three bucks worth of fun

A slide in my house!

I must try it out.

You're smaller than what I normally see.

Let me try these steps...

Mama, this is hard work...

Look, Mama! I made it!

Now could you stop taking pictures and help me please?

hmmmm.

Maybe climbing up works better.....

aahhhh.. yes... much easier.

Thanks, Mr. Slide.

I'll see you tomorrow

progress

we tilled our garden last night.

well, mike tilled, and i entertained levi. we're hoping to plant tomorrow before we head north for the weekend. i'm calling around today to get prices on stuff to plant. we'll buy plants that are already going strong. it's easiest for us right now, being that we "commute" to our garden. we can't drive to the garden every day, and it's just easier to have them going strong... but mike scored a small greenhouse at a garage sale this last weekend. He's been wanting one for a while, thinking about making one. It was selling for $20, and typically these sized ones sell for $150-200. He asked if they'd take $15 and they did, so next year, we'll start everything from seedling in the greenhouse. WAY excited about that. :)

anyway..

our dear friends russ and murt own about 80 acres in a small town north of where we live. they graciously plow up a huge section, and allow 3 families to farm on it. we're blessed to be one of them. the only problem with it, is that's is about a 25 minute drive for us to get there, but in the end it's totally worth it.

so currently the plan is as follows

28 tomato plants (mostly romas, some beefy kind, and some grape)
8 green pepper
4 banana pepper
4 cabbage
4 eggplant
3 sets of onions
2 zucchini
2 yellow squash
4 swiss chard

that's our pre-list. i'm calling around today and we'll see what we actually end up with. :)
we're thinking about maybe some beans...

maybe.

i have bad memories of being forced to pick and snap rows and rows of beans as a child.
(thanks, mom) :)


mmmm. garden. i can taste those yummy tomatoes already! :)

high praise

This past Friday was my kiddos piano recital. They all worked so incredibly hard for the past few weeks, working on their songs, learning new things, and allowing me to push them a little farther than I normally would on a piece.

I love teaching.
I love my kids.
I love sharing music with them.

A grandparent said to me at the recital on Friday...
"You should be proud. You have a natural ability to work with these kids, and you make it fun."

That's probably the highest compliment I could ever receive.

I certainly believe that what I do is important, but I find that most times, private music instructors push kids too far, trying to turn them into professional musicians, which, in my opinion, is ridiculous. 98% of these kids will never do anything beyond basic lessons, and I don't feel it's valuable to push them towards performing. I want to instill in them a love of music, a way to share it with other people, and be proud of their accomplishments, whatever they may be.

I am honored to teach these kiddos, and I'm so thankful for them and their families. They bless my soul immensely, and I can only pray I do the same for them.

calling all ideas

i think this she be a reoccuring post.
you girls are the ones with the best ideas.

here's my dilemna. levi is still using a bottle. i'm not supremely concerned, but i do know bottles can become horrible habits to break, and i want to break him of it.
now, let me say this.
he drinks from a sippy cup all the time, but what i can't really get him to drink a significant portion of from his sippy cup is milk.

my theory?

he always had milk from me or in a bottle, so switching to a cup seems weird to him.

that's just my theory.

he'll drink milk from a sippy cup, but not as much as he should be drinking on a daily basis.
we give him a bottle in the morning when he wakes up and another right before he goes to bed.
i guess i'm stumped on what to do. i want him to drink milk from a cup, obviously. i just don't know how to get him through this transitional stage.

so... calling all ideas, mama's.

give me your best one.

a sore thumb

Yesterday I jammed my thumb.
I ran it into a tree.
Yes, I realize that's strange.
I'm still not quite sure how it happened,
and now my thumb is VERY sore and quite swollen.

To most people this would be aggravating.
To me it's my job that suffers.
I couldn't even play the piano with my kids yesterday.
I have a choir concert I'm playing for tonight, and as I type, managing to avoid my thumb,
I'm not sure how i'm going to get through it.

would you pray that my thumb heals quickly?
I have a concert tonight, my kids piano recital on Friday, and playing at church on Sunday.
It's going to be a long (and painful) week if it doesn't heal quickly.

calling all ideas

i am thinking of trying to plan our grocery\meals a month at a time.
i'm looking for all grand and glorious ideas. i've done a little researching, but you mama's out there always seem to have the best ideas. :)

so.

what things should i do to organize myself?
is there an easier way to plan?
do you buy bulk?
what do you do about dairy etc?
do you plan for just dinners, or breakfast and lunches as well?

thanks, friends!

congrats

yesterday mike graduated with his masters degree from SAU.

we couldn't be prouder of him.

a letter

dear rain.

please go away.
i would really like to go outside and play.
mama says she can't take me to the park and that makes me very very sad.
i whine about it a lot and i think mama is getting very tired of it.

please????? with a cherry on top?

love,
levi

remembering

It's been two years.

Today was our due date.
There isn't a day that goes by that we
don't remember the little one that we lost.
Our hearts were filled with love the moment we knew of you
and filled with grief the moment we lost you.
You will always be in our hearts.

got sunshine?

you'll have to forgive the quality of the picture, but it was just too fabulous to not share. i was putting away laundry and levi was sitting at his table playing. i walked into the other room, came back, and found this. he had crawled onto the table and was looking out the window.
how adorable is that?

i call him monkey all the time.

it's for good reason.

and then there were 3

yup.

it made it's way first to mike, then to me, late last night.


levi on the other hand is ready to run around and play.
fantastic.
just what i want to do when i feel like someone has tied my stomach in knots.


excuse me while i go lysol everything i have.

another first

.... but not one i was looking forward to experiencing.

last night as mike was putting levi down to bed, he threw up everywhere! it was pretty disgusting. we're not really sure what happened. he didn't seem all that super hungry at dinner. mike was with him before it happened, and he said he was just acting really tired, but it was bedtime. poor mike. it was completely down the front of him, as well as down levi.
dinner ended up being late, bedtime was late,
and we had to rinse and do a whole load of laundry.

he slept okay last night, but was up crying a few times.
we kept checking on him to make sure he hadn't gotten sick again or wasn't running a fever.
i offered him a banana for breakfast and he was not at all interested.
poor little guy.

he's napping now, hopefully things be looking up soon....

what do you think?

i've been playing around with our blog today.

yay?
or
nay?

so blue

Dar Blue Dye,

I have tried being nice, but you are not welcome any longer in my home. Please, for the love of all that is holy, come out of the sheets and blankets you have attached yourself to. If you could just tell me how I may get you out, I will gladly do it. If I need to stand on my head and do a cartwheel, I will. I know you don't want to live your life attached to a blanket that belongs to a kid. I mean, really, have you thought about this? kid puke, kid pee, being dragged through the mud, being left in unknown places? Really, that's what you want? Maybe you could spread your beautiful blue dye to, oh I don't know, to some beautiful satin sheets that Queen Elizabeth sleeps on, wouldn't that be a better life?

Sncerely,
a very worn out frazzled mama.