Gardening

My Mom is a gardening genius. Truly. She has TONS of large, gorgeous flower beds surrounding her yard. She is on her county's garden tour. She landscapes other people's gardens. She is GOOD at gardening, to say the least.

Now that we have enough sun on our property, I figure I should give the whole gardening thing a shot. And I'm LOVING it! There's something magnificent about that feeling of accomplishment and the end result from gardening. And it's restorative and peaceful. It feels GOOD.

Here is a portion of a poem I love (God's Garden by Dorothy Frances Gurney):

THE Lord God planted a garden
In the first white days of the world,
And He set there an angel warden
In a garment of light enfurled.

So near to the peace of Heaven,
That the hawk might nest with the wren,
For there in the cool of the even
God walked with the first of men.

And I dream that these garden-closes
With their shade and their sun-flecked sod
And their lilies and bowers of roses,
Were laid by the hand of God.

This week, I have officially finished the creation of my first flower bed. It has "lilies and bowers of roses" like the poem describes, and it definitely makes me feel "near to the peace of heaven." And the fun is imagining what the garden will be in 5 or 10 years. More plants are in the mail and I can't wait to add them to this garden "palette." Gardening is art. I'm convinced.

Now a note of realism/humor: Gardening isn't ALL fun. Like when I turned around to see Lorelai had fallen in the frog pond while trying to keep a frog from "jumping on her hair," as she so eloquently put it. I can't stop chuckling at her expression in this photo, as she stands there dripping with water and wearing only one shoe (I found the other one later, filled with water).

Swingin' Silas

Mystery Man hung a swing in our front yard... in a tree I *thought* we were cutting down.

The kids love the swing so much and use it all the time. So we've decided to keep the tree. The swing is positioned perfectly so the kids can swing in wide circles without hitting any neighboring branches. Silas showed me all his "moves" on the swing today:

I'm so happy the kids are having fun outside, and the mosquitoes are thinning out enough that the kids don't look like they have chicken pox. :)

Finally Unpacked!

We finished unpacking this week! 6 whole months after we moved in.

There is an office just inside our entryway. We lined the walls with all our boxes of books, waiting for the day we would buy and build a bookcase. I thought we'd wait a year or two, because built-in bookcases are pricey.

But one day, while browsing on Craigslist, I noticed a beautiful bookshelf/hutch made by a guy named Carl, along with a description that said, "I am happy to make custom orders." So I called Carl, told him what we wanted, and within 3 days he got back to me with an unbelievable price.

One month later, he delivered our new built-in bookshelves. And we UNPACKED the last box. Phew!

This is the "before" photo:

And the "After" Photo:

Carl and Lorelai posing in front of the shelves.

Carl was a really happy, fun guy!

And yesterday I hastily put the books on the shelf so I could say

YES, we are FINISHED UNPACKING!

All the boxes are broken down in the garage.

I'll be arranging books and shelf heights now...

I forgot we owned half these books and

I already have plans to re-read a few.

And to read some I haven't even read yet.

But not until I finish Mocking Jay!

Cute Girls

With all the boys in school, we girls have had some fun at home. We have playdates, ballet class, storytime, lunch dates, etc. But my favorite is just playing at home. All to soon, Lorelai and Jane will be in school too, so I'm enjoying the time with them.

Lorelai and her friend Molly play dress up during a playdate.

Lorelai's cool hat, created at storytime.

Lorelai and Jane - bath buddies.

Gotta love those cute girls!

1001, 1002, 1003...

Second grade is exciting, apparently. Ephraim has a new project every day. Recently he came home with an 8-feet-long strip of paper on which he had written numbers from 1-746. He kept going and got past 1000! That's determination! And it wasn't even an assignment. He thought it would be FUN!

"Well, no, she's a GIRL."

All our babies have been bald until they turn 2. Poor Jane has been called a boy countless times - at the grocery store, at the park. Sometimes I'll dress her head to toe in PINK and they still think she's a boy. So forget the pink. Here's Jane in her GREEN! But I thought I'd add a feminine touch, and it should give people a CLUE that she's a girl. On her left wrist Jane is wearing her pretty "Jane" bracelet from my friend Amber. It's so, well, feminine and I love it!

