I love this kid!!

Peyton is showing off his personality today! Lately his favorite response is 'uh.. no...' Here's a conversation excerpt: "Peyton, do you need to potty?" Peyton: 'Uh... (let me think about it) no.' (with a smile and a slightly turned head - 'but thank you so much for asking'!) I don't try to imagine where he got that!!! :/

This afternoon Brandon is watching the Masters on TV. Peyton was cold after his bath so I bundled him up in a towel and put him in Brandon's lap. A little later when I was in the kitchen I heard this 'hoooOOO...... hoooOOO....' sound and I couldnt figure out where it was coming from. I thought maybe one of the dogs had tried to get out of the fence and had gotten stuck. I asked Brandon if he heard it and he said 'yeah'. I asked him if it was the dogs and he said 'no, its Peyton.' so I went to look and Peyton was hooting at the golfers! It was SOO cute and really funny!

Now he's not being so cute. He's likely about to break the disk drive of my computer. I better go!

Welcome to Spring! And all that comes with it!

It was a sad evening in the Anderson household yesterday. Peyton and Kathy and I had a fun time playing at the 'big park' last night. On a Friday evening we figured it wouldn't be TOO packed and it wasn't. There were probably only 5 familes playing when there are normally at least 20. But the one thing that brings down all of the excitement of Spring had arrived at the park... a 2+ ft baby bullsnake (we think) was slithering along beside the playground equipment. All of the parents kept the kids away from it- mostly from stepping on it (none of the kids had any clue it was even there) - until it finally went into a hole under the cement. All of that was fine- it added a little excitement to the evening- but it was a sad reminder that our pests will probably be arriving soon. Ugh! I hate finding those things!!!!
Then we came home and I began my inspection of our soaps. Luckily I only found one brand that contained triclosan. Sadly (very sadly) the one brand was our favorite hand soap. I had looked online to see if Bath & Body Works handsoaps contained triclosan and it didn't look like they did. But there it was, clearly marked, the active ingredient is, in fact, triclosan. So sad! Today I'm on a mission to find a reasonably priced, reasonably smelling liquid handsoap.
Other than that it was a great evening! Peyton and Kathy and I had dinner at a fast food-style japanese steakhouse that we always forget about but love! While we were there we saw friends from church. Then we went to the big park instead of the little park (we're tired of the little park- its boring now!) and then we had frozen yogurt. What a great start to a spring weekend! Peyton and I are going to pot up the container plants this afternoon. No WAY am I going to go in my unmowed backyard after my almost-peed-my-pants episode at the park last night. Then Brandon and I are going out (somewhere, who cares where!) for the first time in about 6 weeks and Peyton will get to have a night out with his local aunt and uncle. The church tomorrow and spring cleaning tomorrow afternoon. How fun!

Oh- and speaking of fun... Peyton decided to watch Nemo for the first time in a long time. Its an entirely different experience watching it with him now. He is very concerned for Nemo's safety this time around. He got pretty upset when the shark (or whatever) ate all of the fish eggs and then he was trying to tell Nemo not to swim away to the boat. Its pretty funny!

Oh! Also- he put two words together last night!!!! I dont know if it will 'count' but when I asked him if he was ready to leave the park to go get ice cream, he said 'oh no. play.' Normally he would just say 'oh no' or 'play'. We'll see what Jill says!

Oops! We're getting greener!

Today I realized that we are taking one more step into the green zone. That is to say, eliminating another chemical from our household. Its not in an effort to become one with nature or anything hippie-ish like that. Its that our family is so very sensitive to all of the chemicals infiltrating our lives!! I recently discovered that there is a high probability that Brandon is allergic to triclosan. The brand name is Microban. Heard of it? Its EVERYWHERE!!! Its supposed to prevent bacteria from growing on the surface of things like grocery carts, mouse pads, restaurant chairs, etc. Last year Brandon learned that he is allergic to Crocs shoes. He had infected chemical burns on his feet in the exact places that the shoes touched his skin last summer and the cause was his ultra comfy shoes. One of the features of Crocs is that they aren't supposed to stink. Guess why... Microban(!) keeps the odor-causing bacteria from growing! He also has a recurring rash on the palms of his hands. Turns out, triclosan in its liquid form, is found in hospital and commercial hand soaps/sanitizers and in some household soaps and cleansers. Anything marked 'antimicrobial' has a good chance of containing it. Our soaps at home shouldn't contain it but there is a good chance the soap he uses at work contains triclosan. We will try changing that to see if it helps. Liquid laundry & dish detergents are common culprits also.
In all of my recent researching of triclosan, though, I found that it is actually everywhere. While it is not FDA approved for anything you would injest, simply because of it's presence in so many things (cleansers, particularly) you can end up injesting a trace amount. When the trace amounts build up triclosan can interfere with thyroid function!!! (thats why it's not approved for consumption- not that I can see why it would be necessary...) So this weekend I intend to read lots of labels and eradicate our house of yet another chemical.
Also on the 'green note' - I just might plant our garden this weekend. I dont know yet. I had planned on doing it next weekend. Our last average frost is the 15th and it scares me to plant too early plus I had planned to weed the garden this weekend. On the other hand the seedlings are getting ginormous and are taking over the corner of my kitchen again. Maybe I'll just weed the garden and plant the container seeds for now. (really whats happening is a co-worker is getting super excited about planting her first garden this weekend and is making me jealous that I'm not... I should probably stick with my plan.)

