From the garden

In the winter I had big plans. Big plans for bigger garden. The potatoes were supposed to have their own spot, next to the neighbors' white fence. Our own organic, straight from garden potatoes, lasting at least two months. The space on the side of the house was reserved for  green zucchini, sweet pumpkin and refreshing cucumbers. A lot of them. Then I was planning to dig more space for our yearly crop of tomatoes. Along our fence. And maybe few sweet, red pepper plants.
Then, again prepare the ground on the other side the fence and sow beets, carrots, parsnip and celeriac. The last one would be awesome to have. It is such a delicious vegetable, yet completely forgotten in American cuisine. And also in the stores. The only store that carries them is Whole Foods.

Spring came, and I got sick. It took all of my time, energy and joy. Whatever we had planned, was forgotten. Along with important plans, my plan for making the garden bigger too. So I did not make the soil ready, I did not started plants indoors, I did not find celeriac seeds.

Yet we found enough time and effort to start growing few plants, even though the garden stayed the same size as last year. We have few potato plants. The twelve tomatoes are catching up too. Looks like the red pepper plant is growing nicely also, and three cucumbers, two pumpkin and three zucchini plants seem to thrive. Unfortunately the beets and carrots aren't growing as I expected them to.

There is a little sun here and there, not too cold, and quite rainy. The plants are growing, but also the weeds. This afternoon Zuzia and I decided to do some weeding. The weeds are very easy to pull out when the soil is moist. Zuzia did awesome job and had mentioned that actually we don't need a pet!? because our vegetable plants are like pets, we have to take care of them. I like her way of thinking!
We had fun working together. Next time however,  I need to remember, that two and a half year old boys have trouble recognizing the real vegetable:)



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Kinga.

 

P.S. Sorry for the quality of the pictures. I had just ipod with me. Enlarging them didn't help either:(



{pretty, happy, funny, real}

Sunday.
I was hoping for a sleep in. At least until 7:30 am. It did not happen.
Kubus was awaken by a brightly shinning sun. It is lovely to wake up to the gorgeous weather, but why, oh, why at 6 am???
We did not snuggle long. The trips to the bathroom, and requests for milk, kept me up. Andrzej mercifully took over at 7:45 am, and I was left to my own blissful time until 8:30 am. At that point I realized that it is not my birthday anymore, or mother's day or any other occasion that would allow me to selfishly nap longer, and I got up to feed my family:)
The weather was gorgeous, as I mentioned before, and we planned to spend few hours on the nice, secluded beach with a lot of shells to collect and crabs to chase. Unfortunately some of our children protested that the beach is not their thing, so to avoid major disagreements and disappointments of the day, we decided to let the two younger ones go wild in the backyard instead. And wild and messy did they go!!!
Here I join Like Mother, Like Daughter for their lovely weekly edition of {phfr}.

{pretty}

 

I am waiting for more of my flowers to bloom. I see signs everywhere that it is happening slowly. Maybe by the end of the June my blog will be full of them!

 

 

 

 

 

{happy}

 

We let the kids run in the sprinklers and play in the half ready pool. The bigger pool will be set up when the school is over.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

{funny}

 

Kubus has discovered that adding soil and sand into the pool, makes it more fun. Zuzia came up with a mud spa. Both of them enjoyed it tremendously:)

 

 

 

 

Then it was time to wash the mud of the hair:)

 

 

{real}

 

After all of this running and fun in the mud water, it was time to cool off with a drink.

This frozen, fruity slushy, everyone real-ly, real-ly likes!

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope this is a start to a very good summer season this year!

 

 

Kinga:)

 

Polish version:

 

Niedziela. Nie pospalam dlugo. Slonce obudzilo Kubusia o 6 rano. Nie udalo nam sie dlugo polezec, bo ciagle chodzenie do ubikacji i prosby o mleczko, stawialy mnie na nogi. O 7:45 Andrzej sie nade mna zmilowal i moglam podrzemac do 8:30. Wstalam, doszlam do wniosku ze zadna specjalna okazja mi dzisiaj nie pozwala na proznowanie i ze w koncu trzeba nakarmic glodna rodzinke.

Po mszy planowalismy pojechac na mala plaze, pelna muszelek i krabow. Niestety co poniektore dzieci bardzo protestowaly i postanowilismy spedzic ten piekny, sloneczny dzien w ogrodzie. 

