June is blooming

And we've been playing outside!

The kids and I have made several treks to Englewood Metropark - they love hiking to Patty's Falls, and at a half mile, it's just the right hike for them. I've also taken the bike and trailer over twice in the past week and we've had some nice rides through the park. This week I'd like to hit up the Wolf Creek bike trail and I've found that there are a whole lot of bike paths around the area.

We've been playing in the yard too - Toby's been learning to throw a frisbee -







If I could just get Lucy to poop on the potty, the summer would be a dream. As it is, she is completely pee trained - just an occasional accident when she gets too involved in what she's doing - but poop eludes us completely. I'm at my wits end and sick and tired of cleaning out gross underwear! BLECH!

We put up our hummingbird feeder a week ago and have 2 little visitors vying for position on it :) We have it so we can see it from the computer.

I made the kids a puppet theater out of an old box yesterday and they are having tons of fun putting on shows...I took pictures and video yesterday, just need to get them on the computer.

We still have a lot to do around the house - it's a chain reaction sort of thing. We're still waiting for reimbursement for our house sale in NC, so everything hinges on that. But once we get that, we can start on the shelving downstairs to store all the stuff. And the shelving in the laundry room (which I desperately need) will be made from the scraps from the downstairs shelving. THEN I can unpack the last couple boxes sitting in the living room, which will go into the laundry room as soon as I have space. THEN it will be bedroom furniture, and I can get rid of the boxes up there. I'm happy we have a new mattress now, but I desperately need some furniture! As soon as we have bedroom furniture, we can move the smaller storage units we have up there to my craft room and I can finish putting away everything in there. And THEN we can hang some pictures. To me, that's the last step, and I don't want to do it until I know we're finished moving furniture around, and I can't be sure of that until the to do list gets done! Whew, it makes me just tired thinking of everything that still has to be done. I just feel like we should be settled in already and we're still so far from it. It's frustrating.

And that's not even mentioning the yard. There's a dead tree out front that needs to be dug out and replaced...and of course, tree planting season is almost over. When we dig it out, we'd like to add a flower bed around it, and I'd love to get a tea rose out there. But that is some hard manual labor, and C and I can't even agree on what kind of tree we want out there. There is no shade on the back side of the house at all, so I'd love a patio set with an umbrella to at least offer us a place to eat out there and some shade...it's been so sunny this year, and in the afternoon it's unbearably hot back there in the sun!

Well, lunchtime has snuck up on me again...so I need to get some food for these hungry monsters!

Water Balloon Weather!

Sorry, no pics with this one - I had my hands full enough just filling water balloons. It's rather...entertaining...watching two kids who love the concept of water balloons, but don't want to get wet. Really? What is the point if you don't want to get wet???

But they had a blast, even after getting shot by the hose a couple times :P

We've been busy around here. It seems like the grass always needs mowed, and we've improved the study by adding bookshelves and my craft room by adding a wall shelf system. Pretty snazzy, but still needs a lot of organizing work.

The kids are good. They were waking pretty early, but blackout curtains in their rooms seemed to have curtailed that nasty habit.

We had an electric fence put in a couple weeks ago, and have been training the dog on it. So far he's been pretty good...and I know he loves just chilling in the yard.

I'm pretty excited for the holiday weekend coming up. C has a 3 day weekend - woohoo! - and we get to drive to Cincy with no kids (gotta return some things at Ikea, and while we're at it we're hoping to visit a newborn babe, and hit up the flea market - something that's just not fun with kids!) Then Monday is our 7 year anniversary :)

I had been doing some running, but a leg injury has had me out for almost a month now, and doesn't seem to be getting much better. I have a dr appt in 2 weeks so I'll bring it up then. Ugh, I don't even feel like starting over running at this point!

Alright, just wanted to post a quickie update...sorry I haven't been posting much!

Zoos and Farms Galore!

Curtis took Monday off work as a "fun day" so we headed down to the Cincy Zoo and had a fabulous time. The tulips there are gorgeous right now! And believe me, Monday morning is prime time to hit the zoo - there was no one there and the animals were out and playing! It was so much fun!

That made yesterday grocery day, and today, looking out the window at the gorgeous weather, I knew we had to get out and do something. So we headed out to Aullwood Farm - we have a membership to Brunkner Nature Center and get in free to several reciprocal places, Aullwood being one of them.

I don't know that I've ever been there before - I certainly don't remember if I have, but it is the neatest farm, and only 3 miles down the road from us. I could ride my bike if I wanted to!

It is lambing season at the farm and there are 14 lambs right now - a few were only 5 days old!


We also hiked over to the Audobon Center - a little over a half mile each way, plus the side trails we took. I'm guessing I hiked the kids almost 2 miles this morning :)


We had a great morning and Lucy is pooped - he's hoping she gets a good nap this afternoon!

March Wrap Up

I finished my shrug in time for Easter - by a couple hours anyway. Don't have pics of me wearing it yet though!

Here's the baby blanket I finished last month. It's ok...I guess what I had in my head just looked better!

I'm halfway through my mini mochi hat, using mini mochi yarn and a fair isle diamond pattern. I love it but it's taking forever!
I found the socks FINALLY at Carriage Hill Farm last month and sewed it up this afternoon. Toby seemed so excited about the process, so I hand him the monkey and he tells me "Nah, I don't really like it". Niiiiiice.

So Lucy's hanging on to it for now, but I'm kind of thinking he may become the mascot for my craft room. Lucy has too many stuffed animals as it is.
My Ravelympics socks
My Malabrigo cabled socks.

