Photos and stories of an ordinary life.
Every Friday we order pizza from one of our favorite local markets. I usually get the meat lovers pizza with artichoke, but tonight I thought I’d try something a little different.
Toppings: fresh pineapple, roasted garlic, red onions, mozzarella cheese, and buffalo mozzarella cheese.
It was delicious! Definitely getting this pizza again!
Happy Friday! 💜 XO
The kitchen is where I spend most of time during the week. It’s the heart of our home.
A lot of cooking, talking, laughing, discussing, learning, praying, and visiting happen in our kitchen.
Today it was making homemade food, listening to my 8-year-old read his library book, sharing my oldest daughter’s joy of her passing her driver’s test, listening to my favorite music playlists, and catching up with my husband after he got off from work.
It ended up not storming too badly despite yesterday’s weather predictions.
At least, it didn’t storm where we live. I didn’t check the news yet to see what the weather was like for surrounding areas.
I’m relieved the garden is still holding strong. Although just a few plants have yellowish leaves from too much rain.
Tomorrow’s weather report predicts a full day of sun. I hope so because even I’m over all this rain.
Also, the kids and I are feeling better than we did yesterday and the day before that. Almost at 100% better!
Tomorrow, the kids want me to help them make homemade chocolate cupcakes. They’ve been planning a movie party for Friday night—popcorn, pizza, and chocolate cupcakes.
So you know what that means—I’ll be spending more time in the kitchen tomorrow! 😊
💜 XO
We’re supposed to get a storm later tonight. Possible thunderstorms, flash flooding, and tornado.
I hope it just rains and there aren’t any bad storms, but if we do have harsh weather tonight, I hope everyone takes the necessary precautions and stays safe!
We prepped our basement in case water gets in it. This type of flash flooding is very common for southeast Michigan.
I also worked on moving our garden grow bags to spots outside that will hopefully keep them safe from the storm.
We’ve had unusually cooler temps all week with rain off and on. My poor summer vegetables and some of my transplants are freaking out. 😩
They’re like, “Girl, what is going on?! I can’t stand up straight.” 😏😆
It should be sunny tomorrow, so I’m hoping the soil can dry out and the stressed plants perk up.
I’m feeling much better than I did yesterday. The rest did me good. The kids are getting better each day, too. I think by next Monday everyone will be feeling 100% better.
This viral bug has a slow recovery. We rarely get sick in the summer. 😏 I’m very thankful everyone is healing comfortably at home.and no one had to go to the doctor!
And since we’re feeling a little better, I decided to make a sweet treat for the family — homemade peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. 😋🍪
Of course, my chef assistant Zaya (5) helped. 😄 She LOVES cooking! 😍
I’ll share my homemade peanut butter chocolate chip cookie recipe in another post. The cookies are DELICIOUS! It’s hard to eat just one! 😋🍪
💜 XO
I’ve been sick since Friday, and most of my days have been spent in bed resting.
So, naturally when you’re sick, you binge watch TV. I’ve been watching a ton of gardening videos (of course! 😂) on YouTube and some Heartland (my comfort show).
But why is there nothing interesting to watch on Netflix?! 😲
This evening, I spent 30 min searching through Netflix’s content, and I only found maybe 5 or 6 movies/shows that seem interesting. They’re all older, too. Maybe between 2007 – 2021.
I pay $20/month for what exactly? 😏 I’m seriously thinking about canceling my subscription. Lol
💜 XO
American traditional tattoos—I love the classic, vintage imagery and bold colors and lines.
Despite feeling sick today (I have a cold 🤒), I spent a little time in the garden. The fresh air was actually really helpful for me.
Travis helped me plant our herbs in 2-gallon grow bags and add fertilizer to some of the veggies.
We found a local plant store that sells the 2-gallon bags for only $1.29 each! The size is perfect for the herbs and lettuce.
I only had enough energy to garden for about 30 minutes, but it was exactly what I needed! I think I’ll feel a little better tomorrow to work in the garden a bit more.
💜 XO
Zhen (13) and I have been reading a kid-friendly retelling of Hamlet. I found this great find at our local public library!
I thought reading Hamlet For Kids (by Lois Burdett) together would be a fun way to introduce Zhen to Shakespeare without overwhelming her with heavy Elizabethan English.
Today, we read the part of the drama when Hamlet sees his father’s ghost and the ghost tells him Claudius killed Hamlet’s father.
“What does prophetic soul mean?” Zhen asked after reading the passage.
I broke it down for her by asking her to think of what a prophet means and what they do.
I explained, “So, this is basically Hamlet’s poetic way of saying, ‘I knew it! I knew it was my Uncle Claudius!’ Hamlet was suspicious of his uncle, and now the ghost has confirmed those suspicions.”
