I'm a MOM!

Well, technically I'm an Äiti (which is mother in Finnish) but that is why I haven't been around to blog! Newborns are work! ;)

But I never have I ever been rendered as speechless and unable to express myself as I am now. This little one has just taken my breath away and turned my brain to mush. :D Parenthood! ;)

Elisabeth Louise was born June 9th at 1.14 a.m. and weighed a teeny weeny 3085g.

The last picture was from my 25th birthday just 3 days after bringing her home. I assure you, the bags under my eyes have almost gone away. She's an incredibly peaceful baby (and every time I say it I must knock on wood, lol!). We are just so blessed! :)

I have more pictures to share from my birthday, midsummer as well as a garden update (!) but I'm running out of time so it will have to wait! 

Until next time! :)

The arboretum and maternity photos

My friend was gracious enough to help us out with some maternity photos at the end of May. I really wanted to have some pictures of me and the hubby at this time in our life, photos for our little one to cherish one day and see how happy we were expecting her. :)

I had hoped to get some photos with the decorative apple blossoms (pink!) but they weren't in bloom (of course) but we found lots of other lush early summer backgrounds at the arboretum. 

Can we call that place paradise, too?

Of course I can't go to the arboretum and not take some flower pictures...

From my last arboretum post about tulips, you might remember a whole grand space filled with buds. I had been worried that I wouldn't see them bloom... but I did!!

It was glorious!

 

And one last picture of the last vase I had of tulips from our garden. Ah, can't believe that time has passed already! 

:( 

Why do summers have to go by so fast?

Pansy patio

I love pansies. I love my balcony. 'Nuff said.

By the way, Blogger was making up for being a butthead (or maybe it was my computer) but the photos were uploading lightening fast last night --> why I had a marathon session of posting pictures. Had to take advantage, ya know!
But then when I was uploading the pictures for this post... it started acting up again! :D Go figure.

The shades of the pansies above and below remind me of watercolors. Love them!

The tomato plant has been growing super fast and has lots of little yellow flowers! :)

So there you have it! 

I love pansies. Yep yep. 

The one thing I am missing a picture of are the nasturtiums I have growing... but I'm sure you'll see them before the summer is over. ;)

Hope your Monday is off to a good start!

 

Lily of the valley delight!

So in the previous post about the chocolate cake *drools*, you might have noticed the vase of lily of the valley.

Well, there are 5 vases currently in my home. I'm so lucky!

You're welcome dear sister and m-i-l for the favorite flower fill. ;)

Entertaining

That cake = utterly fabulous.

If you like American style, dense, sweet, moist cakes with RICH frosting... you will love this recipe.

HIGHLY recommend it. I like it more than the go-to "busy day chocolate cake" recipe I've been using for a couple years.

I like it more than the chocolate cupcake base a la Annie's Eats (that I've used for baking cakes before). 

It is spectacular!

And easy.

Make it!! LINK HERE for Hershey's perfectly chocolate chocolate cake via my missourikitchen.com.

Why make a cake like that?

Well we had a small dinner party! :)

Hubby invited his friend and family over so it was the perfect excuse to indulge in yummy food.

I made veggie stir fry and rice. Note how fun stir fries can be when you don't own a wok pan. Umm... why don't I own one?! I ask myself every darn time.

The stir fry sauce was pretty good, linky here. It makes A LOT, so you can easily halve it if you don't plan on making stir fry again the for the next week day.

The veggies we used: carrots, broccoli, onion, garlic, fresh new season cabbage, bell peppers, zucchini. 

 

To accompany the veggies and starch, we had protein in the form of Vietnamese Chicken Bites.

Well, the store we went to was out of ground chicken so we did ground turkey but they were AMAZING. 

Like so good we-need-to-make-them-once-a-week-good. 

As a dipping sauce, we just had Thai sweet chili sauce that they sell in the stores here. 

Yum!

This is the look of a kitty asking for you to drop her a turkey ball.

 

And this is the pink cover that my mama got me to protect cakes from that very face above. ;)

 

Dinner was great. The company was great. The evening was great.

