Our 2017 Garden | Step 1: Buy Plants 🌱

First of all, it is only Tuesday evening and I already feel like it's been a long week. 😂 Most of that is due to the fact that June's had a rough couple of days. She just seems... off. Extra tender. Extra frustrated. Extra everything. Poor girl! Added with the fact that we'd planned to start potty training yesterday, and have since thrown that out the window entirely because she just cries and cries and says "Noooo please" when we ask her to try sitting on the potty, I am also feeling extra tender. Extra frustrated. Extra everything. Oi vey. 😂 That's just motherhood sometimes. I am learning to lean into it and be okay with tossing everything out the window and just enjoying what the day has for me instead. One of the ways I am able to do that is by taking my real camera along for the "every day things" June and I do together. It helps me focus on how beautiful the little things really are.

Today's plan: buy stuff for our garden. 😍 Last year we ripped up part of the parking area at the back of our yard that we never use and put in four raised gardening beds! You can see those before/progress photos here!

June and I only grabbed a few of the basics for our garden today, as I'm sure I'll go back several times yet to purchase more once I've begun to fill the beds and figure out the design.

I picked up some yellow and red cherry tomatoes, a few pepper plants, green beans and cucumbers. June picked up 18 containers of Golden Lemon Thyme and had to be convinced that we only need one. "Dat one" she'd say and point to all the pots we "needed for our cart". 

I kept trying to get June to smell the herbs, but she'd either get it too close to her face and get upset (I told you she's tender these days), or she'd rub the leaves with one hand but then sniff the other! Ha ha ha! Which reminds me of this kid from America's Funniest Home Videos who licks his one hand but then uses the other to turn the magazine page. 😂

It's been so beautiful in Manheim the last few days, so I was happy to let Junie wander around outside before we paid for our items. After all, there was a giant gravel area outside and how. can. you. not. play in it?

So, there you have it. Just a little bit of what my day looked like. I am really looking forward to planting everything we bought today and seeing how the entire garden turns out. I learned a lot last year about which areas get the best sun, what we wished we'd planted more of, and which flowers did well in the heat. I'll share more with ya'll when I've started planting!

Are you planting anything this year? I'd love to know!

Also, if you're local - check out The Flower Wagon in Manheim, PA. Crazy low prices on the best stuff!

Longwood Gardens - Orchid Extravaganza!

I love taking June to new places, or watching her experience new things. Last week she ate a Skittle for the first time and I honestly thought her mind was going to explode. 😂 She just looked at me, wide-eyed, and said "Yummmmmy!" It was precious. So naturally, it was loads of fun seeing her experience Longwood Gardens for the first time last month. Technically she'd been to Longwood Gardens before, but she was only a few months old at the time and had no idea what was going on. I mean, she was incredibly adorable during the visit, which was enough to make some old ladies stop and take a photo with her 😂, but other than that, she basically just sat in her stroller while my Mom and I pointed out every other plant and flower, saying "Ohhh, look!" or more often, "Ohhh... why doesn't mine look like that?" Our most recent visit was much different, however! June looked at everything, while sprinting from one room to the next, barley giving us adults time to look at anything.

If you haven't been to Longwood Gardens before, you've gotta go. And you've got to go during different times of the year, too. Last month was the first time I'd had the chance to go and visit their Orchid Extravaganza. And holy cow, it was incredible. On the drive down there I thought to myself, "I mean, it'll be pretty. But like, I've seen lots of orchids at weddings and they're cool and all..." But no joke. It was mind blowing how many orchids there were - both in quantity and variety. My photos from our day do not do it justice!

This past November my Grandpa passed away at the beautifully old age of 95, leaving behind a family member/descendant for every year he was alive. Yes, you read that right, 95 people -- between his children and their spouses, their kids (my cousins) and spouses, and now their kids (like, June). How amazing is that! After my Grandmother passed away, when I was little, my Grandpa got remarried to a lovely lady by the name of Liz. My Grandpa and Grandma-Liz were married for a little over 22 years before he left us last fall. That is amazing, in and of itself.

