Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Favorite Flowers

Okay, so I'm a really, really, really amateur gardener (can't overemphasize that point too much), but I love flowers and planting them reminds me of my Grandaddy who had an amazingly green thumb. Plants of all shapes and sizes loved him. He tried to pass that gift along to me, but I'm not too sure it transferred. It's been 10 years last month since he passed away from cancer and I've been missing him alot lately. It just seems that "playing in the dirt" brings back so many great memories with him that I was inspired this year to subdue our backyard and add some colorful flowers.
So far, I have lantana, begonias, petunias, marigolds, straw flowers, and tomato plants in the ground and wave petunias (my favorite), spoon flowers, impatiens, gerber daisies and a couple of other things in pots. It's been a fun project, and eventhough I know that the results are not amazing or anything, I hope Grandad would be proud! Also, (since I'm just learning) if anyone has suggestions as far as flowers they love (that preferably do not require massive amounts of attention), please pass them along. Here are a couple of pics of my attempts:




Friday, April 17, 2009

Ethan Language


Now that Ethan is starting to "talk" more, we've had fun hearing his own little version of different words. Here are some that make us laugh right now (I'll try to write them phonetically):
-"wa-du" is water or any type of liquid.
-"fla-du" is a flower, which Ethan loves to blow on (we can't figure out why he blows on flowers rather than smells them?!).
-"spi-du" is a spider or anything that resembles a bug (including a piece of black lint on the floor in our bedroom!).
-"Me-mo" is Nemo, of Finding Nemo. If he can't think of anything else to say, he pulls this one out.
-"Lu-ey" is my parents' dog, Lucy. It's funny, because now even Mom calls her Louie.
-"Go" is a car.
-"Pa-pu" is my Dad, who was originally "Papper" (like Pastor), but Ethan changed his name to Papu, and I don't think Dad is too keen on it!
-"Fa-fel" is a waffle, part of his favorite meal--breakfast!
-"Man-na" is a banana, the other part of his favorite meal.
-"Dar-der" is his cousin Carter-his favorite play buddy.
-"Beat" is his pacifier, which we call a binky. When he wakes up at night and drops his binky out of his crib, we hear him wailing, "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh beat!" It's pretty funny (and way too dramatic). Speaking of, if anyone has any ideas of getting rid of a pacifier, pleast let me know. I tried the whole cutting off part of it until it was gone, but then it started ripping and I had to throw it away so he wouldn't swallow part of it. Any other ideas would be much appreciated!