Hodge-Podge Weekend

Friday night we attended a carnival fundraiser for our ward's Young Women's Camp fund. Maggie enjoyed coloring, fishing for donuts, and eating cupcakes from the bake sale. Fortunately there was a bib in the diaper bag. Sometimes I can be a good mom.










In addition to the bake sale, there was an auction for a number of various services and items that had been donated by local businesses. Mike bid on most every one. Although, we only won a few, we did bring home the item with the highest ticket... a photo session! Because we had done one last year at a store, Mike had some understanding of the cost associated with such things and did not flinch as the price rose rapidly. I was surprised we pulled it off. It's with a friend from the ward who takes beautiful shots, mostly outdoors. I'm so excited!!!

The other major success of the night was purchasing three babysitting sessions. It was one of my weekend goals to get a babysitter, because for some reason I have a problem getting myself to do this with any frequency, even though we budget to have one once a month. We spend most of our date nights at home and have a lot of fun times, but as I was telling a friend earlier on Friday, I think it's important to get out together without the girls for a couple hours every now and then. And we haven't since Kate was born. So now we will. =)











On Saturday, in between the showers that had been off and on for the past few days, we got some gardening done. After last year's crop failure, we're determined to return to the glory from the year previous when we had a plentiful harvest in the planter strip outside our apartment in Utah (which interestingly was composed mostly of sand, gravel and asbestos that had leached out of the apartment following the fire that occurred shortly before we signed our lease).

So, following my prompting to try a tidier approach, this winter Mike did extensive research on square foot gardening and adapted it to what we could obtain from our local retailers and fit in the trunk of our sedan. Also, he wanted to use some leftover wood in our basement that caused our "square feet" to be "slightly more than square feet." So far, the results are encouraging. Today we had some spinach and Maggie ate our first strawberry. Stay tuned.











The rain prompted some afternoon quiet time, during which we snuggled, read, and finally painted the rocking chair! This is a project that has been on the to-do list for quite some time and it was so good of Mike to finally help me get it done. I thought at first that I wanted to paint the chair red, but after I found some pretty colored pots for the front step, I thought that would be too much. I opted instead to refinish the chair with a clear urethane finish instead to bring out the brown tone of the chair. I am very pleased with how it turned out, though I may still need another coat.











After the girls were in bed, we made our new favorite homemade treat: buffalo chicken. This was our fourth attempt and best yet.