“Ohhhh, so Claudius is sus!” Zhen exclaimed. 🤣
We both started laughing, and I said, “Well…yeah! I guess King Claudius is sus!”
Such a Gen Alpha way to explain Shakespeare! Haha 😄😎 But it made me happy Zhen made the connection!
💜 XO
A quiet day at home with waffles, Little House on the Prairie, and junk journaling.
All we do is spend our spring days at local greenhouses, and I’m perfectly happy with that! 😊🌿
Soon it will be officially summer (next week to be exact! 😲), and I’ll be focusing on maintaining the garden and transplanting some of my plants that I started from seeds.
Also, the season for buying fruit/veggie plant starts is starting to wind down. It’s a good time to catch deals on leftover plants.
Today, I stopped by one of my favorite farm stores and took advantage of a BOGO sale. I bought candy onions, celery, romaine lettuce, Italian parsley, and asparagus (just for fun 😉 because I know this crop won’t be ready this season).
I’m trying to fill in some empty spaces in our garden! 😄
How’s your gardening going so far?
💜 XO
P.S.—here’s what we bought at the beginning of garden season.
We found volunteer sunflower sprouts growing in between the sidewalk. It was such a random thing to see that at first I thought they were just weeds.
But as the sprouts continued to grow taller, I inspected their leaves and told Travis, “I think these are sunflowers!” 😲🌻
I didn’t even know sunflowers could grow in such a tight space. Haha! But some plants are known to grow just about anywhere, I suppose. 😄
I do wonder if we hadn’t of “rescued” the random sunflower sprouts, could they have survived growing in between the sidewalk?
We did have two sprouts that needed more time to grow their roots, so I’ve been giving them some TLC in a repurposed honey jar.
This morning, I checked the sprouts, and one is finally ready to go in a pot of soil. Once it outgrows it’s pot, I will transplant it into a grow bag.
We have five of the volunteer sunflower sprouts currently growing in our garden beds.
They weren’t too happy about being transplanted, but after a few days and some good rainy days, they perked up and are now happy and thriving in the garden!
So, where did the volunteer sunflowers come from? My winter bird feeder! 😂
The birds/squirrels must’ve dropped the seeds, and once the weather warmed up, the sunflower seeds germinated! 😲🌻
What makes this sunflower rescue story even funnier is I said I wasn’t going to grow sunflowers this year.
We grew beautiful sunflowers last year, but I didn’t think we’d have the space for it this gardening season because we needed the room for our grow bags.
I guess the sunflowers said, “Make room for us!” 😂🌻 #sunflowerswin
💜 XO
P.S.—the feature image is of one of our sunflowers from last year.
Photos of the children enjoying a morning of “front porch sitting.”
A trip to the local greenhouse turned into a math discovery as my five year old excitedly ran over to the flower baskets and exclaimed, “Look, Mommy! Patterns!”
Zaya has been learning about patterns in math, so she was amazed to find beautiful patterns on all of the flower petals.
For our homeschool math, we use Math with Confidence and living math books we check out from the public library.
Zaya’s discovery got the attention of her big brother, and soon they were both checking each flower basket to see how many more patterns they could find.
It brought me so much joy to see the kids make a connection between math and nature. 😊🌻
💜 XO
Today, the kids took a homeschool nature science class on maple sugaring.
I was so excited I was able to get them registered for this class because last year’s spots filled up fast. It was a wonderful hands-on learning experience for the kids! 😊
Here are a few moments from today’s homeschool maple sugaring class.
The naturalist instructors walked the kids through the science behind how trees work, starting with photosynthesis and how trees use sunlight to make the sugars that eventually become sap.
I loved that the instructors also talked about the history of maple sugaring, tracing its roots from Indigenous traditions to its adoption by colonial settlers.
Zaya and I spotted a little snake while on the nature hike. She wasn’t afraid of it at all. She thought it was “so cute and cool.” 😄
The kids learned how tree sap is turned into syrup and used for some foods (like pancakes!), and that not all trees produce the kind of sap that can be turned into syrup.
The kids also learned how to identify different types of trees such as birch, maple, and oak trees.
They enjoyed collecting maple leaves while on our nature hike, and we brought a few leaves home with us. I’m going to add them to our homeschool scrapbook.
The class ended with a sweet treat for the kiddos—ice cream with maple syrup on top! 😋
The kids had so much at this maple sugaring class! We’re going to be spending the next few weeks learning more about trees.
Inspired by the class, I’ve started putting together a tree-themed unit study.
I already checked out a stack of books from the library about trees, and we plan to add in some nature drawing, nature hikes to observe different trees, and a few forest-school-style activities so the kids can learn directly from the outdoors.
💜XO
