Seeds planted, blossoms opening, spring is here

This weekend saw me plant up about another 25 or so little pots with seeds.  I had more to get planted but I ran out of small pots.  I made the decision to stick with using some small little plastic pots that I have here rather than using those little cardboard style seedling punnet things.  I found the cardboard dried out way to fast.  I had also been using egg cartons but similarly, they dried out too fast and I found I had no success in them.  I have previously used both with success but I don't know what is wrong lately they just aren't working for me.  The weather was a bit unseasonably warm though so that may have had something to do with it.

I have quite a lot of little seedlings which I am hoping will grow for me after my last "seed planting day" I had a few weeks ago.  This seems to be my problem time usually.  I find I can get seeds to shoot but it is getting the little seedling big enough to plant out into the ground that I seem to struggle with.  A lot of them seem to just stop growing, they never get their true leaves coming through.  Pumpkins and cucumbers and the more robust looking seedlings seem to be okay but things like tomato, lettuce, rocket etc I have problems with.

I have a nice assortment of sunflower seeds which I planted which are growing well and I look forward to planting them out this weekend.  I can't wait to see those sunny faces :-)

Today I have my Mr9 home with me again, for the second day this week.  He has a bit of a cold but it seems to turn into a croupy like cough at night time and last night he began vomiting up quite a bit of phlegm so we are off to the docs a little later just to check he is okay.  After Mr11 having pneumonia the other week I don't want to chance it.

This year has been a bad one for sickness in this house.  My boys have always had a great record of not missing days at school.  All of them for their entire school lives have only missed maybe 2-3 days at the maximum each school year.  This year Mr16 has only had about 1 day off I think so he is doing well but the younger 3 boys sheesh!  Mr14 had to have a week off earlier in the year with a stomach bug.  Mr11 has had a few days here and there due to severe colds and of course he missed a full week with his pneumonia.  Mr9 has now had probably about 8 days off for the year.  It is so weird how this year has seen them all alot sicker than usual.  I'm still trying to work out what has changed.  I know that each fortnight when we have my stepkids, Miss12 is notorious for getting colds.  Every time she comes, she seems to have a cold, every time she leaves she has so kindly shared her germs throughout the house.  I swear I am at the point of telling her mum that if she isn't well she needs to keep her, but I know that I will be talking to a brick wall.  I think this would have to be one of the most frustrating parts of being a blended family, the sickness that seems to flow so easily.  The boys seem to get a cold from their school environment, then they end up getting another cold right on top of it from the other kid's school environment.  Step families could well be the greatest germ transporters known to man lol.