Picking Garden: peonies, lupine, and wonderful sunshine

We headed out to the picking gardens for the first time today.  Some good friends came and that made it even better.  The peonies are just blooming, along with iris, columbine, lupine, tea roses, and several other varieties.  I stuck with the peonies and lupines, since I love them so much.  It was a bit of juggling trying to take pictures of the kids, pick flowers, make sure Klaas wasn't walking on anything he shouldn't, and that Hazel was practicing safe flower-cutting techniques.  So a lot of the pictures ended up out of focus and not in the perfect setting.  But that's just how life is.  We had such a good time.  I love our Palouse. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mid-May

It's summer here.  And for north Idaho, it is so nice to have it be warm and 80 degrees in May (something that doesn't happen every year). 

Today the kids played in the pool and I was so proud of Hazel when she proclaimed that she and Klaas were wearing Tompten hats when they played with their buckets. 

The kids both are covered with scrapes and bruises from falling and tripping while playing outside (growth spurts/learning to run safely in sandals), but the most interesting injury happened on Saturday.  They got a hold of our lint trimmer and when we weren't watching, Hazel was tickling Klaas with it.  The giggling soon turned to tears as the tiny cutters inside managed to give Klaas a few good nips.  So now he has an odd scab on his chest.

I'm 36.5 weeks and we need to get out the baby gear soon and finish painting our new cradle. 

Hoorah for summer!

The start of warm weather

 

 

 

 

Weekend Projects

The shed now is completely up and after this picture was taken, Jason put the siding on.  Almost ready to start going through all of our junk; I mean, storage stuff.

I made new pillow covers for the couch throw pillows.  A couple are zig zag, floral, and then these two.  I'm liking them a lot.

And the kids have a project whenever they go outside: emptying the bird feeder.  We need to hang it up out of reach, but until then, they have fun pulling out any bird seed remnants they can find.

Weekending (from last week)

We did quite a bit last weekend and then all came down with a yucky cold.  But Jason got a bit done on our new shed in the back yard, we played outside most of the day Saturday, planted onion starts, ate outside every meal, made strawberry-rhubarb crisp, and went on a bike ride (I was very sore come Monday morning.)  Saturday night Hazel and I had a little date to see a dance recital that some of her older friends were in.  So she is very excited about starting up Irish Step classes this fall.

Of course this being the northwest, our weather ranged from the 50s on Friday to the 70s on Sunday.  But also being good northwesterners, we were outside as long as it wasn't raining!

Since Saturday, we've also added four Big Boy tomato plants and two Early Girl tomatoes to our garden area.  We might even buy a few more since we had a nice crop last year and want to preserve some of our garden harvest come fall.

 

 

Outside

That is Klaas' new favorite word.  And our recent weather (except for a rainy day here and there) has been warm! We love having our own backyard here at the new place.   Especially since our neighbor put up a little swing for his daughter and our kids to play on.  Hazel pulled their slide down next to the swing and announced that we have our own park now.  There is the problem that we are down from the street, so the kids aren't able to ride their bikes as easily.  But that just takes more parental initiative to take them up to the street to scoot around.

Hazel's new sandals for the summer came the other day.  The rest of the afternoon was spent prancing and skipping outside.  "They're red!  They're red!"  She also came up with this pose and had me take about 10 pictures of her in her "active" position.

 

 

And now our lawn is much greener than in these pictures thanks to rain recently.  It's also had to get it's first mow of the season (I know, we're a tad behind the rest of the world when it comes to spring).  The kids love spending as much of the day outside as they can.  It's also great fun that we have quail and squirrels constantly running through our yard.  No rabbits yet, but I'm sure we'll see some soon.  There are two neighborhood cats the kids love to try and call and get to come over (hasn't happened yet).  We also have two pink squirrels that we think some college kids captured and painted.  The poor guys' tails are almost all gone, probably due to the stress of being captured and the embarrassment of now being pink. 

Last Saturday we had our first neighborhood potluck breakfast.  So much fun and a great time of fellowship.  We already knew most of our neighbors and there are several other small kids for H and K to play with.

We are so enjoying our little spot up on the hill!

Spring Things

Watching Dad work outside last week.

Yesterday Hazel said to me, "Mom, I need something to kill the fly outside.  A spoon.  Thanks.  I am going to go kill the fly.  Kill it and then it will die and not move."  I laughed so hard and was slightly concerned at the same time.

We did some planting this afternoon.  I didn't take any pictures of the many little fingers helping me push seeds into the dirt.  I was too busy trying to save the seeds and remember what was being put where.

I potted strawberry plants I bought.  Of course I forgot that my mom is bringing me some more (we ordered hanging baskets a while ago) when she comes next month, but one can never have too many right?

Klaas was my assistant outside today as Hazel was crashing on the couch not feeling that great.  He took a nice tumble down some stairs.  Luckily his forehead broke the fall.

Hazel was running around yesterday wearing Jason's hardhat and safety vest.  She was trailing a roll of paper towels behind her seeing if she could get them to float.  "I'm working like Daddy!"  I'm not sure if I've ever seen Jason run around like that, but ok.