Seeds, Sprouts, Plants, Flowers, Fruit & Vegetables

So back in March, one of my Sharing Saturday features was from The Artful Child on investigating peas growing in your window with contact paper and a water paper towel. We tried this in Hazel's bedroom window. She now calls our pea plants elephant trunks. However it is neat to see the roots.

A great book to help see the plants and roots is How Does a Seed Grow by Sue Kim. It has fold out pages and shows both the underground and above ground parts of the plant to grow different fruits--tomato, pepper, peas, oranges, blueberries, etc. Hazel of course loves it because of the fold out pages.

On the Monday after Easter we planted some seeds with my father. My parents are avid gardeners and grow amazing flowers and vegetables. We are going to bring some of our seeds to my parents to grow in their garden since they have better space and sun for gardening. However I promised Hazel we would try some gardening. The one thing I want to do is grow a sunflower garden for her to hide in. So sunflowers are on our list as well as watermelons, pumpkins, celery, carrots, zucchini and green beans oh and snap peas, of course.

By Friday we had some sunflowers already popping out. It was so exciting for Hazel to see. My father had cut two milk cartons in half for us and we used them to plant some of the seeds that would take the longest to harvest. Here are the seeds we planted.

We just filled the carton halves with soil and planted the seeds as deep as the package said. Then stuck them in nice sunny windows and watered them often.

We labeled the carton on the top part with what type of seeds we planted. We have one sunflower container, one pumpkin, one watermelon and one celery. Once they start growing we will replant them into cups and then eventually outside in our garden. We will also grow some carrots, marigolds, basil, zucchinis and tomatoes. Do you have a garden? What do you grow?

Sunflowers Day 9

Pumpkins Day 9

Watermelon Day 9

Since our sunflowers popped up first, we have started doing some sunflower crafts.I went to DLTK's Crafts for Kids and found many sunflower crafts. All of these came from there.

Sunflower Mask

Tissue Paper and Sunflower Seed Craft

We also started the You Are My Sunshine Frames for Mother's Day gifts. Now I just need to get a good picture of my little sunshine. She is in her I hate pictures stage. She colored these with her dot markers and they remind me of the flowers in one of her favorite books (see below). We will share them when they are completely done as well.

We also read How a Seed Grows Into a Sunflower by David Stewart, and one of our favorites is My Garden by Kevin Henkes.

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Cooking with Hazel and Easter Leftover Ham

So I needed to use up the leftover Easter ham. I decided to make some scalloped potatoes. I wanted it to be Hazel friendly and use my crock pot. I found this recipe on All Recipes and of course adapted it to us.

Since Hazel loves chopping, I decided to add some vegetables she could chop--carrots and green beans. I also added some broccoli, but she didn't want to chop it. And we learned not to let her chop the onions since she tends to rub her eyes while doing it.

Ingredients:
3 lbs. Potatoes (I used four Russet potatoes)
1 chopped onion
1 diced carrot
1-2 cups chopped green beans
1 cup broccoli florets
1 cup shredded fat free cheddar cheese
1 cup cooked ham
1 10.75 oz can of Healthy Choice Cream of Celery Soup (we don't like mushrooms in my house so I always substitute cream of celery for cream of mushroom in every recipe that uses it)
3/4 cup water
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1 cup frozen peas thawed

Slice the potatoes very thinly. We used the food processor. Then put in slow cooker. Add onions, carrots, green beans, broccoli, cheese and ham to slow cooker and stir to mix up.
Combine soup, water, pepper and garlic powder in 2 cup measuring cup and mix together.

Pour sauce over vegetable mixture and stir a bit to mix it in. Cover and turn slow cooker on to low. Cook for 7-8 hours. Half an hour before you will serve add thawed peas. Stir to mix before serving. Enjoy!!

It came out pretty well. Hazel and I both enjoyed it. Steve had filled up on ice cream and skipped dinner completely. Guess he shouldn't have finished Hazel's ice cream for her. Oh, well.

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The Colors in Nature on a Walk around the Neighborhood

After playing with our senses in our own yard the other day, Hazel and I took a walk around the neighborhood. She wanted to ride in her stroller which didn't bother me since I could get more exercise in. We decided to look and see what colors we could see in nature as we walked around our neighborhood. I didn't start taking pictures of what we saw until the last part of the walk, but here are a few things we saw.

Yellow Dandelions

Blue Vinca

Yellow, White, Pink and Red Flowers

White Flowering Trees

Pale Purple Flowers

Yellow and Orange Daffodils

Pink/Purple Azalea

Pink and White Flowering Tree

Red Tree and Yellow Bush

White barked birch tree

Orange and Red Pansies and Purple and Blue Violas

Grey Fur

Pink Flowers

Blue Sky

Yellow Forsythia and Pink Cherry Blossoms

We also discussed all the green and brown we saw everywhere and every shade of green.

Then we drew in our journal a day or so later remembering what we saw.

Hazel loves having me draw with her. I tried to label whatever we drew, but didn't get them all. I think the red and green on the last page was a car with eyes.

Some books to go with this walk... Rainbow Sheep by Kim Chatel and What Does Bunny See? by Linda Sue Park.

What have you been doing outside?

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