Recent projects

The boys have had a few projects lately. It's basically trying to keep them away from screen time!

So, first we have Rock Painting.  This seems to be the rave right now:

It's not as easy as it looks, especially with those stick-on stencils.  Let's see, Graham drew (from left to right) a rabbit, a blue rock with a yellow star (maybe?), a purple hippo, and a green alligator.  Cute!

And Charlie colored a lady bug (best one ever!),... a blue rock with red spots, the yellow one was a stencil that went wrong. It was suppose to be an emoji face with sunglasses.  And I can't remember what the bottom-middle is suppose to be.  Obviously some sort of animal since it does have 2 eyes.  Ha ha!

I decided to try it out.  Not too shabby :-)

Ta da!!!  It makes me happy seeing all the Graham and Charlie's colored rocks:  

We still have some paint left.  We'll just have to go pick up some rocks when we are out and about by the tide pools.  But oh, the Safer-at-Home order is back on tomorrow/Monday.  Noooo...!!! It will be in effect until Dec 20th, but I have a feeling it will be extended beyond that.  The numbers in LA County are just not looking so good :-(

Thankfully, Graham and Charlie will have a few projects to work on in the next week or so.  Their activity "crates' that we subscribe to, are already on the way and we also bought a few more Christmas themed ones.  This is definitely a "different" December/Christmas - so the boys are getting just a bit more this year.  

Charlie recently did some screen-printing.  There was a small bag provided with some while paint, stencils, and screen-printing "equipment".  Pretty cool!

And the boys worked on a couple of luminaries as well:

How cool is that!

It creates a nice little ambiance above our portable heater/"fake" fireplace.  There was some leftover clay so I made a tiny little tray (on left).

With all these new activities and projects going on, this house is going to be even more cluttered! Oh well,... as long as everyone is happy (and sane!) :-P

Finally, some rain!

This rain actually happened over 3 weeks ago.  We heard it come down during the early morning and we were so excited that Bobby and I actually woke up to see it! 

It really wasn't that much rain but it was coming down pretty hard during a short time.  As you can see, there really isn't much in the rain gauge!

And you know it's windy when our pirate flag is flying high :-)

The amount of rain during that small period was at least enough to fill up both my rain barrels.  Yay!!!

We wish it rained more.  Our plants really need it! And our solar panels need a good wash too. Oh well... it was good while it lasted:

Praying for some more rain soon!

Garden update

Just a few things around the garden lately.  Although come to think of it, I forgot to check on my eggplant.  I saw a cute little purple flower on the plant a days few ago.  And I forgot to water my plants today too.  There was a slight drizzle last night - maybe that was enough? I was busy baking a pumpkin cheesecake pie for our neighbor tonight:

I hope I baked it long enough.  I used a store-bought crust and I couldn't tell. I'm glad I made a little one for us because when I told the boys I had some pumpkin pie for dessert, Graham and Charlie were so super excited!  I didn't even get a chance to take a photo of it until it was in the sink.  Ha ha!

Anyway... here are the recent updates from our garden.  Some more peppers and our very own celery!  

There were some weird spots on the celery but I didn't see any bugs.  Ps, celery was super bitter!  Boo hoo... maybe it was getting too old on the plant:

My good friend Linda gave me some ginger plants too.  Nothing like fresh ginger for my coffee and tea!

It was quite a chore to dig it up first thing in the morning though, so I'm going to wait until the ginger gets a lot bigger before I can just dig the whole plant out.

This one rose bush in the front yard had stems all over the place, so I decided to make a little heart-shape "thingy".  Hopefully the rose plant/vines will continue to grow so I can slowly fill it in:

What do you do when you overwater and kill your aloe vera plant? You go out and buy another one! :-P

We have green beans!

My Fuchsia plant has seen better days.  It was actually in a hanging basket but it wasn't doing very well there so I decided to repot it.  I see tiny little leaves trying to grow, so fingers crossed it might grow back??!

At least the agave is doing well.  It had another baby!  I gave the first-born to a lady that gave us a free book.  I remembered feeling so bad when I got home. So, we are keeping this one for sure!

Green beans for dinner tonight!  Graham doesn't like veggies so 2 each for me, Bobby, and Charlie.  Ha ha!  Good thing we are not having to survive on just green beans. By the way, did I mention these are the crunchiest green beans ever???  Perhaps I'm just a little bias since I did grow them :-D

And look, my Bird of Paradise finally has its first flower!  So pretty!!! Makes me so happy :-)

That's it for now!  Looking forward to getting some more veggies to eat.  It's been rather slow going though.  We don't get the same amount of sun anymore.  Can't wait until the days get longer so we can be outside longer too!

