This is our first harvest for this year’s tomatoes. So yummy (and pretty)! We all love tomatoes like crazy in our house, and Ben does a really good job picking the various varieties that will do well for where we live. I’m so thankful to have a husband who’s totally into gardening!

Having a veggie and fruit garden takes lots of time (and money), but the great thing is that when you pick it’s free! Last week, I shared about how we planted our tomatoes and our tomato arbor, so if you haven’t read those posts yet, and they are of interest to you, check it out!

We had a wonderful family vacation and it has taken me a few days to unpack, clean, and finish all the dirty laundry, but it’s done. Whew! Our time in New Mexico was completely amazing! We’re so thankful for the peace, nature, and all the family time we had together (with Ben’s mom and sister too!). It was just such a special time for all of us for many reasons. I will share more about it soon!

This week’s learned, links, and thankfulness…

Glow cannot sleep on a long drive whatsoever! The long car rides were toughest on her.

True finished reading The Little Women all by herself. I’m always so impressed with her tenacity for reading. She reads about one (chapter) book a week!

We’re dreaming of our own cabin someday and our whole family loves hiking. We found a new family hobby!

We brought a bit of New Mexico with us as SoCal has had 3 random rainy/gloomy days. I’m liking this year’s summer.

I swear I think I’m losing hair and so in an attempt to prevent more breakage (and face wrinkles), I’m trying out silk pillowcases. Not sure if it’s working, but it feels so nice! It doesn’t really go with the style of my bedroom, especially since I picked a pink, silk pillowcase, but I think I’m loving it so far.

Our faucet came in and now I just need to pick a darn sink. I just can’t decide between stainless or cast iron enamel, but I am leaning towards one now after some advice some gave on instagram yesterday. Any thoughts or suggestions?

Cute vintage wooden sandals for a size 7!

I’m happy it’s the weekend because an extra set of hands really makes handling 4 girls much easier. We have a birthday party to go to and Misha Lulu’s art show. I was a bit late, but I announced the Lisa Leonard winners here and here. Enjoy the weekend friends!

I had been wanting to get a piano for awhile, so I would randomly check craigslist from time to time to see if anything ever caught my eye. I was inspired with Rachel’s piano find and DIY, but I am definitely not ambitious enough for that. Ben and I have to love something the way it is because we never get around to painting or refinishing something. We’ve already have so many projects going on, that refinishing furniture is something we would never get to.

One weekend, I suddenly got really serious (obsessed is more like it), about looking for a piano. I think it’s because I came across one at this shop and loved the style of it (and the restoration process Rafael, the shop owner, does to the pianos!). If you know Ben and me, we’re notorious for researching everything (we can spend hours!), especially big purchases. I originally thought I would find a used, pretty piano, buy it, then have someone come over and tune it, and that’s that. After much deliberating over the piano I originally wanted, and how to be sure it was a good buy and brand, I started talking to people who are part of the Piano Technician Guild to get advice on pianos.

I really wanted a spinet, but then after talking to lots of professionals, they said the only spinet they would ever recommend getting is a Baldwin Acrosonic. Other than that, everyone said to get an upright or studio piano. I also used my brother (and his friends) as a resource; he’s a musician and so are all his friends, and they all said to get a Yamaha or Kawai. Everyone saying not to get a spinet due to tone quality kind of bursted my bubble, and then everyone recommending brands that we’re not in the budget really was a Debbie downer too. That weekend I was emailing and speaking with 4 different piano technicians. I seriously got obsessed with pianos and was reading everything I could about buying a used piano.

Then my research became much more specific, and since I really wanted a spinet, I started craigslisting the spinet everyone recommended… the Baldwin Acrosonic. That’s when I came across this particularly pretty one with sexy, slanted legs on craigslist. It looked so different and it was a Baldwin Acrosonic! Ben and I really loved the simple design of it. My only worry was that it didn’t have a keyboard cover and didn’t know if that was a big deal to me or not.

It was only one of its kind in my search, whereas, there were a lot of similar style Baldwin Acrosonics (like this) that I was coming across. I think I spoke to 7 different Baldwin Acrosonic sellers, but only one had this particular style. Ben and I made time to to go see it that weekend and once we saw it, we were sold. Now, all the piano technicians I spoke to recommend having a professional check out the used piano you’re considering to determine if it’s even worth the cost because sometimes there will be numerous things wrong with it that might not be noticeable to the untrained eye (and ear). The seller of this particular piano had a piano teacher look at it to aid in pricing it to sell and when I saw it and tinkered with it, we felt comfortable enough not to spend the additional hundred to have a piano techinician look at it before we bought it, so we kind of took a chance.

We had piano movers come a few days later to pick it up from the seller and bring it to our house. We didn’t want to take the chance to move it ourselves (to save our backs and the hassle of renting something to fit it), so we let the professionals do it. Then after about a month, we had a piano technician come and check it out to determine if anything needed fixing and tuning. We waited a month because the technician recommended that the piano needs to be given a chance to acclimate to its new home. Who knew pianos needed that much care?! I certainly didn’t. The verdict of the piano technician was that all our piano needed was a tuning! The sound tone and quality is fabulous, but he does want to keep an eye on a couple pins in the pin block, but other than that, he said it was a fantastic instrument. He too was in love with the style of the piano. He said he had never seen an Acrosonic in that design before!

