Lacrosse season

I realized that I haven't even mentioned lacrosse this spring.  For me, this is the most relaxed, laid-back season in many years.  I'm sure Jared can't say the same.  He is the coach for Erik's team so he has practice twice a week and games on Saturday.  I only have to make it to the games.  I remembered to take the camera last week and took a picture of Jared with his team and Erik on the field.  Yeah, he's the one with no shirt under his penny, of course.  He is a good player -way more aggresive than Peter ever was.  I'm hoping he keeps enjoying it and can be a star player in high school.  We just bought him a new stick today so he better stick with it; those aren't cheap. :-)

Silver lining

I feel like I am back in Connecticut.  It rains and rains and rains.  The kids have to be inside, it's rather gloomy and chillier than it should be.  However, there is always a silver lining; we haven't had to water the garden!  We haven't had to worry about trying to drag a hose around to water the newly planted seeds without pulling out all the seeds with said hose.  The peas are loving this weather and the corn has even already come up!  The fruit trees are benefiting as well.

The corn is up!

The spinach is getting close to picking size, and those tiny light green leaves in the trough?  Yeah, those are the lettuce that didn't stay put.

Today we got the pepper plants and all our little pepper seedlings and broccoli, cabbage and onion seedlings in.  It is supposed to rain again on Monday and Tuesday and then be beautiful so we figured today would be a good day to get them adjusted.

The tomatoes are in too.  We planted 14 plants and none of them are cherry or grape tomatoes this time!  Those were crazy last year.

As I said, the peas are absolutely loving this cool, extremely wet spring.  They are growing like weeds.

The fruit trees are beautifully blossomed and smell heavenly. The bees were buzzing all over the blossoms, but they wouldn't stay still for a picture.  The strawberries are starting to blossom as well and the leaves are coming out on the grapevines.

Garden 2011, here we go again . . .

Nice days have finally arrived and the garden is getting on its way.

Onions are in . . .

Spinach is up . . .

Peas are growing strong . . .

Fruit trees are in bloom . . .

Except for the new d'Anjou pear and Honeycrisp apple that we planted this year - expanding our orchard a little this year.

The grapes are all budded and we are hoping for more grapes to eat this year . . .

and we are working on the watering system today to get it all up and running.  Every year we make a few little tweaks to the garden and have to make adjustments to the watering system, but fortunately it doesn't cost very much to get the few pvc pieces.  Now,with a little bit of rain, a lot of sunshine, no more frost and NO bugs we should have a plentiful garden.

Just call me Martha . . . and mini Martha

I guess because I achieved great success with my Easter Jello, it gave me the confidence to try other culinary projects. Here is the latest - cake pops! Gooshy mashed up cake and icing rolled into a ball and covered with chocolate and vanilla candy coating. Yum! Main was a dear and helped out with them too.

I made that!

Let's just start off by saying I am NOT a creative person.  Oh, I can copy like a master sometimes, but I do not come up with great artistic ideas.  For example, I buy cupcake cookbooks as "coffee table" books to look at.   My friend Tricia and my sisters-in-law are the ones that would actually use them.

 

Well, I signed up to make cupcakes for Teacher Appreciation Week at my kids' elementary school and I decided I was going to give it a go.  To make a long story short, since I am short on time - I have to get said cupcakes to the school - I rocked them!!  And I went one further.  The "lemon meringue" cupcakes?  Totally my idea!  Woo hoo!  To quote the Winter Warlock in one of my favorite movies, "I'm not such a loser after all!" :-)

Marin just let me know that I failed to give her any credit.  She was my M&Mer, helping me put in the "berries" and "lemon filling".  Couldn't have done it without her.  Sorry, sweetie!

And here is the evolution: