Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Garden Update

Brown Acres is a little neglected these days.....


...and for good reason! Baby Ronan is a month old and needs me alot. And I enjoy every minute of it. 
Part of me misses the garden though. 
Today, I got to make my rounds of the acre during morning nap. 


Look how cute Marceline is! She is one of the silkie chicks I hatched early this spring.


This is an Americauna chicken named Hawk.

The weeds are growing great here at Brown Acre! This is K-man's raised bed from last year. It didn't get planted this year (for obvious reasons) but look what came up! These beautiful flowers! I don't know what they are though...poppies??


My poor, neglected garden. The deer have decimated a lot of stuff, other plants just aren't doing well, and everything got planted later than normal. Oh, and it is a weedy mess. 

Our one peach that is growing! First year. I hope the birds or other critters don't get to it before it ripens.


My Raised Beds:
Garlic, broccoli, squash, and zucchini. Oh and some carrots.
I was a little random in planting at 9+ months preggo in May. 


Weeds. And some beans, onions, and squash.


Poor, pitiful tomatoes. Deer and blight are going to get the best of me.


Lots of randomness here. Broccoli, squash, carrots, and I just recently planted some beans on the far right end. (See my harvest basket peeking in the back?)


Stupid deer. These are supposed to be beans. Sunflowers on the left end. Zucchini on the bottom. I replanted the beans last night. We shall see how this goes....


Some other critter (deer maybe? More likely a groundhog) got in and ate up my strawberry plants. Did I mention the electric fence wasn't working for a few days? I also have some pitiful looking pepper plants here. 

Tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, and a pepper plant. Random, I told ya. 


The flower bed. There is a big bear spot in the center...not sure what that it about. But the flowers on the left will be gorgeous when they start blooming. I love fresh cut flowers in the house and garden. 

Here are the deer beans. They were blooming and beautiful. And then this. Ugh. Makes me sick. 

Apparently, deer don't like oregano. It is HUGE! Weird thing is I didn't even plant it this year. It is from last year and overwintered somehow. I'm not complaining, ya'll. 

Tomatoes on right. Corn on left. The tops of the corn was also eaten, but they have recovered. I didn't even know corn could do that! I hope we get some this year. I have never had good luck with corn for whatever reason. If not, I'm coming to your garden, Mom and Dad, and stealing some corn. Here's your warning=). 

Cluster of tomatoes.

Nothing can kill swiss chard. This is overwintered as well. Sad thing is....I don't like swiss chard. 

I did manage to plant one hill from last year. it is very weedy, but the squash don't seem to care. I have muskmelon, acorn squash, and butternut squash here. 

My butterfly bush is going crazy! I love watching the swarms of butterflies landing on it all summer long. I got this plant as a cutting from my momma. Since then I have done three more cuttings from this  one and planted them around the house. I may do some more around the greenhouse....speaking of....


The greenhouse is going crazy! Deer don't like greenhouses. Proven fact. 
We planted these tomatoes super early this year to test out the greenhouse capabilities. 
So far so good!! Except we didn't stake them...and now they are everywhere! 

After taking these photos, I spent a few minutes tying most of the tomato plants up. It looks much better now. 

Giant sunflower in the greenhouse.


Spillage of tomatoes.


In addition to replanting some beans last night, I also weeded five out of the 11 raised beds in my garden. It felt SO good to be outside and working in the dirt. 

Even though I love to garden, soak up the sun, sweat, and play in the dirt, I love my boys so much more. Being their mom trumps anything else. 
So, my garden is a mess this year. Things aren't growing. Deer are stupid. 

And ya know what? It's ok with me. 
Because I get to be a momma to two fantastic boys. 
It doesn't get any better than that.
 ...even when they are crying=).


Thursday, June 27, 2013

One Month Old! What?!?



Can you believe this little face is one month old already???







Time has flown by....but also creeped along. 





My sweet little Ronan is changing so much every day! 
We have a doc appointment on Monday, so I am curious to see how much weight he has gained. 
Currently, he is still in newborn clothes! But he fills them out much better now, and I have a feeling he will be in the 0-3 month soon. 

I'm feeling myself again, thank goodness! Those post partum hormone changes can be rough! Luckily, I think that the worst is behind me, as I feel pretty good these days. 

So far, we have no real schedule, other than eating every 1-2 hours a day and 1-3 hours at night. A couple of nights we have even had a 4 hour stretch!!! But that was after a particularly fussy day....

Nursing is going splendidly! I'm so thankful for this and can relate to the mommas who struggle with BFing because I totally did with my first. Luckily, Ronan has been great at it! 

Ronan has been diagnosed with reflux=(. 
It is the saddest thing to see him hurting. He will wake up out of a dead sleep just screaming and squealing and you can just tell that something hurts.
He is taking zantac twice a day, but so far we haven't seen much improvement in either the spitting up or painfulness. 
Hopefully it starts working soon, or we will need to try something else. Some days, it is so bad that the poor little guy just can't stay asleep at all. It is exhausting for everyone involved!

Other days, he seems to catch up on sleep. Some days look like this:


And then some look like this.....


Overall though, he is the most wonderful little thing in my life. K-man is a wonderful big thing in my life too=). 

I think we have had a couple grins from Ronan, even though they say they are from gas, it seems like he is smiling in response to us! I LOVE it. 

I don't want to jinx us, but nights seem to be getting a little better. He is still up every couple hours, but most of the time goes right back to sleep....which is awesome. 

Its hard to decide during sleep times if I should sleep as well, or shower, clean, sew, work on my shop, etc. Sometimes sleep wins. Other times the laundry does.

Speaking of the shop, I am trying to post some more aprons and other items for a bit more variety in my online shop. At craft shows, I always have folks that want to buy aprons online, but I don't post them very often, so I am trying to remedy that. =). The goal is to make a little bit of money with the shop so that I don't have to go back to work right away. Fingers crossed. I'm trying to work hard at getting the shop where I want it to be. 
Soon, I will have the new blog up and running, and I am so excited!!!
The new address will be www.theprettypickle.com
I will blog and have my shop in one place...how convenient!! 

I wanted to get some opinions on what you would like to see in my shop. 

More Aprons??

More Earrings??

Baby items??

Purses, bags, totes, pouches??

More Customizable items?

Hit me with your best ideas!! Or shoot me a message on my FB page https://www.facebook.com/theprettypickle

I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to hear some new ideas! 

Monday, June 10, 2013

My Baby Story

I have a brief moment to write a quick post about my baby story! As most of you know, I gave birth to Ronan Thomas Brown on May31st at 6:36am. 
He was 7lbs 1oz 19 inches long.

But let me back up...
I was trying to VBAC and when I went over my due date, even with all the home remedies and doctor prodding, my doc decided to induce me. 
We got up early on Thursday morning, loaded our bags into the car, double checked the car seat, and went to the hospital. 

11 days ago

In the parking lot. 



Anxious, nervous, and excited! 


They got me into a gown pretty quickly and things started to roll. 

They started low dose pitocin along with antibiotics (which hurt like the dickens going in my iv) around 9am.
I wasn't progressing as they wanted so, they put a balloon type thing in my cervix to help it dilate. TMI? sorry. 

At around 4 centimeters, I wimped out and asked for the epidural. I knew from the beginning I wanted it, but thought I would hold off a little longer than that....oh well. I'm not a fan of pain. =)
The epidural was quite the experience. They hit a nerve in my back, which made my right leg shoot straight up! It was pretty scary. Felt like the worst funny bone accident ever. 
It started working pretty quickly, and I was nice and relaxed after that....

Then we waited....and waited....and nothing was happening. My body wasn't cooperating. Stupid cervix.

I eventually dilated to a 6. 
This was later at night...not sure what time....
Mom, Kait, and Zach stayed with me all night. We decided to get some rest. 
A couple times, several people rushed into our room and started turning me all kinds of directions. The baby's heartbeat was dropping, and when they turned me, it would go back up. 
Around 6am, his HB dropped again and they couldn't get it back up. It was this point they said we must do an emergency c-section.
Talk about scary. 
I was out of the room and unhooked from everything in less than a minute. 
I was rushed to the OR where they checked the HB again. It had come back up, thank goodness, but they still wanted to proceed with the c-section. At this point, I had labored for almost 24 hours and was ready, though disappointed for the c-section. 