p.s. I added the Oops! part because we don't see ourselves as a hybrid-driving, compulsive recycling type family. But we do seem to be coming closer to 'all-natural' everyday.

Sprout Update

The seeds really are growing, I just haven't taken pictures like I did last year. They look like they are not growing uniformly (and they arent in some cases), but mostly its just because there are so many varieties in the flats. The carrots, onion, green beans and peas are refusing to grow but they will eventually. The peppers and tomatoes have taken off.
This is my lonely carrot sprout trying to come up. I'm starting rows of onion and carrot seeds 2 weeks apart to try to extend my growing season. I have a few left to plant. Just thought I'd show you how they're doing! We have several weeks before we can plant. Tomorrow is the first day of spring and 10-14 inches of snow with blizzard conditions are expected. So I'll just enjoy the indoor garden as long as it has to be indoors this year! (Maybe not AS LONG AS but for a while...)

A Room For The Dogs

We don't do anything "small" at our house. Since we redid the living room, we have decided that the dogs need a place to live most of the time outside. The problem is, there is no warm, dry place for them to live outside and you can't just go buy a doghouse that will fit an Atlas sized dog. So Brandon and Ryan built one. Or they are building one. This is the biggest (and probably nicest) dog house I've ever seen! It is 8'x4' and as tall as brandon (1" shorter if he is standing straight up). It has shingles on the roof and an elevated floor. It will have carpet and air vents. This thing is amazing! It will be barn red when they're done. Hopefully they'll have it done tonight. The one and only problem is moving it. We have no clue how they're going to get it in the backyard. (it is supposed to go on the deck) There has been talk of removing one section of fence and the list of movers they are going to enlist seems to be growing. Once it is done and in place it should be very nice. Then we'll have to break the news to the dogs. I think they'll be impressed. I dont know. They're awfully picky!

Naked House

Its been needing to be done for years and it's finally done... Brandon cut down the monster bush in front of our house. We've had mixed feelings about that bush for years but he finally decided it was time for it to go and took the chain saw to it. I was afraid he'd cut it down to the roots and be done with it but he didn't and I'm glad. I do like it and I like that it's a big bush but it was just too much. Now our house looks naked! He also took out a 'tree' that was too far past overgrown to be saved. We've tried a lot of things to salvage that one but it was pretty much all trunk. So its gone. The good news is I now have a whole new area to plant! Obviously we have a lot of work left to do but the big first step is done.

I'm Back!

Its been a while... I've been busy! I guess it takes six months to get the hang of a new schedule. Or at least it took me six months this time. Work has become routine now and I'm able to include other things in my schedule like daydreaming about the garden and going to the gym! This winter has been so dreary, I've been thinking way too much about my outdoor plans! I may already have plans too big for the backyard! Don't get me wrong, we've enjoyed the snow and the (several) days off work/school in front of the fire but I've had my fill of winter. i'm ready for spring!! But I did discover that February has one redeeming quality- I get to start my garden! Seeds are available to buy and Peyton and I have been perusing the aisle making our selections. So far I have grape tomatoes, yellow squash, green beans and sugar snap peas (and a sketch of the garden plans)! Today I decided to make a garden for Peyton out of his old plastic wading pool . I had intended to give him part of my garden to work but my plans expanded...

Here is the 2010 crop list:
Outside:
sugar snap peas
green beans
yellow squash
onions
grape tomatoes
garlic
shallots
carrots
jalapenos
cayenne
bell peppers

Inside:
cilantro
italian parsley
iceberg lettuce
spinach

I just started a new gardening/cooking blog at www.miniaturefarmer.blogspot.com but I don't want to post (much) family happenings on that one. (food and family DO overlap sometimes!) On the other hand, I dont want to post what I had for dinner and the nutritional values on this blog! The Mini Farmer blog is public and this one is not so I'll still post videos and pictures here.

I hope to get better and posting pictures and video here so everyone can see them at the same time. I have a little better grip on my time now so it should happen. Peyton 'asked' to go swimming when we were at the gym last night. It never occurred to me that we could be swimming right now! So I told him we could swim tonight. I should have some good stories!