It's easy to see...

why I married him, isn't it? For his looks, of course!

(Does anyone else notice they're both doing the same totally fake smile?)

Party Girls

This weekend was Jen and Curtis' wedding shower...



It was a ladies-only affair, so Mya and I got all dolled up and had ourselves a nice date (while Daddy and the boys hit up the flea market for some goodies). Mya was, of course, the cutest of all the guests. She wore her new kimono dress, made by Tia. And her new "buggy" shoes - with tiny lady bugs - which she wears all the time now. This girl loves shoes.



We had a great time, it was so nice to see Jen, Curtis, and her family. Mya was thoroughly pooped and slept the entire (2 hour and 20 minute) ride home.

A Productive Weekend

This weekend was crunch time. I needed to get the garden boxes we dug and built filled with some sort of dirt like substance. We're planning to spend this weekend buying and planting starter plants, so we kinda needed something to plant them in. Since I hadn't had luck finding the exact mixture I was looking for, we decided to just go look at the other options and come up with a plan B. So, after a hearty breakfast, we set out.

We came back with a combination of garden soil, lobster compost, peat moss, and just a bit of vermiculite. Then it was time to get to work, pouring it all in...

and mixing it all together:

While one lazy bug was happy to just sit and watch...

But he's a cute lazy bug, so we let it slide. This time.

I can't help but get the feeling that we're falling behind on this whole garden thing. But everything I've read says to plant after the last frost, which according to my internet research is tomorrow...or close to it. So I'm letting go, and seeing how it turns out. The kids and I have planted the watermelon and herb seeds. We'll pick up carrot seeds (we seem to have misplaced them) and seedling potatoes, the rest will be started as plants (I think...) I guess I have some more researching to do!

Three's Company

(As a side note - this last picture is the last picture my camera will ever take - after over 4 years and about 40,000 pictures, it's officially dead. *sniff, sniff*)

It's Done! It's Done!

Since we moved in (10 months ago...) we have been crashing with Mya in her room. The thinking being that then we could leave our room empty and get it finished really quickly. So now, 10 months later, it is done!!

I can't believe I don't have before pictures of this room. If you didn't see it, just picture the most orange room you can imagine - and multiply it by 10. It had nasty bright orange carpet, and this odd bright orange and yellow, stripy and spotty wallpaper. You just can't even imagine.

But not any more! The walls are painted "River Mud" which Luis originally vetoed for the living room. When I asked his opinion on the paint for the bedroom, I got a 'whatever' attitude - which meant the bedroom had to be River Mud. Duh. We painted the ceiling, all the trim, the walls, and the floor. With all the white trim, the room isn't dark at all, I love it.



Luis cut into my giant closet to make this bookshelf, easily my favorite part of the room.



Now, for the furniture! We have a huge, heavy, totally cozy denimn comforter which I refuse to part with. Since I didn't think denimn blue would look very nice with the color of the walls (and since I suddenly care about these things) I searched high and low for a duvet cover.



Not only does it look worlds better, it has the added bonus of making the comforter even heavier, and therefore cozier!



We each have our own closets, so my clothes don't catch cooties from his...



Not only are my clothes out of a cardboard box for the first time in 10 months, but around the corner, in the depths of this closet (behind the book shelf) there are 3 big, deep shelves. One of which is entirely full of yarn. Another holds my other miscellaneous craft stuff, and the bottom one houses shoes.



The book shelf has plenty of room for more books, though for now I'm really loving the top shelf:

The middle is one of my new Peruvian vases.

I think I could live in this room and never leave.

Outdoor Adventures

Last week we went to visit the Dorseys. They have a cemetary behind their new house, with a frog pond in the middle. We thought it seemed like a good day for some tadpole hunting.

Mya slipped - twice, and got her pants soaking wet. This pretty much sums up how she felt about that:



(If you think she had it rough - keep reading).

The search was on, and they did find a few tadpoles, as well as some other interesting discoveries (like water snail eggs, apparently - on the lily pad.)



Now, all along the edge of the pond, just under the water, was a concrete ledge. The water was shallow above the ledge, but beyond the edge, not so much. A fact that was pointed out to Taye a few times. So, of course, one minute I was taking this picture...



and the next I was taking this one:



He got himself out before I got to him. He was soaked and shaken up a bit. But not for long!



The rest of the day was like many others with the Dorseys - my kids were pretty much ignored, and mistreated, and had a generally miserable time.

Mother's Day

Mother's Day was really nice. First of all, I got to wake up (late) in my very own, beautiful, newly finished room (more about that later). The kids each picked me something from the dollar store (I got 2 bunches of fake flowers, and a balloon) and I opened the present that Luis picked out. He was at the Salvation Army one day, and found three hand-painted Peruvian vases - what are the chances of that?! And since it was the Salvation Army, he could get all three! They're beautiful, and look perfect in the new room.

After lunch, we started getting ready to go to Nana's. The day before, we had talked about making her cards, and the boys were really excited to do it. That morning, Darius mentioned that he didn't like making little cards - which reminded me of the several poster boards we got from the craft place. I suggested folding one of them and making a giant card, but Taye didn't think it should be folded. So we decided on a Mother's day poster. Each of us worked on one spot, and everyone had fun.


Darius asked me to make a picture of the superhero he was being that day - Mr. Blue Man, so he could color it in, and Nana would know it was from him.

Mya spent a good 20 minutes or more, intently coloring her corner, and decorating it with every sticker she could find. I decided to add a small picture of Mya, so Nana would know who it was from.

Taye drew a picture of himself as Mario, but added a word bubble saying "I am Taye" so that Nana would know it was from him.

Since we all worked at the same time, the pictures were all turned in different directions. When we got to her house, Nana had the ingenious idea of hanging it by a single nail in the middle, so she could spin it and see everything right side up.

After the card was complete, we made brownies to bring for dessert. I'm excited to report that the GFCF version of Mom's brownies is just as good as the regular ones. Mya agrees.

Nana Cam

Nana and Jim got a new camera recently. Not only that, they've actually figured out how to use it! And not just to take pictures - they can upload and even email them too!! Don't believe me? I have proof...

They took the kids out for Taye's birthday:

Taye really gets into character - Mario is a plumber, after all!

A walk with Taye

The other night, just before bedtime, I decided to take Frog for a walk. We got him a Halti, and I wanted to try it out. Taye wanted to come too, and so off we went. We walked to the end of the street, and around the corner to the waterfall. It's right next to our house (you can hear it from the front yard) but it's kind of tucked away, so most people probably don't notice it. The kids had never seen it before, and Taye thought it was pretty cool. We wandered down the river a bit, and and then took the path through the woods to get back home. It was nice to have some time alone with him, that never seems to happen these days. Sometimes I still can't believe we live here, with the woods, and the rivers, and a waterfall, the dead end street, and the awesome neighbors, and the very beginning of spring, when I don't even have to think about snow again for a long, long time. Not a bad deal.

Working Out

aka, Resistance Bands are Fun...



Check out the muscles on this guy - the results were amazing!



Darius was even nice enough to snap a picture of my exercise face...

Yeah, I'm tough.