Bob the Builder Has Some Competition!

We have our raised garden beds built! Friday afternoon Mike was able to take some time off from work and start our garden project. It took us about 2 hours to build our two 3 1/2' X 8' garden beds. We were pretty proud of our finished product (you can see one finished in the bottom photo)!
The next steps will be to level the area where they will sit, set them in place, and fill them up with a special compost/manure/dirt mixture. We also need to build some sort of a frame for our sweet peas, morning glories and sugar snap peas to climb. We have the old gate from the fence that was here when we moved in, but I don't think it's wide enough to accommodate all the climbing things I want in the garden. Once step at a time, I guess!

April Storms

If April showers bring May flowers, what will this bring? Maybe a bountiful vegetable garden?

3 Year-Old Sweetness!

The other night I headed upstairs to say goodnight to the kids and came upon this conversation between Weston and Grace. I was standing outside their door and they didn't know I was listening.

Grace: "When we grow up I can mawwy (marry) you."

Weston (voice exasperated) : "Grace, you can't marry your brother."

Grace (getting upset): "Weton, den who will I mawwy"?

Weston: "I don't know. A boy."

Grace (starting to cry): "But den I won't see you anymore!"

Weston (referring to Grace's wedding): "But Grace, I'll come to the party. Brothers and sisters come to the party.

Grace (still crying): "But I won't see you everyday!"

At this point I had to tiptoe downstairs and tell Mike what I'd just heard. Later I asked Grace about it and she was still upset. She knows she wants to get married someday, but at this point the only boys in her world are Weston and Daddy. It makes her so sad to hear she can't marry either of them! Sometimes 3 year-olds are pretty sweet!

Miss Chippy Tooth

Elsie now has a beautiful, big chip out of her front tooth! Her older brother kindly tackled her yesterday on the laminate flooring (he felt horrible). She cried a bit and her bottom lip was bleeding, but she seemed to be okay. When I got her up from nap a couple of hours later I discovered the missing chip. I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry, but at least it's just her baby tooth and not her permanent tooth! I took her in for an emergency dental appt. this morning and she got a referral for a pediatric dentist.
I searched the floor for the missing chip but wasn't able to find it, and figured she'd swallowed it during nap. Later on that evening I was changing into my pj's and discovered the missing tooth chip.....in my bra! Apparently when I held her to comfort her it fell down my shirt and settled in for the evening :) They might be able to glue the chip back on, so I'll take it to the next dental appt. If they aren't able to do anything, Elsie will just look a little "chipper" for the next 5 or so years!

First Play Dough and Pony-Tail!

Here's a few photos of Elsie with her first play dough and first pony-tail. She has such thin hair that it just looked like a little tiny sprout right on top of her head. Kinda silly :)

She put a big chunk of play dough in her mouth right away and discovered it doesn't taste so great (thus the big tear on her cheek in the first photo). After that she only licked it once in awhile (she's still only 15 months). I don't think I let Weston or Grace do play dough at this age, but third children get advanced a lot faster. She wants to do everything they're doing, of course!

3 Year-Old's Sinfulness Exposed :(

So, if we didn't know it already (we did), we found out tonight children are pretty good at being naughty without being taught. Our 3 year-old daughter (I won't name names :) had a huge pee-pee accident tonight on our sofa. She very quietly emptied her entire bladder on the sofa, chose a toy the same shape as the wet spot (a rectangle...at least she knows her shapes), and then told us she was tired and wanted to go to bed. Luckily, Mike happened to pick up the toy and discovered the wet spot. At least our couch was only $40 on Craigslist and we own a steam cleaner!
We had a long talk/discipline time about lying and sneaking, prayed, hugged, affirmed our love for her, and moved on. A great opportunity to teach her about God's love and forgiveness!
Now, let's just hope our couch doesn't smell like pee-pee for years to come!

Plants on Steroids!

Here's some new photos of our plant starts. Our sugar snap peas grew so fast that the roots were growing out the bottoms of the containers after only a week. If I'd known they were such fast plants I would've just waited to plant the seeds right into the raised garden bed.

Today the kids and I moved all the peas into larger containers and set them outside. I wet the potting soil in a bowl before I started transplanting so the kids had fun playing in the mud with spoons and "helping" me.