Nasze letnie popoludnie i zabawy dzieci, sa tematem mojego cotygodniowego wydania {ladnie, szczesliwie, zabawnie i realnie}.

 

{ladnie}

Moje kwiaty. Kwitnie ich coraz wiecej. Pod koniec czerwca caly ogrod i moj blog powinien byc nimi przepelniony.

 

{szczesliwie}

Zabawy z woda. Napelnilismy maly basen czesciowo. Na duzy musza poczekac jeszcze dwa tygodnie!

 

{zabawnie}

Kubus odkryl ze dodawanie piasku i ziemi do basenu, jest super frajda. Zuzia postanowila zrobic masaze blotnie. Pozniej nalezalo umyc wlosy.

 

{realnie}

Zasluzony, orzezwiajacy napoj to rzeczywiscie dobry sposob na ochlodzenie w goracy dzien!

 

Mam nadzieje, ze to zapowiedz udanego letniego sezonu w tym roku,

Kinga:)

 



...nothing to do!

The Sun did not shine,

It was too wet to play,

So we sat in the house,

On that rainy and chilly day!

 

I sat there with Kubus,

We sat there, we two,

And I said " how I wish

We had something to do..."

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cytat z popularnej ksiazeczki dla dzieci "Kot w kapeluszu'. Po krotce jest to historyjka o dzieciach nudzacych sie w domu w czasie deszczowej pogody. Tak sie przedstawial rowniez moj i Kubusia dzien, dopoki nie wpadlismy na pomysl wykorzystania pustego pudelka.  Rejestracja: Mazda 323, to nostalgiczne wspomienia naszego pierwszego samochodu:)

 

 

Kinga:)

 



My five favorites ( this week)

 (1)

The weather. Doesn't get better than this. Sunny, with highs in 70s, and nice, crispy, chilly but pleasant nights. Glorious mornings. Too bad I have trouble waking up early to go for walk with my walking neighbors. Either staying up late with my night owl - hubby, or going for a walk with early risers!

 

(2) 

My birthday last Sunday. What a good day that was!

And the ipod, and especially few apps like Face Time. It brings my family, on the other side of the ocean, closer. But I also enjoy other functions. The color is perfect too. Orange, my favorite. It must be, because it matches with my hubby's hair:)

 

(3)

Kubus using potty! He learnt how to use it in 4 days! Honestly after first day I thought it will take him the whole summer. He surprised us on the third day by using potty at home and pull up while we were out, but on the fourth day he started calling to go potty while being away from home.

As a reward he got few new trucks:)

 

 

(4)

My fabulous new shoes! See the color? I could not pass on them! I was hesitating for a while if I should give in the temptation, but after realizing that those will be first shoes this year for me, I went ahead and bought them. Oh, there was only one pair in this color and my size on clearance! I took it as a sign...:)

 

(5)

New dehumidifier. It makes the play/craft/sewing room so much drier and pleasant. This dehumidifier is so much quieter than the old one. I don't have to turn it off when we are downstairs.

 

There you have it. My five favorite things this week. New theme for blogging me:)

 

Go over to Hallie to check up others' favorites.

 

 W tym tygodniu zaczynam nowy srodowy temat: "Moje piec ulubionych rzeczy w tym tygodniu".
Podciagam sie pod blog Hallie, do ktorego link mozna zobaczyc powyzej.

(1)
Pogoda, wrecz wspaniala! Suche, cieplutkie, sloneczne dnie i chlodne ale przyjemne noce.

(2)
Moje urodziny w ostatnia niedziele. Byl to bardzo przyjemnie spedzony dzien.
Rowniez prezent, ipod, a szczegolnie aplikacja Face Time. Pozwala mi do woli pozrozmawiac z rodzinka z Polski. Inne applikacje tez mi bardzo odpowiadaja!

(3)
Kubus, uzywajacy nocniczka. Pa, pa pieluchy! Poszlo mu zaskakujaco szybko, w 4 dni!
W nagrode dostal kilka nowych ciezarowek:)

(4)
Moje nowe, swietne butki! Kolor i rozmiar po prostu czekal na mnie na przecenie!

(5)
Nowy odwilzacz powietrza. Mozna teraz komfortowo spedzac czas w pokoju przenaczonym do roznorakich czynnosci ( zabawy, prac plastycznych, szycia itp.)
 

Kinga.



