It may be the end of September, but the weather has finally gotten HOT and our garden is responding! Flowers blooming, vegetables growing and ripening, weeds taking over the place…

First some pictures of the flowers and then a quick video tour of our itty bitty yard bursting with plants.

Before I give you a tour of our garden this year, let me remind you of what our yard looked like last year when we moved in (more info here):

Here it is now, a year and half later:

Movie: Garden Tour from Carrie on Vimeo.

(Sorry if I sound a bit breathless. I had a cold while filming, which we’ll now remember forever. Sigh.)

Like Mama, Miss Leyba loves to make lists.

Shopping lists.
To-do lists.
Book lists.

Like Mama, Miss Leyba loves to write stories.

She has even been known to say, “I need to do a blog post.”

That was a direct quote. I even twittered it for her.

Like Mama, Miss Leyba loves to write letters.

“Dear Momma, I’m glad I love you so much!”

“Dear Dadda, I love you so much! I’d like to do this again!”

While I never seem to find the time to write letters, Miss Leyba is very good at making the time for this favorite activity.

Unfortunately she still has to wait on me to mail the letters.

Right now we have two letters to mail internationally (one to France, one to Afghanistan), waiting for me to take them to the post office to get the right postage.

Sigh. I’ll get to it eventually. Sigh. I mean soon.

For months I’ve been meaning to organize the pantry. To put spices and bulk foods into glass jars. To label everything. To toss the old stuff (like foods containing gluten, which we don’t eat anymore!). To donate our BPA-laced canned goods. To group similar items and reorganize where we keep pretty much everything. It’s such a mess in there.

Step 1: Gathering supplies

I’ve saved glass jam jars and their lids. We’ve bought giant half gallon Mason jars when they were on sale at our local hardware store. David and Miss Leyba picked out two liquid chalk pens at my request so I can easily mark the jars and the labels will easily wash off so I can relabel indefinitely.

Step 2: Getting started

I’m all set to start. What’s stopping me? Evidently I lack is the drive to get going. I still need to wash the mason jars and that’s really holding me back.

Now that I’ve posted about this, the pressure is on.

Ready, set, go!

Laughs. I’m still sitting here. Well, it was worth a try, right?

Stay tuned. I’ll post about my progress. Really.

Miss Leyba loves playing with money and credit cards and quite frankly I got tired of her playing with my wallet and putting my library card who knows where. Something had to be done.

So we made her some play money and credit cards to go in her very own wallet:

We used the cardboard cards that come with those annoying credit card offers in the mail.

On Photoshop I quickly whipped up some 3.370 × 2.125 inch credit cards at a 300 dpi resolution with Miss Leyba’s face and pretend bank and card info.

We cut them out, mod podged them on to the cardboard cards, decorated them with stickers and glitter, let them dry, covered them with mod podge again and voila!

Welcome to the Bank of Spritzer Leyba!

Quite honestly if I could do it again (and I probably will), I would print her pictures out on heaver card stock (not regular printer paper) and would glue it on with regular glue (or a thicker coat of mod podge). Then I would probably laminate the cards instead of covering them with mod podge. That way my daughters beautiful face wouldn’t be covered in brush strokes. She didn’t seem to care at all… that’s one thing I love about toddlers: they’re easy to please!

We also made her some pretend money. I found photos of dollar bills online and made them smaller than real bills so she could hold them more easily in her hand. Then I printed them on heavy cardstock and cut the bills out. Here they are next to real money:

See? Much smaller!

She keeps them in her wallet along with her new credit cards. Miss Leyba’s crazy about shopping and, finally, she can treat me!

Chronicle Books publishes several delightful art history board books that introduce popular artists and can serve to inspire children’s art projects and story time. I’d also like to think that now’s a great time to start developing my daughter’s appreciation for art and art history as she brings a sense of wonder to every activity.

The authors (Susan Goldman Rubin, Julie Merberg, and Suzanne Bober) do a good job of choosing artwork that we can all relate to: pictures of people taking naps, going on trains, dancing, gardening, learning to walk, etc.

