Zayden's First Birthday!

My little man is 1! I can't believe it! Well technically, he's not one until Monday, but he was due today so we decided to have his birthday party early. Justin will be in Texas for a conference on his actual birthday so this was the only time he could be present for this fun event! We had a blast! 

These are the pictures we took for his birthday invitation. He was such a good sport and had a lot of fun playing with that enormous ball and the pool. We wanted a little pool party in our backyard with an orange and blue color theme. So we tried having a lot of water activities and orange food! 

I love his face when he splashed water onto himself. Such a fun little guy!

 Our birthday group! Davis family, Piper family, Matt Maughan family, Savage family, Anderson family, Hoffman family, and Pack family. All of Zayden's buddies were here and had a great time playing in the water and enjoying good food!

 All the momma's and kiddos!

Zayden loved spending time with his cousins Emmett and Amelia!

Zayden could not get enough watermelon. He was crawling after everyone's watermelon. 

 They are both devouring slice after slice of watermelon. 

 Emmett and Eva playing in the pool

 This was out little water set up. We had a baby pool, a sprinkler mat that sprayed water and made a little pool to sit in. We also had a ball sprinkler that sprayed a lot of water! The kids loved it! 

We also had a little kiddie pool mat that had a built in sprinkler that sprayed water up. Porter thought it was a giant drinking fountain! He didn't think it was so funny when Justin turned the water full blast into his mouth while he was taking  a drink!

Zayden mooching more watermelon off of Dave, our neighbor. Zayden loves hanging out with Dave!

 While we were too busy opening presents, Amelia snuck her way over to the cupcakes and was demolishing a few more! 

Our little cupcake stand full of cupcakes! Since we had an orange and blue color theme, I made orange supreme cupcakes with home made cream cheese frosting that I colored blue. Then put a peach ring on top with a little teddy graham in the center so it looked like a little bear floating the ocean in an inner tube. They were a big hit!

I was originally going to make a smash cake for Zayden but then realized that it would still probably be too much cake for him. And all the kids coming were younger and I didn't think could finish a whole slice of cake. So cupcakes it was! It seemed like the right amount. 

Zayden was in such a good mood all day! He got really happy when he ate his first cupcake. 

He had lots of cousins that were more than happy to help him blow out his candle. 

But he didn't need any help eating his cupcake! He loved the frosting!

A little peek of the back yard. We borrowed a canopy from our neighbors  that was really helpful.  I had printed 100 pictures of Zayden throughout his life and was going to hang them around the canopy but it was too windy so they fell off as soon as we put them up. We put them in a little photo album instead.

Julie feeding Zayden MORE watermelon and talking to Emily. 

Eva grabbing goldfish and Tyler helping Owen eat some Veggie Straws. 

Miss Amelia chomping more watermelon. 

Abby playing in the pool 

Bronson  chowing down on orange slices. He always had a slice in his mouth. 

MORE watermelon!

Dave and Brandi! We love having them as neighbors! 

Soren eating his lunch. He was going 100% the whole time!

Cousin Porter eating a hot dog and making silly faces. 

Cousin Timmy smiling with an orange slice!

This was pre-party while I was still getting the cupcakes ready. 

Present time! Porter colored a picture for Zayden with markers so that "Zayden can learn his colors".  How sweet is that?!

From Matt and Julie, a sea creature puzzle and frolicking frog pull behind toy. 

Not the Hippopotamus book from the Packs. These are very fun books to read!

Bubbles and Flash cards for the first words from the Andersen's. 

Zayden hasn't ever seen Mickey Mouse but he seemed to like the card. He kept smiling and giggling when I showed him the card. 

A cloth horse stable that has a lot of accessories from Dave and Brandi. Zayden loves it and so did Emmett. When the boys helped Zayden open his presents, Emmett was sure that gift was for him. He cried and cried because it was Zayden's and not his. 

A little bicycle for Zayden from Gramma and Grampa! He loves pushing it and riding it around. He pushed it all around the backyard for about 25 minutes after the party. 

Zayden loves all his toys, he has to have them in his hands all the time! 

