Grow Little Garden

plants

It's working!

I am growing things!*

(Or rather, God is growing things and I am successfully not killing them.)

I suppose this success can be attributed largely my mother, known in these parts as somewhat of a gardening expert, who is determined to keep my little plants thriving. She comes over to check on them, and always brings grandmotherly presents, like fertilizer. And mesh fencing to keep the big, bad deer away.

May 30, 2012

June 29, 2012

June 29, 2012

June 29, 2012

*Note: Pardon my excitement. I have tried "gardening" on and off for the entire duration of my almost-eight-year marriage, and have never had a single success. Unless, of course, you count the single, solitary baby pumpkin we reaped last year from the weeds I once called a garden.


flowers

May 25, 2012

June 29, 2012

My lilies have opened!

Scragglehead

It has happened again. I've been blessed with another insanely hairy boy in my life (that makes three). Let me introduce you to my son, Scragglehead

We had many a good day, me and Scragglehead.
My grumpy, old, Italian man.
My Benjamin Button.
Much fun was had playing with those wisping tufts that poke out at random across his scalp. But all good thing must come to an end. And then better things happen.

Like this.

He looks ten years younger, dontcha think?

As you can see, he was very pleased with his new 'do too

Amore

A photo series by Anna

Seven days old...

Outside We Dine, Rain or Shine

Mealtime is not my favorite time of day. It has not always been this way. But now meal time means thinking of a meal, cooking that meal, refilling my freshly emptied sink with dirty dishes, messing up the entire kitchen that I just finished cleaning from the last meal, and tripping over three children who suddenly remembered they are starving. But the WORST part of mealtime is the eating of the meal. Experienced moms, when do children learn how to eat without splattering their entire meal on anything within a ten foot radius??

 During the summer we eat every meal possible on the deck, or out on the grass. The grass makes a great no clean up drop cloth. So unless a tornado is in sight, we eat outside. Yesterday, I had just gotten the kids settled on the deck with their lunch, when it started to drizzle. I didn't move a muscle (hoping the kids wouldn't notice?) Yeah right. Sophia quickly gathered her plate and headed for the door. Jazlyn screamed, ran to my side and shrieked in my ear in horror, "Mom! It's RAINING! We need to go inside! Ahhhh!"

I calmly assured her that it is ok to eat in the rain. This nearly sent her into hysterics. She begged and pleaded me to go inside. She just wanted to save her mom from the killer rain drizzle. I asked her if she thought I would melt? No. What then? You will get WET. Horror of horrors. That's about the time that the rain stopped, and we finished our lunch on the deck. Win.

**Note: They did NOT have butter sandwiches for lunch.

Only in America

Me: Sophia, are you hungry?

Sophia: Yeah! I want a butter sandwich.

My Art Gallery

After winning a set of sixteen hand drawn postcards from Ladaisi*, I decided to make a wall collage. So I invaded the local Goodwills until I came out with sixteen unique frames (and a couple of mirrors I couldn't pass up!), and ended up with this...

An art gallery in my very own home

Awesome, right?

My hallway is super artsy. Now the rest my the house needs to catch up.


*Go buy your own art gallery from Ladaisi's Etsy Shop.

For the Love of Garage Sales

Today, on the way home from Walmart, I made an impulsive decision to follow the neon pink sign that screamed "GARAGE SALE -->"

Now, when you become a mother, particularly a mother of four children in five years, you tend to lose some reasoning capabilities... and common sense. All four of my angels had turned into demons in transit from home to Walmart. They perfected their whiiiiiine the entire way around Walmart, and when that wasn't enough to break me, they turned it up a notch to full fledged whining mixed with perfectly placed sobs of despair on the way home. So this was the state of my brood when the neon sign screamed at me. We were almost home, and both of my girls were teetering on the brink of dehydration, but being the good mother that I am, I ignored their near-death-state-of-being, because... well, because all common sense is lost on me at this point. My eldest immediately noticed that I did not make the turn to go home, and leaned forward as far as possible in her car seat, demanding to know where we were going. The minute "garage sale" left my lips, the demons were cast out, the heavens parted and my angels returned. In a peal of resounding excitement, Sophia yelled gleefully into her sister's face, "JAZLYN!! We are going to a GARAGE SALE! Oh Mama, you are just SO NICE! I just LOVE you Mama! We are going to a garage sale!"
So we did.

I got this cool pedometer, so now I know how many steps I take. Totally necessary.

 I better go walk some more...
Maybe I'll walk in circles aroumd the kitchen island.
Or maybe I'll just shake my arm around.

Then we went home and did this.

Date Night!