Mother's Day

My Mother's Day started out by still being out with my sister-in-law for a mom's night out on Saturday night. I got back home at 2 a.m. and was fed, bathed and in bed by 3. I crashed. It takes me days to recuperate from just a late night at our house, let alone a late night somewhere else! I was dead to the world until JD woke up at about 6:30 a.m. I nursed him and put him back in bed. I knew there was no way I was gonna be able to go back to sleep again so it was me and a cup of joe. I walked across the road and sat and visited with my aunt and uncle until my guys got up. Despite the incredibly small amount of sleep I had, my Mother's Day was a wonderful day. It was very relaxing and carefree. The weather, even though it was mostly overcast and dropped a little rain on us, was beautiful. Not chilly; not hot. After we grilled, with my aunt and uncle, it got downright chilly around 8 p.m.

Here's what the edge of my flower gardens looked like for 7 years, before this Mother's Day:



Now, I'm not ungrateful by any means, that I had barriers around my flower beds to keep the soil in, but I've really really wanted to change out the curb-stone to something that followed the feng shui of the front yard. The curb just didn't fit the style of the rest of the landscaped flower beds. You can see the natural rock up and to the right. It goes on around the beds surrounding the maple tree.



My gift from my guys was a load of cut landscaping rock. This was a great gift! I was really excited about layin it all out and makin it fit to our style. It's the same style of stone we have on the front of our garage and the front of the house. I think the new look ties together the brick, stone and natural rock.

This is the west flower beds, along the fence. There's a lot more shade and general darkness in this area of the yard so I wanted to add all light colored natural stone between the new limestone to add some brightness to the area.



I chose the darker rock in between the limestone for the front of the house to bring out the darker color from the brick.



The east side of the yard, up by the road:



I chose to put all the limestone with the straight edges here because the fence already has an angle to it.

The east side of the garage:



I have morning glories, marigolds, some bulbed plants, black eyed susans and gladiolas in this flower bed.

I couldn't be happier with my Mother's Day, although a little more sleep would've been good, but that's nobody's fault but my own and my sister-in-law and I had a good time.

Thank you, E for makin my day so special. Thank you for makin every day a day I enjoy with you and our boys. No gift can compare to the love and peace I have knowin that you are my husband and we have two wonderful boys in our life.

Saturday Afternoon Nap

This video is for audio purposes only. I used the baby monitor to listen to what the boys were doin after Wy climbed in the crib for the second time during their 'supposed' nap time. The stow-away's first attempt landed him somewhere on the body of his pleasantly sleeping brother. Of course, he woke with the fear of God registering all over his face and let out a huge scream and then lots of cryin. When I went in to get Wy out of the crib he had his arm around JD and was tellin him, 'it's alright, Jair-rett. Go to sleep.' When Wy looked up at me, he had that pitiful look on his face and he said, 'I wanna sleep wiff my brudder.' My heart melted like butter on a hot biscuit! It was so hard to take him out and explain to him that he was such a good big 'brudder' but that JD was sleepin and he needed to stay out. The visual part of the video is our maple out front where we live our life. Please excuse the static in the monitor and the birds singin. Earlier today the boss told me that the birds were talkin to him and singin to him.

The rain, I have to say, is gettin to be too much. The boys have that stir-crazy, cabin-fever attitude about them. I've taken them out to the garage to play, we've played in the rain a number of times, but there's just somethin about not havin that sun shinin. A good thing about the rain though, is that my flowers are soakin up the water! Everything's so green!





This spider's wort or sleeping flower is just about ready to pop out with blooms:

Here you can see just a hint of the color that's comin:

The sweet william have all bloomed and they look so colorful against the drab old wood fence.



The vinca look bright and cheerful!



My labrador violets will soon be sportin their new look too with delicate purple faces:

Right now they look a little blah though. My flags, or irises, are lookin tall and proud:



Little by little the color is coming!

Friday Rain Bahs

Ugh! I'm thankful for the rain but I'm so tired of it! I want the sun to come out! The boys are goin stir crazy not bein able to be outside! Playin in the garage just doesn't hold a candle to bein out-of-doors!

Talkin bout bein outdoors. Tuesday evening and Wednesday evening I got bites on my legs and one on my hand from somethin. Somethin that I can't see and can't feel. The boys and E never got any bites so whatever it is, it seems to have a personal vendetta against me, and only me. Maybe that's because I'm the one that sprays the yard and deck for little organisms that bite, just like them! Last night, E and I had a date night (we can't even remember the last time we had one!) so I wasn't out on the deck to get any more bites. Hopefully all the rain will go away soon because I plan on sprayin the deck off with apple cider vinegar. ACV is a miraculous wonder-all, fix-all ingredient that stays in my pantry in huge volumes. I used it to help dry up the molluscum contagiosum (red bumps that many kids get-a virus that just takes it course and then leaves) that Wy has had for more than a year. It's finally on it's way out! And just in time for summer. I give ACV to the dogs about once a week to ward off fleas and ticks and keep them from gettin bladder infections and/or UTI's. Buster is the one that gets them about every 3 months. Humans can take ACV too for a variety of ailments. I used it to help dry up these mysterious bites. Just like vinegar and peroxide ACV is a must in my house.

Last Saturday I had the awe-inspiring thought to mop the wood floor and tile. I have no idea why because we've had nothin but rain before and since Saturday. With 2 dogs and 2 kids, and a hubby that works construction and me, who can't stay inside for more than 2 hours, it was a futile attempt to clean. Oh well. At least it was clean for 40 minutes!

