signs of life

It's been a wonderful and productive Easter weekend. Since the over-loaded dishwasher is finally running and everything is more or less back in its rightful place, I wanted to take a minute to reminisce...

Saturday afternoon we finally got our farm planted! I realize most people would not consider a 4x8 foot raised garden to be much of a farm, but...well, we're not most people. We're really optimistic, and we call ours a "farm" in hopes that that will somehow prophetically cause everything we planted to become extra fruitful. Check it out, baby!

It may not look like much yet, but...come June, you're gonna be BEGGIN for some produce!! We have 2 'big' tomato plants, 2 cherry tomato plants, 1 each of green/red/yellow bell pepper plants, a million little squash plants, a million cucumber plants (rough estimates), and 2 strawberry plants! Not to mention our 6 blueberry bushes (that are growing!!! and making little blooms!!) and lots of potted herbs. Ummm...yeah, just call me Farmer Erika. No, really. Do.

Before/during/after planting all of the above, I made my daily inspections of all the other plants/bushes/dead sticks in the yard. Since I am relatively new to this whole landscaping/green thumb thing, I have pretty much no idea what all is going to grow back from last year...what it will look like when it does grow back...heck, I can barely even weed the beds now because I'm perpetually terrified I'll be pulling up little tiny baby plants that are SUPPOSED to be there! Anyway, this week of 70-80 degree weather has been good for the plants, cause they're all showing new signs of life!! Things I thought were dead sticks have suddenly grown leaves! It's a miracle! (PS-- there is NO shortage of spiritual metaphors the mind can make when you're working in the yard. I could write a book of sermons of things I've thought while working in the yard!)

Oops-- this is still the farm. Strawberries in the foreground, a pepper in the background.


A "dead" stick that sprouted leaves!! I wonder what it will grow up to be?

The bushes in my front beds sprouted yellow flowers! Who knew!?

So yesterday was a long and wonderful day of getting my hands dirty-- my favorite thing. This morning we were excited to get to go to our own church for Easter-- the first time we've ever done so! The past 3 years we've spent Easter in Augusta with my family, so this was our first Easter at Vineyard, and might I say...I hope it's not our last! It was awesome!!

Um, yes, Kyle is playing his TROMBONE during Roll Away the Stone. Amanda and Marshall...please try not to be too jealous. It was so awesome!!

Then, since it was approximately 8259 degrees in church after worship ended, we opened up the garage doors to let some air in for the baptisms and sermon. I guess there are some cool advantages to having church in a converted warehouse!

After church we spent some time doing photo shoots with the Gurleys. This is like the first pic Matt and I have had together since like...Christmas??

I'm glad our church has cool brick walls to serve as trendy backdrops for pictures...

Then Mollyanne and I spent awhile trying to make her punk baby smile for a picture. He seems like such a happy baby...until you try to document this. Then he wants you to think his life is miserable! This was about as close as we got... and isn't his Easter outfit adorable?!

After church we came home and started preparing for Easter Feast 2010. Well, I prepared for the feast. Matt and our neighbor Alan spent their time performing Easter Miracle 2010: the Resurrection of our Riding Lawn Mower. Yes and amen-- it was time well spent. I will be quite happy to not have to mow the backyard (aka the endless meadow) with a push mower!! Yay for boys tinkering around with stuff until it suddenly starts working again!!

I cooked (although ham basically just cooks itself. And does a good job of it, too.) and did some light housecleaning-- this was really one of the least stressful events I've ever hosted...everyone had volunteered to bring stuff, so I only had to cook 2 things! Here's what the table looked like (inaugural use of the 'leaf' for the table)

This was when we thought there would be 8 people attending. About 30 minutes before dinner started, we found out two more people would be coming as well. The table looked considerably more ghetto after we added two more completely mismatched place mats/plates/knives/napkins. Oh well. This is an area I need to keep working on-- I have exactly 8 matching plates, 8 matching placemats, 6 matching napkins (of one set, 4 of another and 2 of another), 7 matching glasses (one broke, oops!)....um, so I'm not really set up for large entertaining. Not to mention we had to borrow a neighbor's folding chair to be seat #10. Oh well. No one really cares-- they're there for food!! And it was good and there was plenty of it, and everyone seemed to have a really good time. We had Matt's parents, his brother and sister (and both of their +1s), and two neighbors. And us. And a partridge in a pear tree. Or something.

So that was our weekend. Busy and very wonderful. Tomorrow is Matt's birthday and I am sad to say we have NO plans whatsoever. I feel bad that he sort of had to share his birthday with a holiday...but then, I do this every year, so maybe I shouldn't. :) So far the only thing he's mentioned that he'd like to do (besides spend 8 hours at work, of course) is go to the gym. After what we ate today, I think we can DEFINITELY handle that!

Happy Easter!