The party turned out great! We had a lot of good friends come and Zayden had a fantastic day! He stayed in good spirits all day and had so much fun! We are so grateful for all the friends we have in this area, they have been a lifesaver for our family. We are truly happy at this stage in our lives. I'm not saying we don't have our difficulties, but we've adjusted and are happy.  Happy Birthday my sweet boy!

Farms and Friends

Welcome to Fair Oaks Dairy! The largest dairy in the nation turned touristic! We were able to go again last weekend with some friends Nick and Emily when we had to go up to Indiana to check on Justin's aunt and uncle's dogs while they were on vacation.  The dairy is about 25 minutes from their house so we spent the day having a great time with friends!  

This picture is from the last time we went to the dairy in March. Zayden was only 8 months old, now he's 11 months and almost a year! How time flies! Look at the difference in what he can do and what he looks like! 

Daddy is crouched down behind him so he won't fall off.

Mommy holding Zayden on the Cowasel. (Carousel) 

Zayden almost 1 year old and standing!

We had to keep watching him so he wouldn't fall off the steps. He is so proud of himself being able to stand and pull himself up! 

There is so much to do outside at the dairy! They have an enormous trampoline that is above the ground like a huge jelly bean. Emily and I had a lot of fun jumping and being talked about right next to us by a parent. "This is for kids, not adults!" Well, there was a sign and there was no weight or age limit! So we were legal!

I had too much fun that day!

Emily and I have become great friends in the last few months! We work with each other in primary and we are both activity day leaders for our church! We teach the 8-11 year old girls. 

There was a little carnival that had a lot of facts about bones. (Just so you know, this is not a real x-ray)

There was a jumping contraption that anyone under 200 pounds could do. I HAD to do it! I was just in one of those adventuresome moods that day. This is me PRE-jumping. A little nervous because I had never done something like this. But I wanted to try it!

I did back flips and front flips

 This takes A LOT of energy! I was exhausted! And they only let you do it for 3 minutes.  I couldn't even hold up my arms and my whole body felt like jello.

We had a blast and now we have season passes so we will take Zayden many more times throughout the next year! There is also an ice cream  shop and cheese tasting shop! We got lots of free samples of cheeses and ice cream! We love going here!

From Seed to Feed

"The sign of a good gardener is brown knees, not a green thumb."

I loved that quote when I found it. Justin and I have wanted to plant a garden since we got married but haven't been in the position to be able to. This year was an experiment just to see if Justin was as good of a gardener as he is a farmer! Well you'll have to decide for yourself by the pictures at the end of this post. 

We built and planted our garden on April 26. We went to Menard's to get the wood for our raised planter boxes and we ran into a member of the Stake Presidency who I had been friends with for years. Their washing machine had flooded their house so they were remodeling and trying to fix it. We told them what we were doing and they told us that they had a lot of the 2x6 planks leftover from when they remodeled their deck just like what we were going to buy. They were trying to get rid of it and that was exactly what we needed! So we got a lot of wood for free! Win win situation for both of us.  Thank goodness Justin has the tools and the know-how to build these kinds of things for our home. He has done a lot of remodeling in our little living space in the past month. But that's another post.

Justin has a friend who works at the Kraft plant here in Champaign and told Justin that they have lots of huge barrels that they use to transport jalapenos in. Justin had to go and pick them up and we got them for free as well. He turned those big blue barrels into rain barrels to catch all the rain water from our gutters so we wouldn't have to use as much water from the hose. So a few hours of cleaning out the gutters and redirecting the pipes, and we have the start to our irrigation system. Justin then connected the barrels with some hose and fittings and a valve. The black hoses in the pictures that are in the planter boxes are drip hoses. They are connected to the rain barrels and when we want to irrigate (such a farming word), we just open the valve and the water flows into the drip hoses from the barrels. Voila! We have an irrigation system to water our little garden.

So there were a few things we started inside  our house and a few things we bought starters for. 

We bought these for starters 

*On the back left, are our 3 tomato plants-later we bought one more. 

*Front right- 4 Acorn squash plants

May 14 (About 2 weeks after planting)

We looked out the window in the mornings and we were so proud of our little garden that the plants were actually growing! Little did we know what was to come.

