Our outdoor additions

We have two recent additions to our backyard. Jeremy's family at Christmas, graciously bought us and the kids a play-scape. So over the past few weeks, Jeremy has been building the play-scape along with his two helpers. The kids, especially Ella, have been very excited about it and were anxious for him to finish. Ella prayed that he would finish soon quite often in her prayers!

Here they are enjoying the play-scape when it was done.
The ice cream truck came by. They had never seen an ice cream truck before. Perfect ending for an afternoon of hard work and play.


We also decided to try a garden. We have been a little slow in getting the garden going because of recent rains and a tilled-up sprinkler head, but we finally have everything planted. We planted sugar snap peas, carrots, onions, jalepenos, peppers, yellow and green squash, basil, oregano and thyme. Our tomato plants will be going in later this week. The garden gets full sun until around 3pm when shade from the play-scape starts to creep over the garden. The sugar snap peas are doing very well. They have started poking up through the ground. It feels very rewarding and exciting to know we can grow some of our own food.

Ella helped plant the garden, a little. She has been more interested in her own sunflower and lima bean plants she planted from her home preschool. They are growing great! She planted the rest of the seeds from those packets randomly in our flower beds.

Caleb's Day

A little update on Caleb and the way he spends his day...

He is completely impressed with wheels. He rolls his cars and trucks back and forth just staring at how the wheels turn. The first thing he does every morning when he gets up is go to his vehicle basket and take each one individually to the slide and send them sliding down to the bottom. Sometimes instead of the slide, it is off the side of the toy cabinet.He also loves to read, especially books about vehicles. The other day I found him doing reading time in an upside down stool.
He has lots of curls going on at the back of his hair...sadly though, I think it may be time for a haircut.Love you little bubba!

Spring

Last Friday was my second day to teach at Ella's preschool co-op.
Since Friday was the first day of Spring, I decided to do things related to the springtime. The kids learned about seasons and planting seeds. Here is a little from the morning...

Here they are planting lima bean and sunflower seeds in little pots.

For snack time we had chocolate pudding with crumbled Oreos to look like dirt and hidden gummy worms inside the "dirt". They thought it was great.

Preschool Days

My friend Marti who is hosting and also helping to teach Ella's preschool co-op, recently did a blog post about the girl's preschool. Instead of redoing a post on my blog about it, I put a link to her page. You can read about this past Friday when Marti taught, last week when we had a field trip to the zoo and previous weeks when Gwyneth and I both had our turns teaching. Just copy and page these links into your internet browser. Thanks Marti!

http://suzannetiffanysmith.blogspot.com/2009/03/green-day-at-preschool.html

http://suzannetiffanysmith.blogspot.com/2009/03/suzys-preschool-co-op.html

Ella's First Haircut

Ella went in for her first real haircut recently. I have been trimming her bangs of course for the last year or so, but this was the first time for her long hair to be cut. It was not a major cut...just a little trim to clean it up a bit. She was a little apprehensive about going when I first mentioned it, but I told her it would be a fun place. On the way over in the car she asked me if it would hurt. I reassured her it wouldn't and compared it to cutting paper to give her some perspective. The place we went was definitely fun and she got a sucker while her hair was being cut. She asked to hold my hand a few times, but otherwise, she loved it. I got a little teary-eyed watching her at one point. And of course, I saved a little bit of her hair.

Doing Nothing but Important Things

I think the last time I visited a general practitioner, I was in high school. But, I came down with something this week that got me bad enough that I went in. Come to find out I had Influenza A. Fortunately, the kids are all well...they had the flu shot. So, I had a rough week health wise. But, it was nice in that we stayed around the house a little more than usual this week. Sometimes the fast pace of lives these days, makes it feel like I always need to be going here or there or doing such and such, or getting something done, etc. I do think kids enjoy getting out of the house and doing things, but there is so much value in having quiet days at home. Days when you don't have to rush your kids to get dressed and get out of the door.....days you can really take time with them, do things that they enjoy and be silly. We like finding fun and different things to do around the house, doing crafts and just playing on the back porch outside with bubbles and chalk and swinging and singing on the porch swing. Not in a hurry to go or get anywhere, just being together. Here are a few pictures of the kids this week on one of our lazy days outside.

Baby to Little Boy!

Over dinner one night last week, Caleb informed us all..."I am not a baby anymore...I am a little boy. And Ella is a girl." Well, I guess there you have it!.... I didn't realize little boys of 18mo could say all those words at one time. We are starting to think or (worry) that he is going to be more talkative than Ella!