Our tomatoes are doing pretty good, but only 3 of my 12 green pepper seeds sprouted. I'm not sure why I thought we'd need 12 green pepper plants and about 45 tomato plants, but apparently I didn't think through quantities very well :)

Our plan is to build the raised beds this weekend. We went to Home Depot and bought the lumber, had it cut, and hauled it home. I'm way more optimistic than Mike in some ways, so I was insisting to him that we could fit all the lumber in our van with the kids. Ummm, he was right. We were only able to fit 2 out of the 8 boards that measured 8'X8"X2". We had to run home and borrow Dave's truck to get the rest of the wood. I thanked my husband for humoring me and trying. Sometimes he's such a dream-crusher, but this time reality was the dream-crusher! :)

We Have Trees!

This weekend was a big weekend for our yard! We finally have trees planted! All day Saturday Mike, Dave, Weston, my dad, and Guy de Lijster worked on planting about 23 trees and shrubs. The trees are all from Dave's tree nursery, Red Barn Nursery, which he owns and operates out in Boring, OR. Weston LOVED being out with the men on Saturday. I watched him walk around with a huge smile from ear to ear all day long. He even got to go to lunch with the men and eat barbecue (a very manly lunch)! At the end of the day he was covered from head to toe in sticky mud and was soaked to the skin. It is so valuable for him to role model the men working hard and just being men!
I am so excited to see all the trees bloom and leaf out!
The next step is to pray we'll get some dry weather so we can grade and level the ground to plant the grass. We'll keep you posted on our progress!

This red tree is very interesting. It's called a Phoenix Dogwood.

The two trees on the corners are different varieties of Dogwoods and the two in the center are varieties of maples (Dave knows exactly what they are, but I can't remember). You can barely see we planted a Japanese Maple up by the front doors.

Here you can see the retaining wall we've built. Before the retaining wall there was just an odd mound right in the middle of the front yard. This was quite the project as each large stone weighs almost 100 lbs. and each small capstone weighs 40 lbs.

I took this photo so we can see the before and after of our grass planting project. Weston doesn't want grass as he thinks the mud is so fun to play in! You can also see we eventually need to replace the fence in the backyard. Part of it already fell down in a strong wind and the guys had to patch it back up for now. Our neighbors also have pit bull/mix puppies. The lady called them lab mix, but it's obvious they are part pit. I laughed and said to Julie, "Oh good, they're only part pit bull! That means they'll only take a bite out of our children instead eating them whole!" Another very good reason to build a sturdy fence!

Planting Our Own Seed Starts!

We have big plans for a raised vegetable garden in our backyard this year! After doing a bit of research on the internet I decided we'd plant our own seed starts indoors to transplant to our garden when they're ready. After a shopping trip at Walmart we came home with several packets of seeds (some were only .10 per packet!), potting soil, plastic seed start containers, and a box of wildflowers to plant in pots. The kids loved our little project! They were very serious about getting the dirt just right, placing the seeds exactly in the middle, and watering. Elsie wanted so badly to be included that we gave her some dried beans to play with. She felt very big and thought she was planting too. She always wants to be included in what the bigger kids are doing :)
After planting all the seeds I had to figure out a way to keep the soil warmer (between 75 and 80 degrees). I came up with a solution I hope will work. I've got the seed starts sitting in a cookie sheet on the oven with our heating pad sitting underneath (set on low). I'll turn it on and off throughout the day and hopefully it will work.
Now I hope we actually get some sprouts! Oh yeah, and I guess we actually have to build the raised bed soon also.

Sickness, Sickness and More Sickness!

Well, we're sick again! It is just us, or have all these viruses gotten stronger and more nasty! I currently am having such bad coughing fits that I pulled a neck muscle and now can't turn my head from side to side!
At least the kids and Mike are starting to feel better. Elsie and Grace both have a touch of cold in their left eye which lends to some pretty nasty green goopies throughout the day (and we all know how much kids LOVE to have their faces and eyes wiped)! Elsie's fever went away after 4 days. We were checking her forehead so often that she just started checking it herself after awhile. She looked pretty cute checking her own forehead for fever :)
On a side note, we now have an ultrasound date for Apr. 29th at 9am. We'll hopefully get to see a healthy baby and also sneak a peak at whether it's a boy or a girl! I was just looking again at my last ultrasound photo and noticed it looks more like Snoopy Peanut is blowing a bubble with gum than it looks like he/she is sucking a thumb :)