Lovely

Have you ever gone to bed, glorious, marvelous, wonderful bed (sorry, still a little sleep deprived here) and after you've gotten yourself all comfy cozy notice that your pillow has a not so wonderful odor coming form it? Ordinarily I blame it on the cats having gas while sleeping on my pillow. However after checking on Bree, who was watching Care Bears in our bedroom, I discovered the new possible reason for the mysterious smell and spots on my pillow.
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Only my child...

would drag a booster seat six foot, exude great energy attempting to balance it on a picnic table bench, climb up, hold on to the picnic table for dear life while climbing into that booster seat which then called for an intervention by Papa before she fell off backwards and whined continuously until the tray was snapped onto the seat...
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... just to eat a candy bracelet.

Farm livin' is the life for me

I think we're taking the whole Facebook Farmville Life a little to seriously around here. However I am happy to report that the grapes I planted last year are thriving and doing what they need to.




Logger Jim finally tackling a project from last year, splitting wood and stacking it. We'll be ready for winter by Memorial Day. Wait...that didn't make any sense.

And what do you see?

Some people buy fruits and veggies because they are in season.

Some people buy fruits and veggies because they sound good.

Some people buy fruits and veggies because they are a key ingredient for a recipe.

And some people buy fruits and veggies because they bring a smile to your face.

So the question remains... What do you see?

Big Slide!!

The Archbold Evangelical Church has an AWESOME play area that is perfect for rainy days.



Does this slide look steep and scary to anyone else or is it just me?








This is the sign in the play area that advertises different church events:



For the hour and a half that we were there, I read this sign over and over and over and over again. Who is Rusel? What book of the Bible is he in? Heck, was he in the old testament or new? Did I sleep through that Sunday school lesson?? Then it hit me. The sign was meant to say rules, not rusel. Darn kids can't leave their hands off anything these days. :O)

Second Child Syndrome

I've been trying to beat the "you never take as many pictures of your second child as you do your first" syndrome. And I really have been doing pretty good at taking the pictures. However its a completely different story when it comes to downloading them on my computer, blogging about them, developing them and filing them in a photo ablum. Although that last part isn't strictly related to a second child. I still haven't filed the pictures mention many, many months ago in this post.

The Farmville Life

There's been a lot of Farmville-ing going on around my house. And some of it has even been in real life!!



This is the start of my memorial garden for Dad.













I have twelve tomato plants (six beefstake and six cherry), six jalepeno plants, eight cucumber plants, three green pepper plants and six banana pepper plants. I also have six cayenne pepper plants and basil yet to plant. I also have about four pounds of onion sets to plant throughout the summer. Whew...Its hard work just to name them all.



Don't you so badly want to pull the lever?

Two Weeks

Its been two weeks since Dad passed away and life is slowly returning to normal... Or what is to be the new normal. I no longer sleep with one eye opened, phone in hand and in sweats and a t-shirt just in case I was needed in the middle of the night. Daily routines are being re-established. Potty training is back in full swing. Projects have been resumed. Then it comes time to blog about life's ups and downs with two kids when I'm reminded of the reason I started this blog in the first place. Dad.

It was January 2009. Dad had just been diagnosed with the cancer in October, started radiation for the brain tumors in November and had just finished a cycle of chemo right before Christmas. Since his immune system had taken such a blow, I was always hesitant to take Bree over to visit but I also didn't want Dad to miss out on all the great, wonderful, funny and frustrating things that Bree did. Thus the creation of my blog.

I know Dad enjoyed being able to follow our lives from home. He would talk to Bree as if he had experienced everything first hand with her and he never forgot to harass me when I fell behind in blogging. Which leads me to my next emotional turmoil. Regret. I know Dad understood that life with a two year old and a newborn doesn't leave much time for anything personal to get done and we tried to spend as much time with Dad as possible but that doesn't stop the waves of guilt that flood my body when I see how few and far between my posts became towards the end. I know there is nothing I can do to change the past. I can only hope to not make the same mistakes in the future. Although Dad is now experiencing everything first hand with us via heaven the rest of you depend on my blogging to keep up with our exciting lives. So, with the co-operation of my children, I vow to be better at blogging from here on out.

And please don't forget to harass me if I begin to neglect my blog. Just be sure to do it in memory of Dad. :o)

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY

For whatever reason, when I think of Mothers Day, my mind flashes back to an episode of the Smothers Brothers comedy hour where they sing to their "mother" actress Anne Ramsey:

M-O-T-H-E-R
"M" is for the million things she gave me,
"O" means only that she's growing old,
"T" is for the tears she shed to save me,
"H" is for her heart of purest gold;
"E" is for her eyes, with love-light shining,
"R" means right, and right she'll always be,
Put them all together, they spell "MOTHER,"
A word that means the world to me.

I was hoping to find a clip of it on youtube to share with those of you who have no clue of what I"m talking about but I couldn't find it. However I did find this following clip that I also vividly remember and it fits quite nicely into the meaing of the day. Happy Mothers Day to all of you out there.