Birthdays and the garden

Yesterday, the Whittamores celebrated the birthdays of Faith and Carter, my future niece and nephew. Faith is turning 7 and Carter turned 5 on Thanksgiving. I can't believe how big they are getting. Scott had a basketball game to coach in Naples, so I went to the party with gifts for the kids. I got Carter a remote control car and I got Faith a couple of Zhu Zhu pets. The kids had a great time. They're great kids and sooooo cute.

Also, the garden is growing like crazy. Here are some photos....

Peas

Carrots

Spinach

Wedding bling

Last week I had my usual doctor's appointment in Naples, so I decided to do a little shopping while I was down there. I went to Waterside Shops to visit Anthropologie and stopped in J. Crew along the way. I found some really cute earrings, a headband and some cute flowers for my hair. All on sale!
Then I went into Ann Taylor and found a bracelet I'd been eyeing for a while, and it was on sale for $39.99 plus an extra 25% off. Gorgeous. So I'll be all faux-blinged out for the wedding. Our ring bearer bowl also came in the mail this week from Paloma's Nest. It's so beautiful.

Friday hodgepodge

Today I'm doing a linky Friday post inspired by several of my favorite blogs and Oprah's Favorite Things (which was on today, and I can't wait to watch!). I'll give you a little garden update tomorrow. Everything is growing like crazy except for the flowers.

I'll begin with something I saw online that I LOVE. New York Times Crossword Dinnerware! It's from Fishs Eddy, a super-awesome kitchen store in NYC. I went there the last time I visited because it was near our hotel on the upper west side and instantly loved the store. The only thing I bought then was a mug with the NY skyline, but I loved the store.

I'll now share a little Etsy awesomeness since we're on the subject.......

I love this papercut artwork from Doodlage's Etsy shop.

If you like papercuts and fingerprints, you'll love this.....

From Lori Danelle's Etsy shop.

I also just ordered a ring bearer bowl from Paloma's Nest. (I'll photograph that along with my wedding bling I got this week when it comes in the mail.) They have a store on Etsy, too. They have some really beautiful keepsakes, including this Christmas ornament. Ya'll probably know my ornaments were stolen shortly after I moved to Fort Myers, so I've been trying to grow my collection with ornaments that mean something. How cute are these?

And how awesome are these hand-painted signs?

You may have seen this store on YHL. Love this print.

Sadly, I did not win these Frye "Jane" Boots from The Pioneer Woman, but I love 'em anyway.

Love these earrings, too.

And here's my latest video from the Fort Myers Beach SandSculpting Championships last week. I shot it with my Canon 7D.

Sproutage

The overachiever: The first zucchini sprout.

Over the weekend, we started to see a few sprouts in the garden. The first little shoots of green came from the mesclun greens, soon followed by the corn and spinach. By Sunday there were also a few sprouts of lettuce coming up. And this morning, a few of the squash seeds broke through the soil. No carrots, peas or broccoli raab yet, but so far so good!

DIY Mason Jar Lanterns

On one of my many recent trips to a craft store, Jo-Ans I believe, I spotted some wired twine and thought it would be the perfect thing to use to make my Mason jar lanterns for the wedding. I've seen many incarnations on other blogs, some with twine and others using wires to hang them. This was the perfect combination of both. I think they turned out pretty well.

Garden planted!

On Tuesday afternoon I finally got the garden planted. I had to make a quick trip to the hardware store to get a new soaker hose because ours ripped. I think it's not a good idea to leave a black soaker hose laying out all summer in the Florida sun. Lesson learned. Hopefully everything grows.

It's garden time!

I'm a little late starting the garden this year, so on Saturday Scott and I went to Lowe's to get some more soil. Today I got two more round metal bins so we could expand our gardening area. This year I'm most excited about our purple haze carrots. Yes, PURPLE carrots! Of course we're doing some regular carrots, lettuce, squash, zucchini, broccoli raab, corn (not sure if we have enough space, but we're gonna try), and peas. I also scored 20 seed packets for $2 at Goodwill, and a lot of them were flowers. Zinnias, dahlias, sunflowers and a few others. So we'll see how that goes.

I started some of the flowers and the zucchini plants in our seed starter kit that we got last year from Park Seed. They have a great online catalog, and funny enough, their store is in Greenwood, SC, which is near my grandma Taylor's house in SC.  She gets plants from there and took me there once when I was little.

Then Scott helped me add the soil to our raised-bed garden. Here he is doing a little weed-eating around the edge. I'll post again tomorrow after I get everything planted. Though it will look pretty much the same.

Engagement session with Emily and Eric

Today I went over to Fort Myers Beach to meet up with my future sister-in-law Emily and her fiance Eric to take their engagement photos for their save-the-dates. They are getting married in March, and we're so excited for the wedding. Couples like this make photography easy. How cute are they?

I think this is one of my favorite photos I've ever taken.

Love this one! This is a $3 frame with chalkboard paper in it.