How did I spend Valentine's Day?

With my favorite boys of course.  

We took the boys to a hockey game.  I absolutely love to go to hockey games.  I have for a long time.  The kids...not really ready to sit through full games.  This is the second time we've taken them to a game and they get bored really easily.  I guess they didn't inherit my love of the sport.  Maybe when they are a little bit older.  They actually said they enjoyed going to the baseball games more.  Huh?  Talk about boring.  I take knitting to baseball games because I'm so bored.  I like baseball games for the Guinness and sitting in the sun.  Hockey...it's fast, it's exciting and there are fights!

We were treated to a fight pretty early in the first period.

We ended up leaving between the second and third periods because the boys were getting restless and the Penguins were losing.  They weren't playing that great and I was getting frustrated.   It worked out nicely though because we beat the exiting crowd and didn't have to wait an hour in the parking lot trying to get out. 

I suppose we'll just have to wait until they are a little bit older for them to appreciate the sport.  I was hoping this year we could take them to a Buffalo Bills game in the fall.  I haven't been to a NFL game before and would love to go.  I don't think our kids would sit through a full game.  I guess we'll wait and see.

Photo Friday.

Er, I'm posting on Saturday, but I took them yesterday and then ran out of time to post.

My babies.

Christmas cactus that bloomed a little late.

These are off a plant that I grew from a cutting from Tim's Aunt Mary.  The cutting is from a plant that was his great great grandmothers.  

Zucchinis

Peas and zucchini

Heirloom tomatoes

Zinnias

Spring weather.

It got up to 65 degrees today.  It was so nice to be outside without a jacket.  Unfortunately it's not going to last.  By the end of the week it's back in the 20's and 30's.  Oh well, today was a preview of spring.

My seedlings are getting big and now I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to re-pot them before they can go outside.

zinnias

I ordered more seeds today.  Tim asked me what I wanted for Valentine's Day and I told him gardening stuff.  So, I ordered seeds for jalapenos, haberneros, and poblano peppers.  I was only going to order those but I wanted to justify the shipping price so I also ordered some seeds for some flowers.  I ordered marigold seeds (for pest control), flowering tobacco, and some bee balm seeds.  I am going to get two more seed started trays and I'm going to be good to go.  I can't wait until I can get out and dig some compost into the ground and get these babies planted.

In other news, Rhino busted out of her new cage the other day so she is now in her third cage.  She was trying to chew her way through her cage this morning so now she is in Chopstick's old cage.  I don't think she's very happy with us right now because she likes to climb and can't.  I'm going to have to find her some things to play with in her cage so she doesn't plan a massive revolt.

Looks can be deceiving.  She looks so cute and cuddly but in reality, she's pure evil.

That's pretty  much all I have for now.  Now I'm going to be waiting for my seeds to come.  Patience.  Ugh.

Look what I found!

I planted seeds on Saturday afternoon.  Today is Tuesday.  Three days later and I have seeds sprouting!  I love planting things and seeing them actually grow.  I have peas, zucchini, zinnias and asters sprouting up already.

Baby Peas

Little Zinnias.

I planted 12 little cups of each of these:  cucumbers, zucchinis, sugar snap peas, green beans, red heriloom tomatoes, orange heirloom tomatoes, foxgloves, shasta daisies, asters, zinnias, envy zinnias, and sweet peas. I also have planted some hot peppers:  cayenne, santiagos, and hot portugals.  Tim is going to order some haberneros and I'm sure a couple more mouth burners.  

Now, for some cute little nose pictures.  Last night while I was laying in bed watching TV, Patchy came up and snuggled.  I couldn't resist snapping some pics of his cute little nose.  I'm amazed that he continued to lie there and not move while I was taking these.  He was almost asleep.  He's such a good boy.

Such a kissable little nose.

It went above 40 degrees today!

We are having a warm spell.  When Aidan and I were out shopping it was up to 49 degrees.  Could Spring be around the corner?  Do I dare hope?  What did the warm weather get me in the mood for?  Well, besides shopping....I got some seeds started today.

Look at the score I picked up at Lowes:

2 seed starter kits and a bunch of seeds!  $71 worth of gardening goodies

I came home and immediatly got to planting seeds.  I will post later tonight or tomorrow what I planted.  I'm supposed to be making dinner right now but no one is screaming that they are hungry yet, so I'm getting a quick little blog in.