Our family loves these art themed board books: as a baby Miss Leyba looked at the pictures; now that she’s two, we read the books together and she makes up stories of her own about the pictures.

Here are some of our favorites pages from the series:

Matisse Dance with Joy featuring his paper collages


Andy Warhol’s Colors although Miss Leyba calls him (in all seriousness) “Andy Wormhole”

In the Garden with Van Gogh – love those yellows and blues together

A Picnic with Monet – mama’s favorite

Chronicle books publishes many others including:

– Magritte’s Imagination
– Counting with Wayne Thiebaud
– Dreaming with Rousseau
– Painting with Picasso
– On an Island with Gauguin
– Quiet Time with Cassatt
– Sharing with Renoir
– Sunday with Seurat

They also have a Mini Masters Boxed Set that includes four of the books (Dancing with Degas, A Picnic with Monet, A Magical Day with Matisse, and In the Garden with Van Gogh) for around $11 — if we didn’t already own one book in the set, I would SO jump on that deal!

What better (and easier!) way to teach kids about art then to expose it to them when they’re young?! Their brains are like sponges; they absorb and retain EVERYTHING! (Makes me so jealous! My mind is a sieve these days.)

Next up: going to an actual museum to see works by these artists! Wouldn’t that be a great NEW activity to do on a Friday?! I need to put it on the calendar. There’s a Post-Impressionist Masterpieces exhibit coming (only) to San Francisco. It would be the perfect introduction. I’m excited already.

My mother is an avid birder and loves to share her enthusiasm and knowledge with us. During her visit she made binoculars with Miss Leyba, a fun and easy project designed to introduce young kids to birding and give them a way to practice looking through their own, homemade binoculars.

Grandma began by cutting a paper towel roll in half. With the intention of wrapping a piece of paper around each of the paper towel tube halves, Grandma and Miss Leyba then cut the paper down to size.

Miss Leyba decorated each piece of paper with crayons and stickers.

They then glued the paper to the tube.

Grandma wrapped each tube with packing tape to seal the paper to the tube and to create a smooth surface to easily hold on to. My mom then stapled the two tubes next to each other lengthwise to form the binocular shape.

Phew! She can see out of them and they fit!

They then used a hole punch to make a small hole on the outside of each of the tubes.

They cut a piece of ribbon the length of a necklace (plus several inches for each side to tie on) and then attached it to the tubes so it could go around Miss Leyba’s neck.

Finally it’s time to head outside and practice looking through those binoculars!

The first step is to practice finding/focusing on stationary items like flowers, leaves, rocks, bird feeders, and trees.

Finally, out in the field “birding” with Grandma.

Since this activity, going out birding has become a favorite activity around here. Thanks for the great project, Grandma!

By our front window Miss Leyba and I set up this basket with bird guides and Miss Leyba’s binoculars (more on those tomorrow) so we can easily watch and identify birds together. Through the window we have a great view of the blackberry bushes, a dead tree, and an open field, all areas that the birds love to frequent for food and shelter. Next to the basket, we have a poster of common feeding birds found here in Western America that my mom bought for Miss Leyba.

Some of the bird guides in our basket:
– The Backyard Birdsong Guide: Western North America (containing over 130 bird songs!)
– Birds of California Field Guide (Our Nature Field Guides)
– Birds (Fandex Family Field Guides)
– Field Guide to the Laguna de Santa Rosa
– Western Trailside Birds (Peterson Flash Guides)

Often in the early mornings, we sit by the open window and listen to the birds. We watch birds chase each other, fly about exploring our neighborhood, and care for each other. All spring we watched a pair of robins care for their young living in the birch tree in our front yard.

Together we love observing the natural world.

Biologist in the making?! (Like Mama! It runs in the family.) We shall see.

Pardon Miss Leyba’s pajamas and adorable bed head! I didn’t think you’d mind.