This was the irrigation system so you can see it up close. Justin put it up on blocks so that gravity would help pull the water down to the drip hoses since there is no water pressure.

The handy man admiring his handy work!

Mommy, Lexus, and Zayden were out playing in the grass enjoying the sunshine while Daddy worked on the garden.

Such a goofy smile!

May 19 (5 Days later)

We left for vacation on the 25, so this was about the stage we left for our 2 1/2 week vacation...When we came back...IT WAS A JUNGLE!

June 15 (Almost a month later!)  We had no idea we would have a garden that looked like this! Neither of us expected this much success in our garden. It shocked our neighbors and us when we got home!

Front left is our Yellow Crookneck Squash and it took over everything! Our zucchini plants are behind it and they took over the other planter box. Thankfully they are bush plants and not vine plants otherwise they would have been much worse.

Because of the humidity here, we have had a little problem with mold on the squash leaves. We've had to trim a lot of the stems and spray the plants with a milk/baking soda mixture to help improve the  plant's immune system and fight that. It's been a constant battle for the past month. Especially with the leaves close to the soil and under a layer of bigger leaves.

Our first little acorn squash that we were so proud of. 

Zayden enjoys playing with sticks while I weed and work in the garden in the mornings before it gets too hot!

Our first little bell pepper plant. We tried starting these from seed, but they didn't make the cut so we had to buy some starter plants at the farmer's market. We have four of those plants and they are working on producing more peppers!

Justin harvesting out first pepper for Quesadillas!

When we picked that pepper, it looked so big, now it looks a little on the tiny side. 

Zayden really wanted to chew on it. Ha, he thought it would taste good but he made a sour face when he bit into the stem.  We weren't quite fast enough to catch that shot. 

Since Zayden has learned to crawl and get to where he wants to, he's decided that Daddy's grill tools are the best toys. He can't climb stairs yet, so we're glad we aren't fighting that battle.

Some of our squash and zucchini we've harvested.  So far, we have probably harvested 15 zucchini, 12 yellow crookneck, lots of pickles, a plot of radishes, some sugar snap peas, and  3 acorn squash. 

Our  biggest zucchini was a foot and a half long. I cooked it up tonight and made stuffed Zucchini. Yummy! It made 2 dinner meals for us! Stuffed Zucchini

June 25 

Our tomato plants were taller than I was and had outgrown their cages! So Justin built a frame for them to grow up around. We also put trellises for the acorn squash, the watermelon and cantaloupes, the cucumbers, and the peas to grow up on instead of outward and swarming all the other plants.  It's been working great!

Our peas and tomato plants growing up the trellis

July 1 

All of these produce pictures are from today! I went out after church and guess what I saw...

One of my tomatoes turning red!

My large almost ready acorn squash, that I am trying to harden off so I can store it for the winter!

Lots and lots of sweet peas that are going to be harvested and froze this week!

My softball size watermelon!

My pickling cucumbers. We already made a batch of dill pickles last Sunday and they were fantastic! One jar is already eaten...one guess as to who was the culprit! 

A bigger bell pepper than before! So the longer you leave a bell pepper on the vine, the different colors it changes. First it's green, then it turns yellow and red!

More pickles and another watermelon! 

I also saw the starts of little cantaloupes and some regular cucumbers. 

Our carrots, green beans, bell peppers, and onions are still growing strong! I love this summer project. I highly recommend a garden for a first time mommy who has free time but not enough to work at a job and wants something to take her mind off of being mommy for a little bit. It's been a wonderful stress reliever and really fun to do! I think this will be a yearly occurrence for the Maughan family. 

  2012 Garden

Some people have asked us if we've used miracle grow or something like that but we haven't. It's been hot and humid here and we used compost and topsoil in the garden. Nothing fancy or special. But it's been the best combination for our garden. We also tried square foot gardening so the entire garden was sectioned off into square feet, you can kind of see the dark green yarn we used to do it with in the earlier pictures before the plants took over. It's been so fun to do and I'm glad that we made the commitment to grow one this year! Stay tuned for more updates on our garden! We are contemplating a few changes over the next few weeks...