There is a ton of stuff to catch up on since early March. I haven't been too good about taking photos with my nice camera, but I have captured a lot of moments with my phone camera. I started looking through my archive of phone pics to get a sense of what all happened in our lives here since then, and I was right, there was a lot. I was going to break it into sections and have a blog post dedicated to each theme, but that seems too ambitious for my recent track record, so I'm just going to go month by month and hit the highlights. So, let's go back to:
March 2014
The first big news of the month was that Kristen and I decided to get Liam a pet rabbit for Easter (a bit early, as Easter was super late this year). Kristen decided on a Mini Rex for the breed and found a local breeder who raises these little guys. The verdict? Adorable.
Liam decided to name him Rex (naturally), which we quickly familiarized to Rexie. He was pretty tiny, and pretty much stayed that way - I think he only weighs 3-4 pounds even now. Here's another heart-melting shot.
Rexie has been a pretty fun addition to our little family. Kristen had had some rabbits growing up, but they were raised for showing and never really interacted with as pets, and I have no real experience with them. So we were both a bit surprised by how much personality this little guy has. One of the funniest things about him? Zero fear of our other animals, and in fact, inspires terror in Chloe, who pretty much rules over every other animal here with an iron paw.
Kristen, Liam and I also took a trip to the Houston Livestock Show that month, and had a ball. Liam loved all the farm equipment they had there, of course. A few of many, many photos:
A rare shot of all three of us together:
And the always super fun pony ride. This might have been his first ever? Kristen would know for sure.
Speaking of firsts for Liam involving horses, here's a random one from just a few weeks later of him sitting bareback on Kristen's old ranch horse, Lucky. He was super sweet and let Liam stay up there just fine, and even though Liam was a little nervous he was still a brave man.
We were lucky enough to have a nice prolonged, cool spring, but towards the end of the month we figured it was getting warm enough to start planting our second annual spring vegetable garden! We keep a compost pile going all year, and by this time it was looking just about perfect. With the help of my right hand man, we emptied about half the compost and started mixing it in to the garden dirt. Look how pretty and black it is!
Anyone who wants a good workout should skip the gym and just mix a few wheelbarrow loads of compost into a raised bed garden. Seriously. And now, the victory pose:
And the horticultural genius behind our botanical bonanza, planting our new generation of tomatoes!
We learned a bit from last year's initial garden, and spaced these tomatoes out quite a bit more than last time - 1 full square foot per plant. I also decided to make some home grown tomato cages instead of the usual store bought ones - I took 2"x4" rectangle wire fencing and just made a circle out of it. This worked great, because I could make the diameter whatever I wanted by how long I cut the fencing, and the wire spacing was just big enough to squeeze a hand in but keep most varmints (and our dogs) out.
For our second spring garden we now had 2 raised beds, so we could really go a bit crazy. The one shown above was basically all tomatoes - we planted a cherry variety, a sun gold-type variety (cherry but they get golden, not red), a handful of various big beefy types, and our favorite heirloom we tried last year, Cherokee Purple. Our other raised bed got more variety: yellow crook necked squash, zucchini, patty pan squash, cucumbers, green beans, lettuce, and maybe something else I can't remember right now. Ah yes, okra, how could I forget? More about that later.
The last big thing that happened in March was that our little family packed up and took an overnight trip to go visit my brother Jake and his family in San Antonio. Liam's cousin Eli had just had just turned 3 a few days prior to our visit, so we brought our gift for him - a nice new sandbox I made for him, same design I made for Liam the year before. He seemed to really like it!
We had a good, relaxing, low-key visit, just some good time to hang out. I remember a nice little cold spell blew in and we had to bundle up a little, which I always love. Here's one of the boys enjoying a nice morning story.
Then all the boys went outside to enjoy the weather and just have fun. Here's a great video and some awesome photos. It was really cool to see Liam and Eli together now that they're finally old enough to actually play with one another, instead of just around each other.
I think that about wraps up March (at least from what I have in my photos folder). I'm going to try and keep on this roll and get more posted for the rest of the year - there's definitely a ton to catch up on! Next up, we put on our boots and big boy pants and get to workin in the country...
