Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Catching up

Whew, it seems we've had a busy life lately! I wanted to update and share some pics from the past few days.

As I mentioned earlier, Jim's birthday was Friday. I had tried to come up with a little surprise party for him, which was rather challenging because he was working from home all last week! So he did suspect that I was up to something, due to all the phone calls back and forth between my mom, brother, and me! Anyway, what we ended up doing was dropping the kids off at my parents' house while we went out to the Woodstock Station (a casual restaurant in an old train station building). After dinner, we went to my brother and sister-in-law's house for a birthday party for Jim and our niece Mackenzie, whose birthday was earlier this month. I had told Jim we were going to a party for Kenzie, but being the smartypants that he is, of course he figured out that it wasn't just for her. :) My parents brought Sam & Julia with them and met up with us there, and we all had a nice time together.

On Saturday morning, we took a little trip down to Target and Sam's Club. We got Julia's pictures taken and they came out so cute that it was really hard to pick just one! Unfortunately Jim and Sam were off in another part of the store and hadn't come back to the photo studio yet, so I had to do the picking by myself. This is the dress we had her picture taken in. The pose that I picked is more of a close-up of her face and shoulders, though, so it doesn't show the whole dress.


Sunday was a busy day with church, and then celebrating Mother's Day as well. I had fixed crockpot lasagna the night before, and we had my parents over for dinner. Mom brought a salad and bread, and I made biscuits and whipped cream for strawberry shortcake, using the store-bought frozen berries for sauce. Yummy!

Jim bought me a beautiful little rosebush for Mother's Day, and I planted it on Monday, along with the hydrangea that he had bought for my birthday. I also transplanted a little clump of purple violets. At first I didn't think they were going to do well, as they were all droopy and looked pretty pathetic, but after a rainy night, they looked a lot happier. Here's a picture of one of the roses on my bush. I hope I can keep it alive!

Sam was my little helper as I gardened. He loved scooping potting soil out of the bag and dumping it into the holes as I planted the flowers. :)

Yesterday I scattered 2 boxes' worth of wildflower seeds on some of the most desolate areas of our yard. We'll see how they do! Today is a very rainy day, so I'm hoping that will help them take root. I still have one box left, and may get one or two more as well. At only $1/box, it's a pretty cheap way to add some color to our yard--assuming they actually come up! We have tons of purple violets in our yard, too, as well as some tiny white ones, and some other flowering bushes that I'm not familiar with. Plus, we still have about 15 or so daffodils getting ready to bloom. I also hope to get some hanging plants for the deck, or maybe plant more herbs in my hanging pots for out there. I am having so much fun gardening so far! I'm hoping we can get our small vegetable garden planted this weekend, too. We'll see.

Yesterday our first hummingbird of the season appeared! I got some food mixed up and filled the feeder, and we've seen at least 2 of them since then. I love hummers; they are so cute to watch. I think I may get one more feeder for them this year. We've stopped feeding the other wild birds for the summer--now that the bears are awake, there's no point in inviting one to come tear down the birdfeeder. :)

I entered this picture of Julia in a photo contest that Cotton Babies was having yesterday. She didn't place in the contest, but I wanted to share the picture anyway. Cotton Babies is having daily contests, prizes, and specials for their "Mother's Week," including $3 shipping through Friday. Not like I need more diapers . . . but they've been selling their seconds pretty cheap!


Both my kiddos are napping at the same time--a real rarity, but a real treat!--so I'd better go now and work on some things while I have some quiet time to do so. Hope everyone is having a lovely week so far!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

That dress of Julia's is absolutely gorgeous! Where'd you get it? Can't wait to see her photos! Yum, how do you make crockpot lasagna? Sounds like a great Sunday lunch staple. Your flowers sound lovely! Hydrangeas are one of my favorites though I've heard they're hard to grow.

Carrie said...

I got the dress at Marshalls. They had lots of those type of cute, poofy dresses before Easter, and she got some Easter money, so . . . it worked out perfectly. :) I love it too.

The crockpot lasagna recipe is SO yummy. I'll try and post it for you soon.

Hydrangeas are a favorite of mine, too, but I agree they are hard to grow. I've only tried a couple other times (at 2 previous homes) without much success. We'll see how this one goes. I have better hopes for the rose bush . . . I think!