Hair, Bathrooms and Garden (for Grandma)

 My mother-in-law pointed out that I hadn't updated my blog in a few days, so I'm taking time away from more exciting things ( like hair and laundry) for a quick post. HAIR has been my daily routine. I try to do two corn-rows into micro-braids a day, but some days we spend over an hour on just one and I don't get to the second one. You can't see my progress in this picture, but fear not, there will be a hair post when I get done (in about another week)! I really love the look and may be repeating my tedious procedure on another African daughter or two.


(Julia with a friend's super cute baby)

We have also re-painted the two girl's bathrooms. Alei chose this shower curtain and rug and I bought paint that matched; then Alei taped and painted the bathroom. 

The first bathroom went very well, so I sent Moriah and Alyssa to chose the items for the second girl bath across the hall and they came home with this combination. I taped the bathroom, but Alyssa painted it. 

All that fun in the bathroom (and my pointing out that we are about to have two more people needing bathrooms) prompted JD to begin on the empty shell of the downstairs bathroom. Since Gabriel leaves for the Navy in October and the new girls are coming home, we are re-figuring out the bedroom and bathroom assignments. I may end up painting this new one again, because it's a rather ugly color I chose in a hurry four years ago; we'll just consider it a base coat.

I am so thankful for this house. It is the first time we have adopted and not been stressed about where to fit the new little guys! 


My other time-taker is my garden. The time I spend out there is so, so worth it to me. Humor me while I show you a few shots. 


These are the cherry tomato plants that I pick a nice size bowl off of every day. I love them; James eats a few but Julia and I eat the rest. 

I planted these purple peas less than two weeks ago with straight seeds in the ground; they are growing like crazy. Last year I did only two rows and had space between the rows, so this year I put in four. 

I counted about 15 nice watermelon growing. 

The cantaloupe (and watermelon) are from seeds that Wendy saved from her garden last year. The cantaloupe are covered in flowers and baby melons and have grown over the bed on both sides. I'm going to look into freezing the excess honey-dew and cantaloupe this year for the winter. The bagged frozen fruit from Costco contains them, so it has to be doable. 

Here's today's tomato pick. I actually canned three quart jars the other day and broke two in the cannery because I didn't heat the jars long enough. What a waste of tomatoes - I won't be doing that again (breaking them - I'm still going to can them)!