Blast off

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Sarah and Matthew decided to transform the boys' room into outer space. They pulled open a book about our solar system and drew each planet on construction paper. Sarah was very meticulous about getting the red spot on Jupiter correct, and making sure Uranus had the rings going vertically. They cut them out and hung them on the walls of the room. They had so much fun taping confetti stars all over the walls as well.

Astronauts always wear cool helmets, which they couldn't find. The crowns made an acceptable substitution for them. It's something cool to wear on the head that makes them feel special. Good enough.

The final detail was the astronaut food. Matthew informed me that toothpaste wasn't an option, even though it fit the correct appearance. "Mom, it LOOKS like astronaut food, but that would just be too spicy." Matthew found some condiment containers and asked me to fill them with applesauce. Perfect! Everyone had their own astronaut snack in the space ship.

After the applesauce was gone, they decided there wasn't much else fun to do as an astronaut. It was pretty boring, so the games were done. Why is it that so much set up is required for a 5 minute snack?

Garden update

Our garden is growing well, aside from a few setbacks. We had a tragedy last week....mosaic virus. Our favorite heirloom pepper plant (with all-white peppers) caught it and had to be exterminated immediately. It spread to another pepper plant and a Super Sweet 100 tomato plant. That was a sad, sad day. The empty cages mark the where the plants used to live.

Luckily, everything else is growing very well. The basil is huge and ready for some harvesting. We are making basil jelly for the first time this year, and I'm very excited to try it out. The recipe is from a farmhouse cookbook. It's for pouring over meats or dipping crackers into. Yum!
The Green Machine melons are growing like crazy. Nathan trained the vine to climb up a cedar branch to the fence, so now it grows happily along the top of the fence, getting all the sunshine it wants. This melon vine is an intense producer, so it should have dozens of fruit. A lot of flowers have already started fruiting, so we're really excited. I'm still volunteering time to help people collect materials to start their own gardens, and I'm teaching another gardening class in two weeks. I'm so excited that people are starting to take an interest in where their food comes from. It's so important to know exactly what you're consuming, so I love my garden!

Pumbulation

Daniel loves to sing an educational song called 'Punctuation'. He'll sing it at the top of his lungs, and the chorus goes: Punc, Punc, Puncuation! He pronounces it "Pumbulation". I love it! He'll march around the house singing Pumbulation with such conviction.

Speaking of speech impediments (no pun intended), Matthew spells words according to his impediments. He says the 'th' sound like 'f'. For example, he was so pleased with himself when he spell MOF, or 'moth'. He'll do that with any word using the letters 'th', except for the word 'the'. He says it like 'deh', so he spells it 'DE'. I can see we have some work cut out for us before he starts kindergarten next fall.