Remember way back when I posted pictures of Charlotte helping me plant seeds for our upcoming bountiful harvest of home-grown vegetables and beautiful flowers? The time is now here for you to all see the "fruits" of our labor of love. (PS--look at the difference in her hair; it is so much longer and thicker now than it was in the spring!)
This is most of the garden, planted on the south side of the house. Our landlady okayed us to dig up "some" of the lawn to plant a garden; it got bigger than we had anticipated. Hopefully she isn't mad when we move out in 3 years and she realizes how big it is and has to re-grass that whole side of the yard!
Here is one of our 5 tomato plants. We had 3 heirlooms (2 pink/red ones and a yellow/red stripey one!), a roma, and a cherry. The heirlooms get big. Really big.
Here is Charlotte holding our largest heirloom tomato. Yes, that is just one tomato on her lap.
This is that same tomato. It had a bunch of splits/scars on it from getting so big! And we didn't use anything other than a little compost when we first planted the garden in June.
Here is a portion of our tomato harvest. We probably had about 4 times this many.
I had a hard time photographing the tomatoes. With a flash makes them too shiny and bright...without a flash makes it grainy and blurry and doesn't show off their color.
A roma and a couple of the cherry tomatoes. Charlotte was very willing to try the tomatoes, but she usually only took one bite and then was done, as seen in the above picture.
We grew a few bell peppers, supposedly a mix of different colors, though we really only saw green and a little purple. What started out at 30-some plants became 5 after an incident back in May and then 4 after something happened in July. Apparently peppers need to be planted inside WAY ahead of time in Minnesota which we did not do early enough. Our pepper harvest was small this year, but we learned a lot about what not to do! Better luck next year.
Here are the five peppers we ended up with. They were about the size of plum and unfortunately were probably not ripe yet because they were quite bitter. And by bitter I mean I would have preferred not to eat them at all because they were so bitter. But alas, if you plant seeds in April/May and sort through a large amount of dirt to find and replant each individual seed after a toddler disrupts their incubator and tend the plants all summer long and rescue them from the impending frost at night in the dark with a flashlight, then by golly we're going to eat them.
Don't they look delicious? At least you can pretend they are; I still have the aftertaste in my mouth.
Speaking of summertime harvesting of delicious vegetables, here was the view out our front window on Friday. Happy Fall!
Like how there are two electrical outlets next to her bed? Don't worry, there are outlet covers that even the parents can't pull out.
This was another time where Charlotte wasn't really interested in getting her picture taken.
Reading to her baby in bed. For the first couple nights we had her bookshelf pushed against the bed to make sure she didn't fall out. 
"Charlotte. Charlotte! CHARLOTTE!!! Come here, mama wants to take your picture."
"Look up at mama for a nice picture."
"Why don't you sit down on the hay bales and you can smile for me."
"Just peek through that little hole at me. Won't it be fun?"
This is most of the garden, planted on the south side of the house. Our landlady okayed us to dig up "some" of the lawn to plant a garden; it got bigger than we had anticipated. Hopefully she isn't mad when we move out in 3 years and she realizes how big it is and has to re-grass that whole side of the yard!
Here is one of our 5 tomato plants. We had 3 heirlooms (2 pink/red ones and a yellow/red stripey one!), a roma, and a cherry. The heirlooms get big. Really big.
Here is Charlotte holding our largest heirloom tomato. Yes, that is just one tomato on her lap.
This is that same tomato. It had a bunch of splits/scars on it from getting so big! And we didn't use anything other than a little compost when we first planted the garden in June.
Here is a portion of our tomato harvest. We probably had about 4 times this many.
I had a hard time photographing the tomatoes. With a flash makes them too shiny and bright...without a flash makes it grainy and blurry and doesn't show off their color.
A roma and a couple of the cherry tomatoes. Charlotte was very willing to try the tomatoes, but she usually only took one bite and then was done, as seen in the above picture.
We grew a few bell peppers, supposedly a mix of different colors, though we really only saw green and a little purple. What started out at 30-some plants became 5 after an incident back in May and then 4 after something happened in July. Apparently peppers need to be planted inside WAY ahead of time in Minnesota which we did not do early enough. Our pepper harvest was small this year, but we learned a lot about what not to do! Better luck next year.
Here are the five peppers we ended up with. They were about the size of plum and unfortunately were probably not ripe yet because they were quite bitter. And by bitter I mean I would have preferred not to eat them at all because they were so bitter. But alas, if you plant seeds in April/May and sort through a large amount of dirt to find and replant each individual seed after a toddler disrupts their incubator and tend the plants all summer long and rescue them from the impending frost at night in the dark with a flashlight, then by golly we're going to eat them.
Don't they look delicious? At least you can pretend they are; I still have the aftertaste in my mouth.
Speaking of summertime harvesting of delicious vegetables, here was the view out our front window on Friday. Happy Fall!
Charlotte helping mama make a cake
Eating some corn on the cob, except she couldn't wait for it to get cooked, so she ate it raw!
Charlotte's great-grandma Rose Ann crocheted this poncho for her. Charlotte likes to wear it over just about anything. Or in this case, just a pair of underwear...
This is the face she made when I asked her to smile for a picture.
She likes to take care of our wooden camel; she carries him around and feeds him, covers him with blankets and puts him down for naps. He is as tall as she is.
Helping daddy bake something.
Grandma Cindy's birthday cake, an artistic rendition of a monarch butterfly.
Charlotte thought it was her birthday.
She likes cake and frosting.
