growing and discovering new things, we went up north to a cabin for a week with Dave's family, and upon returning home Mirabel and I traveled back to the 1860s at Fort Snelling for the past two days. I have one day to recover before starting back to work 3 days a week this Tuesday. So, I have pictures and things to say, but the details are going to have to wait just a bit. (How's that for tantalizing?) :) More soon.

Stinking animal!

Some animal decided it didn't like our blueberry bushes (newly planted this year, you recall). It chewed or tore through our fence (two sides...for entry and exit, I suppose) and completely dug up a bush, leaving the roots exposed after it tossed it aside. Who knows if it will survive the replanting. Another bush has most of its leaves chewed off...though that may have been a deer. What kind of animal terrorizes blueberry bushes? And why is the one bush that is outside of the fence the one doing best? I guess that hostas and day lilies are better protection than a fence. Clever marketers should pick up on this..."Aggressive hostas! Put these around your cherished garden plants to ward off intruders." Seriously, I'm not a big fan of any type of animal, but I can co-exist as long as they leave me alone. In this case, I feel like the animal needs to back away from my goods. And Steph, I'm sorry to see your garden woes...the corn didn't make out so well. It certainly makes one appreciate the small farmer who toils to bring food from seed to harvest.

Update: I've added pictures. The first one is the healthy bush...in front of the hosta and day lily. Next, the hole (my foot added for perspective.) Sad looking bush (this is the one with leaves chewed off, not the dug up and replanted). Finally, the garden as a whole...

Psst...you wanna buy a...

Dave and I have accumulated a lot of stuff. We are both frugal (meaning we don't spend much on accumulating it) but we are both savers (that is to say, we love to rescue usable things from going in the garbage). A dangerous proposition when you have two story, four bedroom house with full unfinished basement and large garage. The basement has been filled to the brim with things that we deem useful (even if not for us). We took advantage of my maternity leave to post a bunch of it on Craigslist. So far, we've gotten over $750 from selling our things. If you want to satisfy your curiosity with this remote sale, you can find out what's left by searching "roseville cleanup" in the Minneapolis/St. Paul section of craigslist.org. And if you want some of it real cheap, we won't hold you back. No, really....I know someone in the biz...we'll make you a good deal...real good... :)

How does your garden grow?

Ours is doing ok. Everything got a late start, just like the big farms, due to the colder spring. I planted 10 tomatoes, and 9 are growing. The tenth mysteriously disappeared- the WHOLE PLANT was just gone one day. I have no idea what happened to that. Last I knew, there were not a whole lot of natural tomato predators. My rhubarb plant is huge, and Dave put in several rows of lettuce and spinach and those are growing pretty big now. However, I'm wondering if some animal got in and rolled around, because several plants were upright yesterday but now are sort of on their side.


We also have several fruit trees- a cherry and two apple- and we just planted 5 blueberry bushes this year. The strawberry patch is growing great, but never a strawberry do we get to eat...the rascally animals always eat them first. Same with our raspberry bushes we planted which they have chewed down to the nubs three years running. Fortunately, our next door neighbors have some and share the picking rights. The cherry tree was disappointing this year- just a handful of cherries. The rest never showed up or else were eaten by the birds. And our apple trees just went in last year. There are about 5 apples on each tree, but we'll see if they actually make it to eating stage.


We also have about 5 containers of herbs, like basil, cilantro, rosemary, thyme, and chives. Yum! Problem with those is I usually forget to use them.


We're trying to plant a lot of food on our lot, especially things that are on the dirty dozen (those fruits and veggies that have the most pesticides in them). or are terribly expensive in stores but easy to grow, like the herbs. It's going to take a few years to get it all up and going, but hopefully we'll be in pretty good shape 5 years from now.


We want to get another cherry tree and maybe a pear...and I would like to get a fence for our raspberry and strawberry areas...after 4 years, I think I deserve more than one strawberry!!

Mirabel stats

We went in for M's 2 month appointment today- she's up to 24 inches long (at the 88th percentile), weighs 11 lbs, 11 oz (54th percentile), and got rave reviews from the doctor and nurse for her developmental milestones. Despite having an upper size head at birth, it’s only at the 39th percentile now, but she manages to do the most with the brains she’s got! She's a little charmer- I uploaded some new pictures.