I was afraid Zach wasn't going to make it to the OR in time, but after a few minutes I looked up and there he was=). A few minutes later, Ronan was born. I heard nurses talking about his head full of hair and couldn't help but ask what color it was. When they said it was black, I was shocked! Not what either Z or I had expected. =)

Ronan was whisked away for a few minutes because his oxygen levels were low, but they normalized and everything was good to go. I got patched up and sent back to my room, where Ronan was already waiting for me. He is beautiful!


My sweet baby.

Proud grandparents! 


Uncle Joel is in love!

Daddy Z trying to figure out the diapering thing. This was late one night, and one of the black poo's I believe. Z said it was like tar!

Resting. 




The hospital was pretty stressful after the c-section, because we hardly slept at all! Baby Ronan has had some belly issues that hurt and make him cry (shriek is more like it). 

After a few more days in the hospital, we were able to come home. 


Every day, Ronan gets a little less fussy. I think the belly issues are subsiding. 



Nana has enjoyed coming to visit and singing to Ronan. His eyes go directly to her when she is singing and do not leave her until she is done! So sweet.

We've had some other vistors as well. It is so nice to be loved and thought of by so many!

While lack of sleep is definitely on the menu these days, we are so happy and blessed by this little life that has been given to us. 

We love you Ronan Thomas! 



Thursday, May 23, 2013

Sewing Chair and an Update

 Tomorrow is my due date! Ahh! I can't believe it is here. And no baby yet...

But he could come at any time and I have an appointment tomorrow, so we shall see how soon my doc thinks it will be. 

I'm feeling pretty good overall! 
I've worked in the garden this week, cleaned a bunch of stuff (I've currently got the cleanest fridge in all of Colfax Land),  and worked on this chair!


K-man and I went to an estate sale and bought this chair for a measly $3! Nothing was wrong with it either, other than it was missing one screw to hold the seat on....
I was super pleased with this find! I LOVE the detail on the chair back. 

But this girl was in desperate need of a new cushion/fabric. It was so hard and lumpy and just plain ugly. 

So, I proceeded to sand and paint the chair white. It was such beautiful wood, but I knew for my purposes I wanted it white. So white it became. I had to do a good three coats of spray paint.

I then distressed the paint using a fine sanding block to give it some character and add some age back into it. 

Next came the recovering phase......
I stripped off the old fabric and found this lovely silk stripe underneath! I left it there just because I felt like it...=)
I wrapped the seat with four layers of batting (because it is what I had on hand...if I had foam, I totally would have used that instead).
I tightly stapled each side in place, then went back around and stapled until it was securely in place.

Next comes fabric.....
I thought I was going to use a french countryside toile in black and white, but then I remember this beautiful piece and everything made sense! I needed a new comfy chair for my sewing table....and this was PERFECT. 
I love it when things come together like this. 

So I laid out the fabric and laid the ugly old fabric on top so that I cut enough, but wasn't wasteful for the new top. I added a few inches on all sides because I knew that the batting would add some height. 

Yes, my belly is poking into this photo...haha! I thought I was being so careful! 




 Here is the lovely fabric up close:                            Here is the chair painted and ready for the next step
Onto covering! 
I start stapling on one side, pulling very tight and placing a staple (make sure if you have a directional fabric, it is running in the right direction...I actually had to redo this part because of that rookie mistake=)
I then pull from the opposite side, tightly and place a staple in the center.
Repeat with the other two sides. 
Then I went back around and placed staples along all edges, pulling tightly as I went.


Almost done! 
The last thing I had to do was screw the chair seat back onto the chair frame. Easy Peasy.


Check out the detail and distressing...

At my craft table...pardon the mess. I'm terrible about cleaning up after myself down here, but I did want to show how good it looked. Perfect height too. 

I tried to get some better lighting outside...here it is.






Overall, I'm pretty pleased. 


In other news, I've been trying to spend as much quality time with K-man after school as possible. 
I know his world is about to turn upside down, going from only child to big brother. 
He is going to be so great at being a big brother, but I know parts of the transition are going to be hard for him. So, I want him to have some good memories of fun things to last him over the course of the next few weeks, when my attention is on baby. 


We caught a turtle.

Played some games...

And fed the ducks/geese. 

these guys were aggressive! It was slightly scary but humorous at the same time. 



We had a great walk the other day too! (Ok, so that served two purposes....moving baby down and bonding time=). 


Can't wait for baby to get here! We are so excited!



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