All in all, we stayed within our piano budget which was a little under a thousand (all the piano technicians and musicians were telling me a good piano would be way more!), though it was more than my initial thinking of $200 for a used piano, we got a quality instrument that was recommended by professionals, so we were okay dishing out a little bit more money. Plus, it was a style Ben and I both loved. That piano is definitely a looker! The girls started piano lessons with my brother, who just graduated with his Bachelors in Jazz and Music Composition, so if anyone in the L.A., O.C., and Inland Empire want piano lessons, I highly recommend him! Not only does he teach piano, but also guitar, ukulele, and drums! I believe he can also do banjo and saxophone lessons too. Sometimes I wish I got his musical talent, but my piano skills are very basic and though I can hold a tune, that’s all I can do.

Buying a piano the way we did was a bit of an investment, but it’s something we definitely knew we wanted to invest in for the girls. I’m not letting them quit for sure and I think they would thank me later, at least I hope. I quit sometime right before middle school and tried to pick it up again by taking lessons in high school, but it still never became natural to me. I wish I never quit in the first place. My sister who quit early too (she even wrote my parents a one page essay on the reasons they should let her quit), wish that she didn’t. I’m excited to see how the girls do with piano and I’d like my brother to eventually teach them guitar too. We had a little wannabe family band growing up, so maybe it’s time the Bratcher girls started one too!

Normally, we use t-post and twine to string up our tomatoes as they grow, but this year Ben wanted to try something different, so he used hog fencing that would create an arbor over our garden beds. Buying it new would have been costly, but thankfully we live near a lot of farms, so he was able to find some on craigslist locally. They even delivered it to our house!

We used 16′ x 3′ hog fencing and 3′ concrete stakes (4 per arch). The hog wire was kind of bent in odd spots when they first arrived, so we used the garden beds as a wedge to fix the shape of them (see the picture above where the arches are not lined up yet and look staggered). Then, we centered the short edge of each fencing down the middle of each bed, and used 2 stakes on each side to secure it into the soil. We were able to put 3 arches into each garden bed (our garden beds are 9′ long). It definitely takes two people to get the fencing in; I held the fence in place and was singing the “John Henry” song as Ben hammered in the stakes.

We love the effect the arbor gives and as our tomatoes continue growing, it’s just looking prettier and prettier. The girls also have a lot of fun running underneath it. I love it so much that I just want to keep it up after our summer garden, but Ben’s not sure how well it would work with our winter garden, since he likes to cover it up. We’ll see, maybe we can figure a way to utilize the frame for a makeshift greenhouse, but for now, we will keep enjoying our tomato arbor.

Tomatoes are our absolute favorite things to grow. This year we planted 17 different varieties. We had 29 varieties the first year we ever did tomatoes! That was way too ambitious and so hard to maintain, so as we learn from each previous year’s harvest, we do less and less varieties each year. These are some things we do to prep our soil for our tomato plants and it’s based on what Ben learned from this post on Love Apple Farms…

For every 50 square foot garden space add:
– 5 cubic feet of Gardner & Bloome Compost
– 5 quarts of Gardner & Bloome Tomato, Vegetable & Herb Fertilizer
– 1 quart of 100% worm castings

Once all the amendments are on top of the soil, turn them over into the soil below with a spade fork.

At the bottom of each hole for each tomato plant:
– Fresh fish head (It’s kind of nasty to see and I actually went to the grocery store to pick these up)
– 2-3 crushed egg shells
– Handful bone meal
– 2 handfuls Gardner & Bloome Tomato, Vegetable & Herb Fertilizer
– 1 heaping tbsp worm castings
– Sprinkle 1 tsp Xtreme Gardening Mykos
Note: This is done on the root ball of the tomato plant just before popping it into the hole and backfilling with soil. Mykos is a myrchorrizal fungus that grows along with the tomato roots and helps keep them safe from soil viruses.

Ben does the research for our fruit and veggie gardens, but we all work on it together. We’re so thankful that the girls totally get into it too. We’ve learned over the years that having a garden can be quite expensive and take so much time, but when you finally harvest your goods, it feels so rewarding. I love having our own produce section in our backyard!

More often than not, our house has toys strewn all over the place. It’s life with kids, wouldn’t you agree?! In the beginning, when it was just True and Brave, I regulated more over what toys came into our house (I gave the grandparents specific wish list). I love handmade toys and supporting independent designers and businesses, and that would be my preference, but let’s face it, the kids all love that Disney and commercial toys and I’ve learned to be cool with it. Most times.

We have bought them most of their My Little Pony toys for either some special occasion or milestone, but all the other ones, especially Disney, are pretty much grandparents. They still have plenty of handmade ones they love too. Also, we regularly go through their toys and move things out if they don’t get played with. The girls know if I have to clean up a mess they choose not to clean, I will throw it in a bag to give away. If they don’t love it enough to take care of it, then it needs to be moved on to where it will get some lovin’. Oh there have been many tears shed when I come in to clean up a room they refuse to clean (after numerous chances), but they need to learn everything has a place, and if they aren’t responsible enough to take care of something, then maybe they shouldn’t have it.

Sometimes when I see their toy messes my inner neat freak freaks out, but when I look closely (and calm myself down), it makes me smile to see their imagination at work. I remember when my parents let me turn the house upside down all for the sake of imagination and play (and I had so much fun doing so), so I try to remember not to quench their imaginative spirits. These messes are what my days are made of, and I’m sure for you mamas out there, it’s what your days are made of too!