Love

 Sometimes being a brother is even better than being a superhero.

 - Marc Brown

A brother is a friend given by Nature. 

-Legouve

Outside

Swinging


She's still a little too small, but if I pack her in just right it makes a great napping spot.


Jumping

I know he's skinny- but this picture makes him look ridiculously so.

Gardening


Lettuce, spinach and radishes

Cilantro

I got 19 of my tomato plants in tonight. 19 left that need to be planted soon and about 12 more seedlings just starting out. That's what happens when I get 25 seed packets from Seeds of Change for really cheap and get 4 new tomato varieties.

Peas

First pea flowers


First strawberries- almost ready

Radishes for snacking

Climbing

The poplar tree in our front yard is a favorite climbing tree.

Bonding

Cohen was telling her a weird, funny story about someone who really wanted cheese. She seemed to enjoy it :)

Bonding

Big brothers loving their baby sister....


Cale has always loved babies and asks to hold Annika the most

He loves when she's awake and stares at him

It took Lakin awhile, but he did finally hold her

He's a proud big brother

Cohen comes in second when it comes to holding her

Between him and Cale she gets passed around quite a bit

I think she's just as fond of them too

The scene tonight while reading bedtime stories...

(and in case anyone was wondering why there are no pictures of Rylan and Annika, it's because he won't hold her. She might spit up on him....)

No, They're Not.

There is one thing I often get asked when me and the boys are out and about.

After they ask if they are all mine. After they comment on the fact that I don't have a daughter. After they ask if we are having any more. After they say I am brave.

"Are they always this good?!?"

Depending on my mood I answer different ways. I might just smile. Or I say "most of the time" or "only out in public" or simply "yes".
That's the easy answer.

The real answer?

No, they're not.


That's number 3 in their room. Number 4 in the house.

Their door is currently a curtain because they pretty much busted the door off the frame.

They have tempers that they haven't learned to control yet.

All of them.

Great Cup-struction

What can you do with 400 cups?

First there was the castle tower...

Which came toppling down with the touch of Bandit's tail. They would of been upset, but the fact that Bandit took off running and was scared to death was too funny.


Then the Coliseum- or the cup-iseum as they called it.

And the Eiffel Tower- or you know, the cup-fel tower....
That one took us a couple tries. The last fall was my fault- Rylan warned me not to add another cup to the tower on the top...but I didn't listen and I was the only one who could reach. After that they told me I had to take a picture after each cup I added...

We are working on a line that can reach up to the ceiling, but we haven't perfected the structure yet. A straight line starts to lean and fall when it's about 5 feet tall. If we curve the edges it can get a few rows higher. 6 feet is our max height so far. A curvy line is on the agenda for tomorrow.

They are also pestering their dad to get a couple more bags of cups....

Wordless Pictures....

AKA playing with my new camera....


and photographing my favorite subjects

in good moods

and in bad moods

and in the surprise morning snow

Open For Business

What to do when you have eggs overflowing the refrigerator and tomatoes overflowing the counters?
Sell them of course.

This is what the boys did yesterday afternoon while I mowed the front yard. The set up a stand at the end of the driveway, made their signs and filled up the table. Rylan rode his bike up to the end of the road and taped a sign on stop sign.

You have to admire their dedication. They ended up out there for over 3 hours. Getting more and more excited with each sale. Thank goodness for good neighbors!

The highlight of the day had to be the man who drove up in a very cool car- to Rylan's standards- old, lime green, huge wheels and shiny rims.

"What are you guys selling today?"

"Eggs and tomatoes"

"Well I don't want any eggs or tomatoes, but you guys look like you are working really hard, so here"

and he hands them a bill, they say thank you and he drives off. I was down at the house, that was our deal- if they wanted to do it they had to do all the talking and change giving, and they could keep the money. Cale comes skipping up the driveway to tell me. I assumed he gave them a dollar....but no....he gave them $5! You've never seen more excited kids.

Grand total for their sale- $21.50. Which was much more than I would have thought, Rylan divided up the money between the 4 of them, giving me the remainder. They have big spending plans today.

Spring is Coming...

We're on break again....for the past 2 weeks. We were trudging along, but my creativity is spent for this year I think....with other things I am dealing with...something had to give. So I purchased a couple units from Moving Beyond the Page, so while we are waiting for them to arrive we took off completely. They should be here tomorrow, and we will be back and ready to go by Monday. But in the meantime here's what we've been up to....

We planted the peas, onions, lettuce, carrots and radishes...

We had the cubscout pinewood derby...

And worked in the yard some more...

We are in the process of extending our garden beds....we have a 16' x 16 ' main bed, an 8' x 8' herb bed, and another 8' x 8' that was our strawberries. Last year the berries didn't do well (our transplant bed in the front produced, but the back one didn't), so we tilled them under and this year that bed will be for lettuce, peppers and some tomatoes...

We are adding 2 raised beds- a 16' x 8' for the strawberries and a 8' x 32' for various items. We also have plans to till up a good portion of the dogs yard to make room for the planned 3-sisters garden and peanuts.

I am so glad it is March, that the forecast is for the 70s this week....Now I just have to wait for warm weather to stick around and turn all this brown back into green....

Who's Who

Cohen kept asking me about when he wore the bee costume....so I found the pictures for him, along with some of Cale and the other costume doubles.....he couldn't tell which bee was who, neither could Cale....they are definately brothers...