A Therapeutic Day of Planting

I've been feeling my thumb turning green lately and wanting to plant some flowers. I would love to say that I am a natural gardener, but I'm not. Nor is Dave. We're members of the Arbor Day Foundation, getting free tree saplings each year that we plant, and we have several plants that we have rescued and have maintained for years. We always mean well, but sometimes plants don't make it in our household, thanks to forgetfulness, our cat, or just mother nature herself. I was really wanting to plant some flowers this spring so Arden and I headed to Home Depot with a mission. Originally, I wanted to do the front bed and all the back porch pots, but finances and reality made me scale back my mission. I went to get hanging plants for the front and back, and whatever struck my fancy for all the pots on the back porch.

Taking a baby by yourself in a shopping cart to Home Depot in the garden section proved to be entertaining in itself. Arden was in a great mood, talking to strangers and smiling and laughing at me and anyone that even glanced at her. She "helped" me pick out several trays of flowers as I pretended that we were having a conversation back and forth about the selection (I do this often, I think just to make myself feel better that I'm not talking to myself.) After 4 small pots, 4 hanging plants, 3 trays of flowers, and 3 bags of potting soil- all of which had to strategically placed in the cart to avoid Arden pulling the petals off, we were ready to get our hands dirty!

While Arden was down for a nap, I cranked up the iPod and successfully planted 2 planter boxes, 3 large pots, and 4 little ones, and hung the hanging plants. Once she woke up, I put her in the Pack & Play with me on the deck while she talked to the trees and I watered everything. It was a great afternoon and put us both in a great mood!

Arden at 11 Months!

Well Happy 11 months today little girl. I'm starting to get weird looks from people when they ask "how old is she?" and I say "11 months" because I feel like most people would just say "almost a year." Not me, I'm hanging onto this last month as long as I can. I can't believe that Arden is almost a year old! It's cliche- but it's gone by way too fast! Part of me feels like we just had her, and the other part of me can't really remember what life was like without her. Dave keeps saying that "she just started to get fun" but he's also been saying that off and on for months now.

What's new with her...
She's super "talkative" now and very active, crawling everywhere and following us around. Girl can move!

She just recently learned how to drink from a cup, even holding it up so that the water actually gets into her mouth!

She pulls up and sort of cruises on furniture.

She's got 6 teeth with a 7th peeking through (2 on top, 4 on bottom- the 7th is coming in on top)

Her favorite foods are now becoming yogurt, and red kidney beans, and crackers, and still "magic" green beans.

She says "da" for dog we think and squeals when she sees the cat. She still says Dada and Mama for us 50% of the time.

She's starting playing peekaboo, especially if you're wearing a hat- which Dave taught her. She thinks it's hysterical.




Now I guess it's time to start planning a 1st birthday party!

Shakin it at Shakori Grassroots Festival

So I'm a week behind on blogs. Two weekends ago we all went to the Shakori Grassroots Festival for Arden's second music festival, but her first camping experience. It's a small bluegrass festival that's outside of Pittsboro so we figured worse case scenario, we were only 45 minutes from home if she ended up not being a good camper. I'm always asked to teach yoga at this festival, in exchange for tickets. This year I had scheduled to teach two adult classes and one kids class over the course of the weekend.

We got there Friday afternoon, just in time to set up the tent before I had to teach. I had a good turn out for my first class and Dave got the campsite set up while I taught. Arden loved the tent! It was like a giant playpen for her! We decided to camp in the "quiet family camping area" not knowing how she would do sleeping outside in a tent. Friday night we wandered around a bit and listened to some music before heading the 3 mintue hike back to our "camp" to put her down. We ended up putting her down an hour later then usual but she was fine with that. She slept great in the pack & play next to us on the air mattress! Yay! We've got a camping baby!

Saturday I taught an early class with 40 people at it! It was amazing to see that many people practicing outside at a festival, I love teaching in that environment, the energy is awesome and the people are always so receptive. Then we packed up the stroller and Arden and walked around to various stages to listen to all the assorted music, and ran into some friends. Arden was great, falling asleep in the stroller when she was tired, dancing and singing when she wasn't. Of course we have video!

Saturday evening brought some darker clouds an ominous weather forecast, but we got back to camp just in time to put Arden down and make some Smores before it really started to rain. Being in a tent nice and dry during a rain storm is one of mine and Dave's favorite things, and Arden didn't seem to mind because she slept through the whole thing. Sunday morning we woke up to a damp festival but it wasn't too muddy and the sun actually started to come out mid day a bit. We watched the Apple Chill Cloggers which Arden got a kick out of and tried to crawl out on the dance floor with. We also listened to some storytelling. Then right after my kids class, (and of course before we had packed up our tent) the sky opened up and unloaded a thunderstorm complete with lightning and hail. Thank goodness we already under a tent and it ended quickly. We stuck around until 5:30 to see Chatham County Line and then headed out. All in all it was a great weekend. We've learned that festivals are a lot different with a baby and you miss a lot of the good late night music, but it was still a lot of fun! We're looking forward to more!