Holiday Highlights

After all is said and all is done.

I am enjoying the quiet and reflecting.

By far my favorite Christmas so far.

One year old!

One year has passed! What??? How did that happen? It feels like yesterday I was walking around my house in labor. The beginning of last summer included a lot of waiting. Hoping today would be the day that my baby decided to join us. At last June 23,2008 he was ready. Our lives would never be the same. Everything from that point on would stop revolving around us and start to revolve around him. This picture is the quintessential moment when I think he started to feel that concept. All these people who care about him so much. Surrounding him, showering him with attention, love, and CAKE! His party was a beautiful day. A perfect celebration of his first year on this earth.

Our garden May 2009

I love hens and chicks, sedums and purple pansies!

Spring blooming native orchids and carnivorous plants full of buds!

Front yard: Our inground bog garden and lots of plants starting to grow

The beginning of the container gardening madness!

Basement grown veggies lined up, ready to be planted

Entrance to the back yard

I'm obsessed with chartreuse and purple!

another container...

blue bells and the native pinxterbloom azalea

april showers brought may flowers

sedum and pansy

The phlox coming up in our ice house container. A cool container we saved from being thrown away.

Our agave collection

A couple sunny and warm days and tons of rain and our garden is leaping from the ground! We couldn't be more excited! This is only the beginning...hope you enjoy!

Last week

Jason and Meade hanging out in the tree in Gramp's backyard, remembering all the wonderful times spent.

Jason and Meade on the Ferry

Meade sleeping in the car

Mommy helping Meade get his sea legs

This past week has been a hectic one. We did some traveling to and from Salisbury, MD (Gramp's hometown). Which includes a ferry ride and a bunch of driving. Total travel time...5 1/2 hours. Meade was such a good boy in the car. The ferry helped to break up all the driving and gave Meade an opportunity to get his sea legs. I thought I would share some pictures of our travels.

Gramps

Meade's great grandfather passed away this past week. It has been a sad, sad time for our family. We are so fortunate to have spent the time we did with him. To have learned what we learned from him. He was a great role model, a hard worker, a volunteer at hospice and a local thrift shop, an avid bird watcher, a gardener and loved more than anything to walk the family dogs. He was such a wonderful husband, dad, grandfather and great grandfather.

Meade really brightened his spirits during his final hours. We take comfort in knowing that. He lived to be 89 years old. But it still wasn't long enough. We miss you Gramps!

9 months old

Meade turned 9 months old today! It is unbelievably scary how fast time flies! He is getting to be such a big boy. I often wish I could freeze time and keep him this age forever. The future is something I look at with excitment and trepidation. I want to savor each end every moment while he is a baby. It's hard to imagine a time were he won't need me anymore. To be honest I don't want to imagine that. So now, we will just be in the moment of 9 months old...and in the grand scheme of life...it truly is only a moment.

We started off the day going to the carpet store. Not very exciting for a baby. But he did a good job waiting while I figured out what to get. He enjoyed touching all the different types of carpet. Thankfully we are in the final stages of redoing our front porch. It is going be Meade's new play area. The porch was in need of a face lift so I am happy that it has come together. I am amazed at what a coat of paint will do for a room. It is going to be a wonderful space for him to play. The carpet will make his next stages of development a little more comfortable.

Our pace has been picking up around here. With spring comes a whole different routine. Dad is back to work 6 days a week. I am back 3 days. I worked yesterday...it felt nice to get my hands dirty and to start working with plants again. Even though the ground is still cold and things are just starting to poke out of the soil. The greenhouse is super warm and full of cool plants just waiting to be potted up! http://www.calgogardens.com/ Check out our website!

Back to work!

I went back to work today... this week I am only going in one day. Next week I will start back to a part time schedule. Which will be 3 days a week. I must say I am overwhelmed. Anxiety is an emotion that comes extremely easy to me. So needless to say I have it...big time! There is so much to do in a short amount of time! One of my co-workers is not coming back this season. With me being part-time the responsibilities seem to be to much. I know everything always seems bad in the moment. I am going to try to sleep on it and hopefully will feel some relief in the morning....

On a brighter note yesterday needs to be reflected on briefly. It was a cloudy morning but we spent it at our local Le leche league meeting. My friend recently had a beautiful baby girl and we went together. It is always nice to get together with women that also nurse there children. It is a comfortable environment where I always end up learning something. The sun came out to accompany the warm weather so Meade and I hit the streets. We walked, went on the swing and just enjoyed being outside. I ended the day with a really nice yoga class. I have not been to a class since before I was pregnant. It was nice and gentle...something I really needed.

I will be teaching a couple workshops this spring at the garden center where I work. The picture I included is one thing people will be making....a bird feeder with a succulent green roof.