But man, looking at those pictures makes me hungry!!

By the way, we usually never finish whole cakes around here just the two of us... but half that cake was gone once our guests left. And the other half only lasted a day and a half.

That's really saying something about how good it was, I think!

2013: Garden post #6

Wow, so did some back-tracking and my last garden post was from May 20th! Today is June 3rd... But I assure you, that I have indeed been there, just have been a) too lazy or busy with other stuff to take pictures there, or b) too lazy or busy with other stuff to upload pictures from there. 

Is this something I can blame on being pregnant? 

;)

So here is what is probably going to be a photo-intensive, lengthy post about the state of our garden. It really is paradise for me!! 

 These following images were taken on May 25th. 

Zucchini and beds of seeds (beets, cornflowers, pumpkin).

In the foreground: new red currant bush to replace old and gnarly black currant, around it some fancy pansy starts of my mama's. 

Background: more pansy starts.

The morning glory starts not looking too hot... Yesterday my mama and I planted some sweet peas in shades of red and pink. Hope they take off!

Our deck hidden behind the currant privacy hedge. 

Peas and cucumber covered under white "sheets".

Blooming golden currant flowers!

These photos were taken yesterday, June 2nd. 

I was there for 6 hours in the hot hot hot sun with my mama. We spent our time weeding, enjoying breaks on our deck with snacks (amen for coolers!), and chatting. 

Good old quality time. Nothin' like it!

Here is are some peony buds. We have probably 15 of them!

These red bugs (the smaller one, not the two doing the nasty) are the bane of my existence at the garden. 

Ahem, after weeds of course.

They are "scarlet lily beetles" or "liljakukko" in Finnish and they ruin my lilies. I know I've mentioned before that I'm not a huge lily fan, but nevertheless, I do like having them for a short period at the end of summer and these guys, well... they're not good news for my lilies!

The only (or best) method I've read about getting rid of them is manually picking them off and killing them. :( 

I hate being mean, but sometimes gardening is just that! 

No idea what those two in the back are though!

...I wish I knew more about bugs because then I would know more about pests and could help prevent issues but alas... bugs are just not my thing!

Forget-me-nots never disappoint.

Buttercups are one of the WORST weeds with the WORST root systems and they run rampant along one walkway along side of our garden as you can see here. Hubby trims them with the rest of the grass on the walkways and we try weeding them out... but a silly part of me thinks they're kinda pretty. ;)

So yellow the camera was like "Whaaaaaat?"

My dad's pre-grown potatoes that will hopefully be ready for midsummer in a couple of weeks. We'll see...

 

Different varieties of lettuce...

 

Peas! (Round 1 of hopefully many before the summer's over!)

 

Green beans!

 

A hidden surprise in the bulb beds... A little allium of sorts that no one remembers planting. 

 

Corn.

 

Lots of blooming strawberries.

 

An old-time Finnish perennial that was left on the g-ma's plot we took over. (Along with the poppies I can't wait for!)

"Kullero" or "Globe flower".

 

Along side the back of our deck we have some sweet peas and scarlet runner beans. In front of them are some plants of my mama's that I just don't remember the name of. 

 

Golden flowers didn't last long, the currants are already coming along! :)

 

Bellis.

 

One of our neighboring plots (one that has been abandoned for years and finally this year has new "tenants") borders ours with a lilac bush. Mmm, what a scent!!

Another neighbor has gorgeous irises.

 

And along side the road, I couldn't help myself to a few photos of dandelions and Queen Anne's lace. 

I didn't realize until looking at the picture on the computer tonight, that in the bottom corner you can see some seeds flying away. :)

ACTION SHOT!

So there you have it!

We're caught up on the gardening front. Phew!

...Now if I could just blog about some crafty endeavors, my patio pansies, maternity photos, and the other stuff that I have taken pictures of! :) 

Oh where to find the time and motivation?! 

It's funny how sometimes you just don't feel like doing things that you like doing. 

I guess it's just because I have one thing on my mind: Getting this baby out! :D

39 weeks tomorrow.

I'm a basket-case with anticipation!

Thanks for sticking with the long post. :)