Blue Ribbon Plant?

Woot! for the two older princes... on Wednesday was the annual plant and flower show in our area. They spent all summer caring for their plants that they received in April. The oldest Prince chose the ever faithful umbrella plant (his favorite- he choose the damn thing EVERY year!) and middle Prince chose a dusty miller (which I have absofuckinglutely NO experience with). Plus they each bought seed packets to grow veggies over the summer.

On Sunday I picked up the oldest Prince's umbrella plant from his fathers - he decided to keep it there instead of having it at our house. His father can pretty much talk them into almost anything! But I digress... this monstrosity of a plant was so big that it wouldn't fit in the back of my SUV! It took up the entire space with its branches well, branching out. These plants will grow to the size of the container they are held in but since this thing was in the garden and had free-will to grow as fucking big as it wanted... it did. So, Sunday night I spent prepping the plant for Wednesday and by prepping, I mean cutting off every little brown piece of leaf it has, broken branches, etc. It took me I swear like FOREVER to do this... it was at least an hour or longer! That is how big this plant is.

I also had to prep the giant sunflower head that the youngest prince grew for the middle Prince to enter. Youngest Prince is not old enough to enter this show since it's for grades 1-5. But this sunflower head full of sunflower seeds measured 17 1/2" in diameter! So we entered it in the size category.

Tuesday night I once again prepped the damn umbrella plant and got it looking all pretty for the show on Wednesday. Took it along with the sunflower and dusty miller in on Wednesday morning for the show and we waited anxiously for the results to come on Thursday. I tell you... this is a BIG deal at our house.

Thursday came and the Princes found out that the umbrella plant received a blue ribbon and invite to the city-wide show along with the sunflower receiving the same. The dusty miller received a red ribbon which was good considering it didn't grow very well over the summer and we almost lost it several times!

The city-wide show is today so last night I spent an hour at the ex's house prepping this plant again. I know what some of you are thinking "why couldn't he do it?" He has no clue when it comes to this stuff - I ALWAYS took care of it before. He didn't even know that it needed to be trimmed on Sunday and when I mentioned it he was shocked. So I promised the Princes that I would be over to help get the plants ready. It was a wonderful hour with the ex out in the garage with me the entire time! He left the youngest prince in the house for an hour by himself and when I mentioned I wasn't going to go through anything in the garage and maybe he should check on the littlest Prince he replied "What does it matter, there's two more." I know to him he was joking but you don't say shit like that in front of your two other kiddos! That's his warped sense of humor that he thinks EVERYONE loves!! Eeeeks... that's one of the reasons I left the dumbass - he'll never learn. The comment pissed me off - it just struck a nerve with me as it reminds of when his parents told me when I was pregnant with the oldest Prince "This grandchild doesn't matter because we have so many." I kid you not!! Now, we all know where he gets it from.

Okay, I digressed again there! Today at 2:30 we'll find out how the princes did in the city wide competition. They are all excited and even the littlest Prince as his big brother is taking his sunflower. It's a tough competition as the umbrella plant category will have entries larger than the oldest Prince's but when does size matter? ~wink~

I'll report back later with an update!