We also put together a new home for Rhino.  Aidan and Connor both made honor roll for the second nine weeks of school and they got to pick rewards.  When I was little and made the honor roll (didn't happen that often  =) ) my parents always got us a small treat as a reward.  I was thinking that they would want a new video game or a new movie.  Aidan wanted to get Rhino a new home that was roomier and had more fun things for her to do.  So, here is Rhino's new crib.  She loves it.  She usually sleeps all day and is up all night, but since we put her in her new place, she's been running all over the place playing on her wheel and sliding on her slide.  

Rhino's new home thanks to Aidan.

Back to the seeds.  They are all planted in their little cups.  Tim and I dragged our grow light set upstairs from the basement.  I decided that it was too cold on the basement floor to germinate anything and I didn't really like the idea of getting heating pads to put under the trays so we just brought it upstairs.  Our dining room is now devoted to our seeds growing for a couple of months.  There is enough room under the lights to start two more trays if I decide to.  I'm excited to see what comes up.  One tray if veggies and one tray is flowers and then the little one is hot peppers for Tim.  He has already told me that he's ordering his own seeds for his peppers.  I think he's turning into a pepper snob.

lights set up on the dining room table.

So, I'll come back in a little bit to post what I planted and how many days it says it will take to germinate.  

Anticipation.

It was funny.  Yesterday, mid-day, Tim emailed me a message with the subject line of "something useful".  I opened the message up only to find a link to a 23 qt pressure cooker/canner.  Huh?  I wanted one of these last year and he didn't want to spend the money for it.  I jumped on the opportunity and ordered it from amazon and even with free shipping I got it delivered today!  Color me one excited little bee.  

I think we shall name her Queen.  Because when I see it I hear "Under Pressure" by Queen.  Yes, I'm a dork and I name all things. It bugs the heck out of Tim.

here she is...I don't think I put her together properly.  Yikes!

I unpacked it and started flipping through the instruction book and now I'm a bit scared too.  It's a little intimidating.  I'm going to have to really read the book and not just thumb through it.  I think Tim changed his mind about the pressure cooker after we spent an entire day working with a ton of tomatoes only to lose them all.  That was a bummer.  Not this year.

We've been discussing our garden this year.  We know that we want tomatoes, potatoes, zucchinis, cucumbers and beets.  Oh, and I'm sure we'll have boxes of chili peppers all over the place too.    I am thinking that next month we'll be bringing up the grow lights and starting our seeds.  

Oh, there is nothing like thinking about gardening in the middle of the winter.  This has been a long, cold, icy winter.  I look out into the back yard and long to be out there with the sun beating down on me and working in the dirt.  I can't wait.  I think the starting of seeds and taking care of them as they grow will help the winter hurry on out of here.  I'm kicking myself though for not planting any bulbs in the fall.  I was so busy that I completely forgot about it and now I'm going to be sad when everyone else has amazing spring flowers coming up and I'll have nothing. I will plant bulbs next fall.  

Not too much else going on over here.  We are half way through the school year. The boys are doing fabulous.  Connor has discovered that he LOVES geometry.  We've had a lot of fun learning that and playing around with it.  Aidan is writing almost as neatly as I do and is reading small books to himself now.  We got everything done in January that we wanted to do.  We got both of our credit cards PAID OFF.  We are sitting pretty right now planning for summer festivities and gardening. 

I hope everyone is staying warm and happy.

Friday Fun!

I did the dreaded deed today.  I did something that I don't like doing, but did anyway.  I took the kids to Chuck E Cheese. The germ factory.  Why?  Because they've been doing really good in school lately and Connor rocked his endocrinologist appointment and well, they've been whining about it for a while.

It wasn't as bad as I remember it.  Of course it was partly because it was at lunch time and most kids were in school.  They basically had the whole place to themselves with just a couple of pre school wee ones running around.  

Connor on a Star Wars game.

Aidan showing great determination and patience.

A happy duo.

Aidan in his fave place.  He spent most of his time up in the tubes.

This was actually a really neat thing.  It was a roller coaster simulator that they rode three times.  Connor got scared on the last one and I jumped in to finish off the ride and got off the stupid thing with motion sickness.  I must be getting old.  Nah.

The kids were great.  They didn't throw a fit when I said it was time to leave.  They didn't fight or argue.  They actually thanked me when we were done.  I will almost admit that I had fun.  I'm just not sure I'll tell the kids that. ☺

So, it's crazy cold here and we are going to spend the night in front of the fire and watch some movies I think.  Nothing major planned this weekend.  It was supposed to be our clean up the outside weekend but not when the high is 12.  Too cold for me.  

I hope everyone has a faboo weekend!