Finally days of anticipation, Nathan is able to pick the cantaloupe out of the vegetable garden. Nathan has been enjoying going to check out the garden everyday. The most thrilling days are when he sees the tomatoes are turning red, and he will points at them and shout: “Ma, the tomato is red now!” After all, I’ve enjoyed to have a little vegetable garden this year just to see the joy and excitement from him.
I won’t believe that the cantaloupe is actually grow out of my garden!! I’ve never planted cantaloupe or any melons before, it turns out that this is really easy to grow but I’ve no guaranteed of the sweetness of the cantaloupe yet. In a few days, we’ll find out how it tastes like.

I’ve been attending the cake decorating class offered by Wilton for two weeks now. It has been a pleasant class and I’ve enjoyed them a lot. I think the class is kind of intense with a lot of preparation done ahead. I talked a friend of mine, apparently the class’ format has changed and sounded like the new course has more hands on experience to compare to the old course. So far, this is the first cake that I’ve decorated in my second class. Here is the picture:

The cake turns out pretty nice, don’t you think? hahah.. but I think I might have won the the title of “The ugliest cake” in the class but I’m still proud of my accomplishment
I’ve another class to attend tonight, I’ll be decorating cupcakes that I’ve already made. Will upload more pictures to let you see how it turns out.
Update: Picture of my cup cakes…

Usually mornings are busy for me even though I do stay home with my son all the time. I’ll just do all the cleaning or cooking and sometimes without knowing what is Nathan doing. I love to peek on him every now and then, most of the time to make sure he is not doing the things that he is not suppose to be doing. But sometimes i just amaze at the things that he could do/play without mommy’s company. Things that he enjoys like singing, reading books and playing his little cars. I just amused by looking at how he would line up his little cars and by pushing them back and forth in a very neat way. hahha… i wonder how he take up that? from his daddy’s side of the gene (i must tell you that daddy and grandma are neat freaks – But I don’t like it when he complain about my messiness!!)

Seriously, I didn’t pre-arrange this… Nathan did it all by himself.

Can you believe that a few days ago we had hail in our subdivision?? It even didn’t happen at JB Hunt which is 5 minutes away from our house. It looked like we had an ice storm from the pictures…

There was the kids carnival at the Springdale Public library to celebrate the end of the summer program. We have been going to the baby lap sit story time program. Nathan really likes it because he gets to join other babies. Most of the time he doesn’t really pay much attention to the rhyme or singing unless he sees props that are interesting like puppets. Yesterday was the last day for the summer, Nathan got a book as a gift! Not bad, even though we only been there twice for the entire summer We’ll definitely go there more often in the Fall since it’s so close to our house and it’s a good activity for us! Anyway, back to the carnival, Nathan got a balloon and had face painting. hahha… a lady bug on his cheek. It was really cute! of course he doesn’t know what is going on. But he sure likes seeing a lot of kids and started walking around at the library. Probably he didn’t even realize that!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve been having fun with my summer project – growing vegetable, this year. At church almost every housewife has been talking about their vegetable garden, so I wouldn’t want to be lefted out. I decided to grow my own vegetable too! Honestly, I’ve not spent a lot of time on it. I just spread my seed on the ground. But praise the Lord that despite of an effortless grower, I still see the vegetables are growing and having the produce. I thought this would be a good way to get organic food without spending much money! I’m glad that I started the project and now I could at least enjoy my little squash. But I think this is for Nathan mostly…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tomato plant – not fruiting yet

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Squash has been growing very well. I guess this is the easiest plant to grow!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eggplant – I had one little eggplant but was eaten by some animals

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Okra – I think will be producing okra soon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Long beans given by Yein. Thanks!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is potato plant. I’ve already cooked some of the leaves to eat. It was good.. somehow it tasted better when you plant it yourself!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cantaloupe – not sure this will produce any fruit. Still very small but it started out as seed. I remember I spread a lot of seed on the ground, but only this little plant is alive. Don’t know what happens to the others.

Finally it’s done!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It tastes really good! The little circles taste like cookies!

Lately Ruth’s been buying a lot of fresh blueberries from a local farm. I got kinda tired of eating them straight so tonight I decided to make a blueberry pie.

I looked up a recipe from allrecipe.com and it seems simple and delicious. So this is the pie I wanted to make:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Both designs look good.

I have never made a pie before, but I have baked things, cookies, cakes, so I thought, what’s the big deal, I’ll make a beautiful blueberry pie and I’ll take pictures to document it so that I can brag about it.

After digging around in the freezer, I realized that I just have one ready-made pie crust, I need two to make something like the photos above. But at this time I am already too excited to quit, then I decided to make my own crust, it’s just dough, right?

Everything went pretty smoothly, I got one pie crust laying in the pan and got all the filling in. I made the dough and roll it into a 9-inch diameter circle:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

then I realized that I cannot get the dough off the board in one piece. I tried and tried, struggled about one hour with it, still cannot roll it into such big piece and get it off the board. I was so frustrated!

So it turns out making a pie is not so easy, at least not for the first time. My blueberry filling’s been in the pan for more then one hour now, my oven is pre-heated to 450 degrees for more than an hour now, should I just make a pie without the top crust?

When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade out of them. When you cannot make a large piece of dough, you use small pieces. So I did.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah I know it’s kinda ugly, more like blueberry and dumplings, but I got my pie covered. I even used a cookie cutter to make sure all the little circles are the same size.

Then I looked again on allrecipe.com, turns out I am not alone:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s just that I don’t have heart or star shaped cookie cutters

 

So it’s gonna take about 50 minutes to get done, I’ll post some pictures when it’s done and see how it turns out.

 

Note to myself for the next time: make sure to store 2 ready-made pie crusts in freezer!

Andy has been complaining about his electric shaver that he has been using since he was a freshmen. However, he didn’t want to spend the money to buy a new one since his is still working fine. Instead, he got one cool shaver from Wal-Mart and sent one to China for his dad. Well, since he didn’t want to get one for himself, Nathan and I decided to go to WM to get him the same shaver that he got for his dad. He was happy to finally to have a new shaver. It’s his first Father’s day, he deserves a good gift because he has been a great daddy!

My romantic husband decided to show his love to me through the lawn. He was creatively mowed a heart on a part of the lawn. On the other hand, when I saw that, I was asking him… what is with the trianglular part of the lawn that you have left behind? You forgot to mow? He was kinda mad that I didn’t pay much attention to his hard work. Sorry… I need to be more romantic like he does!