Mr. Caterpillar

We discovered this HUGE caterpillar last month.  It was happily munching away on my tomato plant/leaves:

It's called a caterpillar Hornworm.  The "horn" at the very end is actually harmless:

We decided to keep it for a little while.  This thing had such an appetite and of course that meant lots of poop too! Yuck!

Mr. Caterpillar was getting even bigger! About 2 1/2 inches long.  Sheesh!

And then, for whatever reason - it didn't eat as much anymore and it started to turn brown.  Graham and Charlie kept saying that we would just feed it to the birds.  Hmmm..., well after a few more days, I decided to just put him under the lemon tree.  It crawled underneath a leave and the next day, I couldn't find it anymore.  Hopefully it's not chewing on another veggie/plant??!  Maybe I should have fed it to the birds :-P

Tide Pools

Somehow it has taken me this long for another post.  I'm not exactly sure what I've been doing lately!  The boys have been busy with school - thankfully logging into their class/Zoom calls without me being awake :-P  I think I've been busy purchasing Christmas present - both online and physically in the stores.  And also "making" some. I can't post those as they are obviously surprises until Christmas :-)

We've had a couple of trips to the tide pools lately.  The weekend before last, we went to the one at Terranea resort.  It was such a lovely day - the weather has been so nice lately.  For whatever reason, the boys love to knock off the sand and rocks right off this edge (where the tide comes in):

We figured they shouldn't be doing that, so Graham and Charlie are off throwing rocks into the ocean.  There are so many rocks to choose from, so obviously Graham is telling me which ones are best to skip:

We're glad Charlie didn't knock his brother over with a rock:

The sounds of the water flowing through the rocks on the way back into the ocean is almost mesmerizing:

Time to take a little break after all that rock throwing.  That's Graham, if you're wondering who it is:

 

 We're off to climb up the little cove area to the side:

I think Bobby is telling the boys to not throw any rocks to the bottom, just in case someone is down there.  That, or don't stand to close to the edge!

Some shadow fun:

Ha ha, Graham and Charlie are so goofy sometimes:

The following weekend (last weekend) we went back to Founders Park.  This time with Daddy along too.  It was so much clearer that you can see Catalina island on the horizon:

I took a panoramic photo of the area.  I need a larger computer screen to see everything!

There were so many green seaweed on the rocks:

We spotted some purple sea urchins:

Look at our collection of sea urchin skeletons!

Charlie managed to spot his first starfish too!  How awesome is that!

Did you see it?  Maybe this might help :-)

It's starting to get crowded, so it's time to go!

So thankful for the natural outdoors that's available to us here!  There might be another "Safer at Home" order soon by the Governor/State of CA.  The numbers are as high or perhaps even higher than during the last time # of Covid cases peaked in the summer.  When will this pandemic end??!  Stay safe everyone!

New backyard tent

As if we haven't accumulated enough things in the backyard, here's one more!  I wasn't going to buy a tent at first, but then it was on the list for "Fire Evacuation".  So once there was a sale on the tent again, I dashed out to the store to get one.

Graham, as usual is the first one to open up the box and get started.  Not sure why he has to be on the trampoline to straighten the poles, but I think I've learned to not question his ways now.  Ha ha!

So far so good...

Charlie is obviously NOT helping.  He has somehow decided it is a good idea to bring his lunch/pizza into the tent while Graham is trying to set it up:

Ta da!!!  First attempt - I had to laugh.  It is obviously not looking like what it's suppose to based on the packaging :-D

After a lunch break and another attempt, Graham got it just right!  Here is the view of the sky from inside the tent.  It has a screened top or you can cover it up with a separate cover if it rains:

Graham is zipping up from the inside of the tent.  It's a lot more spacious than I had expected.  But then again, not all 4 of us are actually trying to sleep in it yet... or should I say hopefully never have to in some sort of emergency!

Graham and Charlie obviously looks very comfy in the tent, with their snacks and water:

Here's the tent in our backyard - pretty good size.  I hope the boys remember to zip it up before dark so no animals decide to make their own camp in it.  And also get it off the grass so the grass doesn't die:

We have yet to camp overnight in it, but the next morning - the boys were already in the tent to play.  I obviously still have my sleepy face on:

And how is it that my hair stands straight up and the Graham and Charlie's hair are flat down???

During the weekend, Bobby decided to camp out in the tent to read his newspapers.  It's actually quite comfy in there with a couple of sleeping bags:

Maybe someday we will actually camp overnight in the tent in the backyard. We are down to the 50s now at night so brrrr... it would be rather chilly!