{pretty, happy, funny, real}

So it came again. My birthday. It feels so good to be born in almost summer time.
If you look up at the calendar of recent or historical events, nothing interesting has ever happened on that day, on June 2nd. No celebrity birthdays, no important battles, no feasts of really interesting saints, you, know, the kind that you hear about often:) Yet, it seems to me that, that makes it double special for me, for my family, it will always be Kinga's birthday.

Andrzej stayed up last night until midnight, to wish me happy birthday:)
In the morning my dear family woke me up with breakfast, coffee and present in bed. Second Sunday in the row. I can get used to those things, you know? I bet next Sunday won't be this special, so I might just enjoy the day while it lasts!

It was a lovely day today. Still hot, but not as hot as yesterday. After the Sunday mass, kids got to splash in the small pool in the backyard. Andrzej was working on the gazebo on the deck. It makes the afternoons quite comfortable now.

My family took me for a dinner to the Italian restaurant "Dolce Vita". Place was nice, food was good, kids behaved properly. Kubus surprised us by telling us, that he needs go to potty. He is doing so well in this area! We are amazed that it is going so easy. He definitely deserves a new truck as a reward!

Today was easy to capture the context of contentment in my daily life, as I join Like Mother, Like Daugther for {phfr} edition.

 

{pretty}
 

My roses. They bloomed for my birthday, that is special, isn't it?

 

 

{happy}

 

I with my kids. Watching them grow, doesn't make aging feel scary:)

 

 

 

 

 

  

{funny}

 

The Google send me a personal message too:)

 

 

{real}

 

My present! My hubby indulged my request for ipod touch! No, not an iphone, I am not a smart phone person. Yet. But I think I will enjoy my ipod a lot. Especially Facetime. It will bring my ocean away family real-ly close!

 

 

 

I had a nice, peaceful and happy day! One might dream of having more of those days. But then, what would make day, like birthday, feel special?

 

Kinga.

 

Childrens' Day

As long as I remember the date June 1st, has always rung one bell - Childrens' Day!!! Oh, the fun that we had, the candy, activities, no classes at schools, parents going easy at home and so on. Sometimes it felt better than Saint Nicholas Day. More surprises and more presents!!!
So it comes as an astonishment, that in the good US of A no one has thought about the idea of celebrating the Childrens' Day. The commercials, TV shows, toys, books, parties that could have happened! It looks to me like a missed opportunity for money making machines.

It was an easy decision to make the tradition going, once the children have joined us.
This year we made a mistake of giving in the curiosity of Zuzanna and we told her our plans, only to listen later to her complains that now it is no fun anymore... I had promised her that a breakfast will be a surprise.

We were hoping for a sleep in, but the excitement about the the day got better of the girls and woke them up. Kubus was awake anyway, and jumping on me and asking for "cziko", which is his version of Polish "mleczko" - milk:)

My girls are picky, but the chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast, have satisfied them both. Kubus decided that he prefers his french vanilla yogurt, and being it his day, I fed a whole bowl of yummy yogurt to him. He actually did not get the idea what is going on today.

 

 

Kubus was making progress in potty training...

 



...and painting.

 

Later in the day we took our offspring to the bowling lane. That actually was out first, family bowling event. It would have turned out great, if we left our youngest one at home...
Unfortunately he had no idea how the bowling game works, and that he needs to take turns and not to run in the alley, or press the reset button constantly. We ended up holding him most of the time, and listen to his tantrums.  Don't let the pictures fool you :) This boy is having terrible twos now. Not fun...

 

 

 

Then we took our dear children for ice cream in one of the best ice cream places in RI. At least the sign says that...
It is located quite close to us, so it was convenient. I must say that the trouble with our youngest one continued. He saw a  toy car that did not want to leave. It was rather loud departing from that sweet place.

 

 

 

Kubus calmed down at home. He had a chance to play outside. The weather was finally pleasant to  enjoy it. He has his own private "beach", as he calls his sandbox:)

After the dinner of grilled baby back ribs, ( kids favorite ) and watching an episode of the "Ultimate tree houses", recorded on DVR ( our girls are fans of those kind of programs, another one that they enjoy is "Tanked" ), the girls settled down in beds. The troublemaker was already asleep:)

I do hope and think that they enjoyed their special day.
I, on the other hand, am waiting for tomorrow, because tomorrow is June 2nd, and for last 40 years I have been celebrating it as my birthday. Tomorrow it will be the 41st time and thankfully, it comes on Sunday this year!!!

Kinga.