Garden Days

Here are some photos from different garden days at the Growhouse from the past few weeks.

The first few are from a big Harvest day we had a couple months ago. We harvested chard, arugula, bok choy, & kale for local restaurants in honor of Food Day. Each of the participating restaurants featured a dish the following evening that included the harvested Growhouse greens.

We had a lot of volunteers that day for harvesting, which is great, because we needed as many hands and scissors as we could get!

This is Kenny, the Growhouse creator and operator.

We get people of all ages. This girl's name is Calli, and she's working on a project for school about the process of developing urban gardens. She brought her younger cousins for harvest day.

These two cuties are Rachel and Sara. They're sisters, and good friends of Julie. I met them through Julie, and now Sara works at Frances with us!

Giving the greens a good rinse.

We started building an Herb Spiral. It will have multiple levels, and we'll plant different herbs on each level based on the amount of sun they need.

All finished. It took us about 2 full garden days to build it.

We had a bicycle pub crawl stop in at the Growhouse last month. I made two batches of drinks using fresh herbs form the garden.

Rosemary infused Lemonade poured over Vodka

Basil infused Red Sangria

Cookin' some veggie dogs over the fire. Yum!

My Mother's 60th Birthday

I've been up to a lot in the past few months, so it may take a couple posts to get all caught up.

Everyone's been asking about photos from my Mother's 60th Birthday...and now I finally have them all!

We celebrated at the historic Ice House Phoenix! The venue space was so special and unique.

We strung bistro lights, and scattered mason jars with votives all over the place. We had a local food truck, Short Leash Hot Dogs, serve up their delicious creations, while I offered some homemade side dishes. There was a "Photo Booth" station, complete with a variety of fun props. We played music, had lots of ice cold drinks, dozens of cupcakes, and about 70 of our closest friends.

The night was perfect, and my Mother was overwhelmed with happiness and love for everything and everyone around her.

Check out some of my favorite photos from the night!

The Postcard Invitation

The Birthday Girl, Mary. So beautiful!

I used glass paint to make the colored mason jars, and used large mason jars with twine tied around the rim for the flower arrangements. I had a local flower shop, Camelback Flower Shop, put together the arrangements.

I made some simple pendant banners to hang around inside the venue space.

I collected photos of my Mom through the years and fastened them to a line of twine with clothespins. They were on the main wall inside for everyone to peruse during the party.

I made Pesto Pasta Salad with Cherry Tomatoes & Fresh Mozzarella, Fruit Salad, & Quinoa Salad with Feta Cheese.

I made those "Happy Birthday" votives with mason jars, removable vinyl letters, & spray paint. They looked so cool! I was really happy with how they turned out.

I made 4 types of cupcakes: Vanilla w/ Cream Cheese Frosting, Vanilla w/ Chocolate Frosting, Peanut Butter & Jelly, and Lemon Meringue. I even took Brown Kraft boxes and labeled them with the image from the invitation, and stacked them on the table for people to take cupcakes home.

I love this photo of Mom

Family Shot from the "Photo Booth"

And a Crazy one.

Mom & Dad

So cute!

Moira, Meg, & Little Denver

Mom and the girls. Love this photo too!

Megan, Dan, & Denver

The Tidds

Megan and her girl friends

Me & Cass

Me & Jibi

Me, Cass, & Jibi

Being our usual selves.

Moira & Bethany

So fun!

Holiday Update

To start with, we had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Brendan, Mary, and Marie came over to join Adam and me for dinner, we watched the Miami Marching Band in the Macy's parade, and I for one stuffed myself silly. I planned to take a bunch of pictures (especially since I bought an actual roasting pan this year and the turkey turned out beautifully), but once everyone showed up I abandoned the camera. Brendan did a nice chalkboard drawing for us:



And though I didn't get a shot of the spread on Thanksgiving itself, I did take a picture of his leftovers-lunch the next day:



After Adam and I dropped Brendan off at the airport on Friday night, we stopped to pick up a Christmas tree. Last year, our eyes were bigger than our living room, and the tree we picked out blocked all the light from the picture window it stands in front of and took up half the dining room. This year, we were a bit more conservative and picked one that was just right. Here I am putting the angel on top, looking afraid of falling:



We have tons and tons of Christmas decorations this year, because this summer our parents gave us all of our Christmas stuff. Our second tree is much more full this year, and Adam's mom gave us her Dickensville collection, so that's up as well. Adam even put the train around the tree.







But that's not all! Last Sunday, it was about 60 degrees and sunny, so we took advantage of the weather and put up the Christmas lights. We got lots of snow this week, so they look extra pretty all lit up.