Happy Easter 2010

And the photo overload has begun! I love Easter pictures...there's just something about dressing up and going on a hunt :)

First thing in the morning I took pics of the kids...and had some super ones of Lucy...BUT, the pictures were a tad dark, so I played with this one in Photoshop a bit...

We had 3 egg hunts yesterday - this is from the last one...

This is from the middle one...


This is the "after" shot of our egg hunt here at home :)


Toby got so excited he just flung his tie behind him.


Being silly...
Lucy - see this is just a tad dark...
A good one of T oby but the shadow of the shelf falls just along the top of his head.
My two kiddos!

We had a super nice Easter but I'm a little stumped what to do with all the sugar in this house! I did read somewhere you can melt down bunnies and dip strawberries in them...and it is coming up on strawberry season...Mmmmmmmm!

We had a storm roll through this morning around 5 - the power flickered, and we had a smattering of hail. Curtis and I woke up, but thankfully the kids slept through it.

I took the kids out this afternoon to play bubbles, only to find out the wasps are moving in on our porch! Yuck! I've tried to instill a healthy respect of stinging insects into my kids, so they had no interest in playing out there when the wasps wouldn't leave them alone - frankly, I'm none too fond of them myself. So we're inside with the windows open now.

Got the grocery shopping done this morning - a cookie bribe always helps with that (as in, if you're good and don't drive me crazy, you can pick out a cookie before we leave)! Works wonders...

Hellooooooo April!

And hello spring! With highs in the 70's yesterday and today I'm certainly happy! The windows are open, the breeze is floating through...it's time to get out and enjoy this weather!

First, I wanted to post pics of Toby from Mrs Aulls garden - we went right after his birthday to get his 4 year old pics:


(Doesn't this one have "Uncle Joe" written all over it?
Lucy is becoming very independent these days - she insists on picking her own outfits AND doing her own hair!
This morning they took a ride on Toby's Tonka truck

And to enjoy this beautiful weather we headed out for Golden Gate park. We packed a picnic lunch (and some bread for hungry ducks) and went out for the morning.

THe kids had a blast, though it didn't result in the quiet naptime I anticipated. Still, they enjoyed the ducks and the playground, and I enjoyed the beautiful weather!

A New Leaf

While still surrounded by boxes, I am finally feeling settled...a welcome feeling! I have a lovely new home, furniture that's only been rearranged once, and I know where *most* my things are. Moving has been a process for sure, but I'm glad to see the end in sight.

We moved in 3 weeks ago, and I really wish I could have blogged during that time. There were so many things that I wanted to put down into words, but of course now it's getting foggy, and I'm not sure I have that kind of time on my hands! We do love our new house. Even Lex is settling in well. We've moved into a community with lots of kids (and dogs) and his new favorite pasttime is guarding the windows from predatory cars and bicycles.

Toby and Lucy are loving the house too, though their favorite game is racing and sliding down the steps. It's a full time job just keeping them from breaking limbs on these stairs. Grrrrr.

Curtis is a couple months into his new job now and everything is good. His new office plans get togethers once in a while, and we're looking forward to a night at the ballfield next month with his coworkers. He is working 5 days a week now, rather than his 4 10 hour days, which I loved. Adjusting to having him gone an extra day a week has been rough, but it has been nice eating breakfast with him in the morning! It just seems that the weekends go by so much faster when there's only two days there!

I am starting to venture out with the kids in search of new adventures. Our new area has a huge park system, and there are tons of free park programs to choose from. On Tuesday we went to a local farm to see the babies (the lambs were adorable!), and there I found the brochure for the park system. So on Thursday we went to a Tike Hike down at Twin Creeks Metropark...I don't think I'd been there before, but it is a lovely park, on a ridge overlooking Germantown. The kids took a guided hike, and Toby and Lucy loved looking for animal tracks, and of course the muddy mudholes (of which there were many given the rain last week on top of melted snow). We saw a meadowlark singing in the field, a Wooly Bear caterpiller, and coyote poop. Toby was beyond thrilled. He can even tell you know how to tell that it's coyote poop. Way to make a mama proud!

I've marked all sorts of events on the calendar, and it's nice to see those empty squares fill up. After all week after week of nothing to do drives me stir crazy! In April there's even a weekend even centered around the sheep shearing...complete with spinners and fleece cleaning and dying...ahhhh, I can't wait!

Toby turned 4 the weekend after we moved into the house. I canNOT believe my boy is 4 already. It seems like so recently that I had him at all, and now to see how much he's grown - it's amazing. He is so excited that he's 4 now, but I suspect most of that is because he knows when he turns 5 he can go to school :) Lucy has decided she no longer needs sleep and it's really driving me up the wall. She's up in the morning before Curtis leaves (she used to sleep until 8) and takes at best a 1 hour nap (I'm used to a 2 hour nap, come ON here!). She's still at an age where I'm sure she needs the nap, but it does seem like her sleep habits are changing. She used to be my good sleeper, I don't know what happened!!!

Let's see, I will at some point post pics of my house, but for now let me give you the rundown. The great room is pretty much done, we just need something for the walls. The kitchen is done, again though, nothing on the walls. I have some odds and ends that need homes sitting around, but most things are taken care of. Laundry room needs shelves before it's done, kids bedrooms are done except for walls, master bedroom needs major help, and craft room has become a dumping place for "We don't know where this goes but we need a spot for it". Lovely, eh?

Anyway, I'm sure I'll keep thinking of things to post about, and try to keep all of you up to date on what's happening around here!

Ciao!