Life at a "Swell's" pace: Family and Home

Showing posts with label Family and Home. Show all posts

Growing an Avocado Plant

We've taken up the trend of growing avocado trees from seed. We have been saving our avocado seeds throughout the year and trying our best to get them to root. We've has a bit of success and therefore we've planted them in small pots and then combined them into a large pot all together. They've struggled a bit, but they are growing. We haven't read about how long it takes for them to grow larger, but for now we are happy with what we've created. The plants currently share a pot with some ginger found in the back of our refrigerator a few months ago. Waiting to see what happens with that, as well.

There's different way to get them to root, but I've always found that the toothpick balanced on the top of a glass has worked best for us.

I like to wait until there's a good group of roots showing and a small sprout coming from the seed before transferring them to soil.

These are the plants that the seeds above created. This is about a year's worth of growing. There is ginger in the pot with these, but overall there's definite success with the seeds. It's kind of satisfying to know that you can eat the avocados and with a little patience allow it to continue on with life. Everything in this world has a purpose, and I feel that sometimes giving other living things a chance to continue on living, is a great way to appreciate life on a different scale.

End of May 2025 (1 Second Every Day)

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End of April 2025 (1 Second Every Day)

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Easter (2025)

Easter is always a pleasure in our house. I do my best to still bring the magic, even as Skylar gets older. I like to create the "illusion" that a rabbit was in our house and left footprints and small containers of jelly beans as it hopped through the house. I think I did pretty well, if I don't say so myself. Skylar told me a couple of years ago that his best memory of Easter is when I put jelly beans all through the house leading to his Easter basket. It warmed my heart that I did something that he loved and still remembers to this day. I tried my best to recreate it and I hope he enjoyed it just as much as the first time.

I also made chocolate chip cookies and created rabbits from chocolate buttons (similar to M&Ms, but without all the junk). They turned out well and were the perfect treat for Easter.

We enjoyed an Easter dinner, that I did not get pictures of, because I was enjoying the moment. We finished the meal out with some Key Lime Pie. It was a good day!🐇

Christmas Day (2024)

We love spending most of the holidays at home and with just us, and Christmas night and Christmas morning are no exception. It's quiet, and less stressful to just spend holidays with just the three of us. A lot of past holiday gatherings have been overwhelming for us, because we like low-key and relaxed. All three of us have busy days each week, so we like to take the holidays, especially this time of year to wind down and reset from all of the hustle and bustle from the year.

Gifts for the good boys big and small.

Socks and hats were the hot item this year. Which, of course, most of us needed anyway.

We decided this year to have a traditional Jewish meal with brisket and potato latkes.

We lit the Hanukkah candles and this year I found some great advent candles to compliment our menorah. They are from Big Dipper Wax Works and are made from beeswax. They were perfect this year!

We played a few games and went for a walk to the local park here to look at the lights. Ralston Park has local businesses decorate the different parts of the park and the businesses sponsor the lights to stay on for their company display. We always look to see what business gets the tree that we love so much.