busy weekend

Time to plant our garden!

Phil has worked so hard to get everything ready.

We spent most of this past weekend working outside - glorious! I never knew how much I would enjoy being out in the fields with the animals. They're good company. There's something so comforting about it.

bursts of color

I'm completely, completely overwhelmed everyday by what I see outside my window.  Living in an old house means having a garden with old plants and a mature landscape. One of my friends hit it right on the head when she said, "It's like having a newborn baby...something new every day."  That's exactly how I feel!

 

a day off

                

The Wind

by Robert Louis Stevenson

I saw you toss the kites on high

And blow the birds about the sky;

And all around I heard you pass,

Like ladies' skirts across the grass--

O wind, a-blowing all day long,

O wind, that sings so loud a song!

 

My kids had a day off from school today for teacher in-service. One thing I love about my kids is they never say the words, "I'm bored." They love to read, do puzzles, play imaginary games together, or play outside. I love this about them. This doesn't mean that we don't have the occasional squabbles, but for the most part, they're best buds.

Today and yesterday they did lots of kite flying.

My husband was off today, too, so we burned our pile of yard trimmings. 

I thought this was so funny...when I looked outside the window this morning, all of our cows were huddled up against the burn pile and they spent their entire day there.

 

the long and the short of it

I have scoured the countryside looking for affordable little girls' shorts that have an inseam longer than 2 inches. I've been to several stores around town...Target, Kohl's, Old Navy, Fred Meyer, Walmart, Sears, then online at L.L. Bean, Land's End and countless others. I found lots of cute Bermuda-type shorts, but I refuse to pay $30 a pair.

Something happened when my girls turned 6...they moved up to a new clothing department and I've been so disappointed with our options. Little girls in sizes 4-6x are still little girls, but their clothing options suggest otherwise. I thought shopping for school clothes in the fall was a headache, but shopping for summer clothes has been a nightmare.

So I thought I'd share with all of you what I found today...these shorts in several colors online at The Children's Place for only $12. There's free shipping, and if you use this code E4H2012 you'll get 15% off your order, making them only $10.20 per pair. The code, which I found here, expires at the end of the month.

pretty little package

 

I received the sweetest package in the mail today! It was from my high school youth pastor's wife whom I haven't seen in years. Scary thought...I graduated from high school 20 years ago this May. 

She's known me since Jr. High. I have to laugh when I think about how very awkward those years were for me. But she still loves me and she sent me the best package ever. 

Everything she placed in this box is me-to-a-tee...

cupcake liners

cookie cutters

 vintage aprons with

sunshine yellow ric rac

polka dots

red and white gingham

tiffany blue and red

applique

birds

embroidery

pom pom fringe

 every.single.thing...me-to-a-tee

 

 

a sunny saturday

 Weekends are so much fun when it's sunny. I woke up so sore on Sunday morning, then realized it was from all of the weeding I did on Saturday. Ouch!

A favorite memory of the day is this one...

 

After doing the breakfast dishes (at 11:00 a.m.), I looked outside the window and saw my kids sitting on a blanket on the front lawn. I love the scattered flip flops and the baseball bat. 

I love walking around outside to see what's in bloom around here. I think this is one of the best things about springtime in a new house. You don't know what you have until it blooms in the spring. Or maybe that's just me, because I'm such a gardening novice. I learned this lesson the hard way. When we lived in Spokane, I did heavy-duty weeding every spring. Last year, with our move, I just kind of let the garden go, because I was so busy packing. Little did I know, all of the "weeds" I had pulled every spring were perennials. Oops! I told myself to pull mostly dandelions this year until I know for sure what are weeds and what are plants around here.

And then I got to scrub clean with my new Mrs. Meyer's soap! I love it when she offers free shipping. It gives me a chance to try her new scents. They never seem to sell those in grocery stores.

april's days are merry

Getting ready to put a delicious cherry swirl breakfast cake from this cookbook into the oven.

Watching our cows live out the old saying, "The grass is always greener..."

Making paper doilies out of coffee filters after reading Bread and Jam for Frances; the girls wanted to have their snacks on doilies with little flower bouquets just like Frances.

 Creating Tinkerbell slippers with paper, a green marker and cotton balls.

spring break

My mom, dad and little brother were able to come visit last week for their Spring Break! My dad and little bro worked outside in the yard and trimmed our hedges and roses, and my mom and I stayed busy inside working on several projects, one of which was making mini key lime pie tarts with the Pampered Chef tart pans she brought from home. Seriously, this post should be titled how many pictures of key lime pie can one post? I couldn't help myself. They were just so, so pretty. I jumped up and down squealing after my mom placed a slice of lime on top of the first little tart.


So those are the tarts. :) And they were delicious, by the way! Now for the curtains...

we made these kitchen curtains out of a vintage tablecloth. I love how they turned out! We also made my girls little black ruffled skirts for their school's spring program, because I was so disappointed in the current selection in stores of little girls' skirts.

Then we went paper shopping. We have the best craft store here, Craft Warehouse, and it has the c-u-t-e-s-t paper selection ever. Makes up for the lack of decent little girls' skirts in this town...almost. My mom gave me a few sheets of paper from a pack that she purchased and I was able to make a little banner.

down memory lane

This was one of my favorite albums when I was a girl. I still have all of these songs memorized! My girls and I have been listening to a few of them on you tube this morning.

"I'm a Little Teapot" is a fun one for little girlies.


"Little Goldie Goldfish" was my favorite song on the album. I always taught it to my students when I taught school, and now my own kids love to sing it with me.


I wish I could find a way to purchase this album on CD!