Waterfall - Frog Shower

My project this week: creating a rock waterfall to trickle into our little front yard pond.

BEFORE:

And AFTER:

After 6 hours, my clothes looked like this:



Today I planted some perennials (hostas, ornamental grass, coral bells, boxwood, dwarf barberry) in the bed around the pond. They look small and spread out now, but they will fill the space with time.

When Silas first walked up to see the finished waterfall, he said, "Mom, this looks like you worked very hard."

The kids call it the frog shower.

And the frogs quickly settled in to enjoy it. (pictured: frog baby 1).

I'm happy to report Frog Baby 2 is back from his walkabout.

The Prima Ballerina

Lorelai started ballet class this week. She was in heaven.

And I finally understood why moms like to dress up their girls so much.

I snapped a lot of photos of this cutie in her leotard.

Isn't this the cutest thing you EVER saw?

I was giggling hysterically at just how cute these girls are!


Lorelai - you ARE a prima ballerina! Love you!

Mosquito-Eye

How many mosquito posts can I do? But - SERIOUSLY - a mosquito bite on Lorelai's eyelid ? Poor girl!

Timmm-bberrrr!

We recently hired an arborist to cut down several trees that were leaning dangerously towards our house. They left a rather large stump in place because there was something metallic inside that was quickly dulling their saw blade. Mystery Man decided he would take it down with an axe. After a week of hacking at that oak stump a little each day, he found the interior was blackened, as if it had been struck by lightning. Here is the stump... it looks peculiarly like a pencil...



Mystery Man's "Manliness" doesn't end there. He purchased a chainsaw and all the related safety equipment and will be cutting down several trees himself. He cut the first one last week.

All the tree removal has been wonderful... I had no idea how much more appealing the view would be... we have more sunshine, we can see the stars and the moon, we seem to see more of the neighbors, and we're putting in a garden. Yay!

Lego Smashers

Nine-year-old Azael continues to enjoy Lego of all types. And he's moving up in the Lego world: he just joined a First Lego League (FLL) team. He and 5 other boys will build a robot and program it to perform missions. In November they'll compete in a tournament with more than 30 other teams from the area and the judges will award each team points based on their teamwork, their completion of missions, etc. Azael has loved attending the meetings so far! And the bonus: Mystery Man is the coach! Tentatively the kids have titled their team the "Lego Smashers."

The Swimming Hole

After a heavy rain, we have a temporary pond in our backyard formed where the small stream backs up . A few weeks ago, our boys decided it is a great swimming hole:

Boys Back to School

All our boys are in school now.

Silas and Ephraim are at one school, while Azael is at another. Silas and Ephraim started yesterday. We waited for the bus amidst a flurry of mosquitoes. We were surprised to see the bus stopped at both the street before and after ours, which means there ARE other young kids in the neighborhood. One of them happens to be in Ephraim's class. And has a mohawk. You can't beat that. Time for a playdate... Today was day 2 and Silas is starting to feel the wear and tear of full-day school; he fell asleep on the bus ride home today and Ephraim said he had to push Silas' legs back up onto the seat so he wouldn't fall onto the floor. They returned home happy and school seems to be a positive experience so far!

Azael started today. He rode a bus filled almost completely with middle schoolers and high schoolers. And it didn't seem to phase him. I secretly drove to the school and hid our van in the parking lot, peeked over a magazine and watched Azael get off the bus and walk into the school. He had his backpack over one shoulder (the cool way, according to Diary of a Wimpy Kid). Today at 4 p.m. he got off the bus and I walked down to the road to greet him, and quickly realized that was a mistake - he looked mortified walking toward me with 2 middle schoolers and 1 high schooler behind him. "Mom, you lied! You said you wouldn't walk up to me and embarass me! And I saw your van in the parking lot! You were spying on me!" Oh, sorry. Never again. Time to let him grow up a bit. I guess I'll treat him more like a middle schooler, even though he's only in 4th grade!

Here are some fun photos of our first days of school:

Ephraim & Silas

Silas gets off the bus at the school (yes, I followed them there just to be sure they knew where to go)

Ephraim gets off the bus Silas and his teacher (he's in a K/1 combined class)

Ephraim and his teacher

Azael on his first day

Watching from "far away" as Azael gets on the bus.

Wow. Life is flying by. *sniff*