The wall is done!

Our retaining wall is finally done. It is all stacked up, all backfilled and the dirt has been redistributed. We have a plan for landscaping/raised-bedding the yard. We bought some shrubberies and strawberries today. We got a mix of 6 different strawberries (12 total) and they are planted along the bottom of the wall. We got 3 gooseberry bushes and 3 blueberry bushes, and they will be planted along the top of the wall. Blueberry bushes are exorbitantly priced but with how much they charge at the grocery store for fresh blueberries in a year or two we will get the money back. We hope that the bushes will discourage small children from playing close to the edge but until they get a bit taller we will probably need some sort of small fence. Layden keeps making us very nervous by insisting on toddling along the edge with a 4 foot drop. We are thinking 4 rectangular raised beds in a grid with their central corners notched and a circular bed in the middle. We had the lines all drawn and then the neighbor boys were playing in our yard and now they are pretty much gone.

Layden is getting better and better at eating on his own. He ate a pretty good sized meal of eggplant parmigiana on his own last night and was drinking out of his sippy cup. He finally figured out that you have to tip the cup, sucking alone does not work. Sometimes he would get the cup turned around and have to crane his neck way way back to drink. He made quite the mess of himself, even managing to get sauce in his ear and all up one sleeve. Today he played with his gourmet vegetarian pizza. Tomato seems to be a favorite. He sucks the ketchup of fries and will eat anything that involves tomato sauce. He also got a hold of a big chuck of cheddar one night and managed to eat most of it. Until he bit off too big of bite, gagged, and threw up cheesy, sour milky substance. On me. On the bed. Lovely.