With this rain I feel the urge to make up some pretzels. I think we might have pancakes for lunch. Yesterday I used 15 lb test line to re-string my wind chimes. I figured, here in Kansas, 15 lb test line should be sufficient to keep the thing together in our wind.

Tonight E has a steak feed to support a local boys baseball team so I'm plannin on takin some time for me tonight after I get the boys fed, bathed and in bed for the night. I'm really lookin forward to it! I had a friend ask if I wanted to do somethin tonight, since her fiance (our very good friend) will be at the steak feed too. I apologized but explained that after I take care of the boys and all that I'm takin time for myself. My! How things change after the babies come! Ha! It wasn't but 3 years ago that I would have had all the girls over or we'd have all gone out and had a drink ourselves without our guys. Most of us are startin a little later than usual with the family thing. It's been nice to have the rest of them catch up to us in the nap/supper/bed schedule routine. Now we schedule all our get-togethers and cookouts and horseshoe parties around our kids' schedules. It's been a fun change for each and every one of us. This summer we'll have even more kids runnin around with all our dogs at the lake!
Where oh where are the warm and sunny days?







I can't wait to go fishin on the river...

...and the lake.





I know it's comin and like I said, I'm thankful for the rain, 'cept that my garden has been drowned and I have carrots poppin up in places that I did NOT plant them in! I have to start a bunch of new flower seeds too because the torrentially strong rain washed out the seeds! I'll be amazed if any of the seeds have took hold. Usually, I have problems with too many plants and not enough space but I have a feelin this year is goin to be different. I also think it's goin to be a really hot summer too, but what do I know? I'm just tryin to keep my seeds in their respective areas and enjoy the beauty of life when and wherever they come up. I'll be happy with whatever! At least if they have been washed away I won't have so much time-consuming watering to do!

Yard Work

This past weekend we spent waitin the storms that were supposed to come. They didn't show up til Saturday night so Saturday we spent the day outside. Kenneth, our good friend, and his son Austin, our god-son, came over. Austin's birthday is comin up and one of the things he wanted was some rails to ride his skateboard on. Eric had some leftover tube steel pipes so he welded them onto pieces of angle iron for a base. They worked on them from noon til about 8 in the evening. E made a double rail and an inclined single rail. After the welding was done, they bondoed the joints, sanded and painted them a sky blue. They look really sharp. Austin was pretty excited about them but didn't realize they were gonna be so slick. He hit the double rail, stayed on for a bit, and because of the downhill speed off the driveway, the board slipped right out from under him and he hit the driveway pretty hard. I'll have some pictures up soon of the rails and hopefully a video of Austin ridin. Austin drove the boys around in their truck and the boys had a great time!





On Sunday, we filled in the buffalo wallow the dogs had made in the front yard with fill dirt and seeded grass. In other areas, like the spot where we've had the fire pit all winter, we turned up, added dirt and overseeded. We also mulched the flower beds and raked up the side yard. This is one of the flower beds with views from either side of it.



I killed the first black widow of the season in the pile of bricks that the kids just happened to not get into these past two weeks. The first thing Wyatt did after he walked out the door was to take a pass thru ever-single-lovin mud puddle he could find! He was soaked from his toes to his knees within 5.294 seconds. His jeans, after we took them off, had slightly dried and could almost stand on their own. Take a look-see:



E sprayed weeds again. They seem to have permanently taken over the back yard. I planted tomatoes, bell peppers, jalepenos, green onions, sweet onions, carrots and zucchini, and lots of different kinds of flowers. Wyatt helped E chop out weeds in the yard.

E cut down to size a small-headed hoe for Wyatt. At one point, E stopped, leaned on his hoe and asked Wyatt, 'Well, what d'ya think?' Wyatt stopped workin, leaned on his hoe (his hand all stretched upright to cup the end of the handle) and said, 'I don't know. What d'you think?' Daddy got Wyatt to hold some worms.



Up til now he's not wanted to touch them no matter how hard we've tried and no matter what we've told him. We've been talkin about fishin a lot and he's been askin to go. We keep tellin him he's got hold the worms so he can put 'em on his hook and catch fish when we go to the lake and river. I think he put two and two together and obviously his love for fishin took precedence over a crawly snake in his hand. He also held a grub worm. Now, I don't touch those unless I'm usin them for bait so I was glad he was holdin that one by himself! Of course, if he'd a asked me to hold it I would've had to because I don't want him seein me not likin it. Wyatt also took a ride on the dolly:

Redneck entertainment, I know, but it was fun and he obviously enjoyed it so we don't care!! This kid don't need expensive toys and movies to keep him occupied! All he has to do is dig in my utensil bucket and drawers and go outside and he's good a quite a spell!

Just Because

I'm postin these pictures just because I need them. I like seein them. They make me feel better. They are hibiscus blooms from the plant I received at my grandmother's funeral of which I've had for 2 years.









Because seein these made my Monday better.

Not Enough Rain to Settle the Dust

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

This is what came out of Wyatt's diaper yesterday after I changed him. It's a soft pellet from an air gun courtesy of the neighbor boy. These pellets are all over our front and back yards.

This is how Wyatt amused himself after finding out that it had rained during his nap.




Meanwhile, little bro thought that all the buds that had fallen from the tree in the wind was a great source of fiber.

And here's the step-by-fall-over view of how close (or not so close) our 9 month is comin to crawlin! It does give a mama hope!




My flower opened up more!