I tell you all that to say, Liz was a major part of our family and loved Grandpa, and all of us, so well for all those years. She was even the inspiration for our Easter Egg Roll, where we literally bowl our Easter eggs down their long driveway every spring! Her children and family, however, live in New York and she is currently in the process of moving there now. Our trip to Longwood Gardens, with Liz, my Mom, June and I, was to honor Liz in a non-formal way, and spend a little more time with her before she packs up all of her things and starts fresh in New York, at the age of 74.

I think I can speak for all of us when I say we had a wonderful time walking around the gardens, breathing in that fresh "greenhouse air", annnnnnd chasing after June.

Several times throughout our visit I just had to strap June into her stroller so we could walk at the pace we wanted to. 😂 She was like a little rocket flying down the paths at full speed! And both my Mom and I dressed way too warm, so were sweating like crazy in the warm gardens, trying to keep up with sprint-legs-mc-gee!

One of June's favorite parts had nothing to do with the orchids at all, but was the puddles on the floor in one of the main gardens. She was insistent that my Mom run through them with her, back and forth, back and forth. (Insert another reason we were incredibly sweaty!)

You can imagine how thrilled she was when we ended our visit at the actual Children's garden and water play area.  They have little bugs you can scoop up out of the fountains, "paint brushes" you can use to paint the water on the walls, and loads of animal fountains that spout water across the distance of the entire garden!

Note: June totally thinks she's splashing me in the images below. 😂 Even though I was a good 4 feet from her with my camera at the time. She was giddy with excitment over "splashing Mama".

I would have let her really play and get wet in the fountains had it not been so cold outside! (We had a long walk back to our car, too.) I definitely want to go back in the summer when she can get as wet as she wants. I think I'll even bring her a change of clothes!

After watching the pelican fountain (below) blow bubbles in the water for what seemed like forever, we convinced June to leave the kid's gardens with the promise of lunch! We grabbed food at the cafe, which is delicious by the way, and eventually headed back out to our car and drove home.

It was a beautiful and refreshing day that I will remember for a long time. I am so glad I took my camera with me to capture those moments for us to look back on.

Also -- June and I are sending so much love to Grandma Liz on her new adventure in New York!

A Trip to the Greenhouse

Is it just me, or does anyone else feel totally crazy because it's still cold, and wintery, and everyone I know (ourselves included) is sick right now!?! Gah!

June, bless her heart, asks to go to the park every single day, but it's just too cold, or too wet to be able to play outside.. So, this morning, she and I took a little trip to one of the local greenhouses - to breathe in the fresh air, see all of the pretty plants, and get some of her energy out. I think I needed it just as much as she did. I just kept saying to her, "Look! Everything is soooo green! And, not... dead." Then she started saying, "Dead?" and pointing to different things and I figured, ehhh... I better stop saying that. 😂

She stayed in the cart for a little while, but quickly realized there were puddles to splash around in and wanted out immediately! She also kept asking me if I needed to put the "lid" (lens cap) back on my camera. So cute.

June will be two years old next weekend (gasp!!), and all she wants to talk about is colors. Colors of crayons, and birds, and food, and blankets, and animals. Needless to say, she was pumped up about all the different cactus colors. She just stood there pointing at each one, saying "ohhh, pink!", "ohhh, yeyloww", "ohhh, bwue!"

(Note: her sweet little cheeks with a rash from being sick.)

We stomped in puddles for a long time, walked up and down each aisle over and over again, and she pointed out every single lawn ornament animal and made the sounds to go with them. 😂 Ribbit, ribbit!

Eventually we wandered over to where all of the planters and pots are, and she pointed out each color, clapping for herself when she got it right. I dreamt about filling my front and pack porch with 5,000 potted plants. Seems like a realistic goal.

If you're ever looking for something to do with your kids on a rainy day, or when it's just too cold out to function, check out your local greenhouse! I always leave feeling refreshed, with a brown bag full of plants. No complaints here. 

June and I visited Esbenshade's Garden Center and Greenhouse in Lititz, PA. But you can Google "Greenhouses Near Me" and find your own!