The Kindergartener!

Today was a big day for us, the oldest started Kindergarten! She has been so excited to start Kindergarten. I think she's been ready since the day after preK ended. The husband wasn't sure we should send her to preK, but on days like today I was totally sure it was the right thing to do. Gwen was already to go this morning, about 15 minutes before we had to leave, she confidently got out the car and held the 8th graders hand and went into the school.
We had a Meet-the-teacher on Sunday afternoon, where Gwen met her other classmates, her teacher and I took some pictures. Next to the birthday board.
Next to her cubby.
With her crazy brother.
On her first day of school, in her uniform!
On the way to the car.
With her brother, but who's the crazy one now?


Walking out with the eighth grader-in the background in red is her preK teacher, chatting with the Kindergarten aides. I saw her turn, spot Gwen, catch herself and turn around. It was until then that I held it together and I am going to blame her teacher on that.
Gwen only had a half day today, so Nate and I ran some errands, came home, started some laundry and went back to pick her up. You can see her in the picture walking to the steps.
She apparently had a good day. They read a book, and she talked about some stuff that happened, I think we are on par with a good day again tomorrow. She was super nervous and excited about school today. As a matter of fact we apparently decided to have a party last night between 2 & 4am. FUN! Oh wait, not fun at all, we are all exhausted. I was not pleased at all, since I had to get up and run this morning! I am going to try and put them to bed in about an hour or so. (Heh, just kidding) I did enjoy the one on one time with Nate. He was terribly clingy today, but I suspect the is the exhaustion, well that with a side of Momma's boy. I could tell he missed Gwen terribly. I don't know what I'm going to do with Nate all day, I guess I'll find out tomorrow!

What you don't want to see more video of swimming lessons?

Well, too bad, we've got more! This is Gwen pushing off to a swim.

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

I don't remember what this video is, but it is Gwen swimming.

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

Ok, this is Gwen swimming down to the other end of the pool, I took the whole way down to the other end. What I think is funny about this video is that Gwen apparently decided to pass someone and she works really hard to pass the kid, then gets to the end and is floating. Nut!

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

So in this video, Gwen was supposed to jump in, and then saw me with the video camera and decided to jump off the starter block. Show off!

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

These are from today, "safety day", look at the smile on that face.

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

Nate jumping in at the deep end, his first time!

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

You are in luck, tomorrow is the last day of swim lessons! I am trying to convince Gwen to jump in on her own, no hands, she'll do it with me, why not do it with her instructor? We'll see if she will perform for the camera!

Swimming Lessons

I have noticed that now that the kids are in school I realize that summer has gone a lot faster. Although it could be because we didn't really know anyone last summer and now we have friends. I decided that the kids needed swim lessons this summer, so in the last couple weeks of summer I finally got them into the lessons. And they love it!
I took some videos also, for my Mom and Eric to see their progress. Gwen and Nate are actually in the same class, there are 2 instructors and they split up the younger kids into a separate group. So they seem to be in separate classes. Gwen has improved so much, but I'll let the videos speak for themselves.

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

Nate swimming

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

If you listen closely, you can hear Nate squeal with delight when his teacher twirls him around.

Nate enjoying swim lessons from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

Gwen floating, not thrilling, but note worthy.

Gwen floating from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

Every week the "older" kids swim the length of the pool.

swimming to the deep end from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

Jumping in and swimming to the edge

jumpin' in from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

After the swim lessons we go to the playground and they have water to play with, the kids love it...

After swim from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

More recent blast from the past

A couple weeks ago on 4th of July we had the big rain storm, which canceled the fireworks. Eric and the kids decided to play in the rain. I took some videos, 'cause that's what I do!

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

The kids love playing in the rain, and apparently so does their father!

Blast from the past

I have been not really posting on here, obviously, so here is a blast from the recent past. A couple months ago we decided to take the kids to a free festival at the NC fairgrounds. It was called the NC got to be festival. They had a bunch of free stuff for the kids to look at and a petting station. We had a good time, except we had to figure out how distract the children from the exorbitantly expensive ticket prices for the rides. Gwen loved the petting zoo, Nate stayed away. We watched this hilarious animal race; only hilarious because of the announcer and the kids enjoyed it. It was pretty hot for May.

Happy 4th of July

Ok, so I know that the 4th of July was 10 days ago, but we know that I've been a little behind. This year we decided to take the kids to some fireworks. They've never seen fireworks before, so late for them, but this year we decided to try it. We found out that you could get into the ball game for free after the 7th inning and then stay for the fireworks. So we decided to try it. The 4th of July was going well, we got Nate down for a nap and then about 5 o'clock, it rained liked it has never rained before. And, they postponed the fireworks and the baseball game. So, we decided to try again the next night. Eric also humored the kids and got pictures of them all decked out in their red, white and blue. And apparently there was some finding of Daddy's cap and gown. We went to the game the next night-made it for the end of the 8th inning and for the fireworks. After the fireworks we ran the bases. The kids really enjoyed that!

Happy 5th birthday!

Today is Gwen's 5th birthday! My oldest starts Kindergarten this year, summer is halfway over! I don't know really what to say about her. Most of the time she is a sweet, fun and great help around here. She does have times when I wonder what has happened to my sweet girl, but her brother is requiring more and more attention and I think the sweet one occasionally gets jealous and when I speak to her about it and give her some attention life gets much better. She adores Nate though and usually plays so well with him.
She is very affectionate, she especially loves babies and animals. She is planning on moving to a farm, she'd like goats and other assorted animals, which I think she has already named. Every time we see a baby she calls it a "cutie pie" and tries to help it in some way. I almost dread when the neighbors with dogs are outside because I know she will run down there to play with them and then I feel kind of awkward, because I don't really know those neighbors and then I have to make random chit-chat.
She is very timid. She needs lots of coaxing to try something new. And often times she can't be coaxed into something new. I am usually unable to coax her into stuff, which can be very frustrating. But, since going to preK she has become more confident and I am excited to see how much confidence learning to read next year will help her overcome her timidity. She is slated to spend the night at a friend's house this week. And although I am pretty sure that she can completely do it and I have the up most confidence in my friend, I will be interested to see if I get the call. I had a neighbor growing up that was often invited to spend the night and fortunately we were neighbors because it was a long time before he could make it through the whole night. I don't think I had a problem, but then again, why would I remember that? Sometimes I think if we make a big deal about something she gets more nervous. So, I've just casually mention it and telling her that she can come home if she wants or she can stay. I did mention to her today that her friend sleeps in the same room as her baby brother and her eyes just lit up with excitement, so I am thinking that might be incentive for her to stay.
I took some pictures and video of her today, opening presents and riding her bike. I have to mention she was real cautious about her bike today, which is kind of funny, since whenever we were in the store and she tried it she was all over the place with confidence. We tried to take her to the Tobacco trail today so she could get more confidence on the trail, smooth surface, no hills. But sadly, the easiest way to get there is by hooking the bikes into the bike trailer and towing the kids and the bikes behind Eric. On the way there, Gwen's bike tire was rubbing on the trailer tire and rubbed a hole into the tire and tube. Fortunately we found a new tube and Eric replaced it and as you can see from the video she was back riding the bike and racing on the street.
Here is the slideshow with pictures of her cake-which Eric made and I frosted...he made a light and fluffy cake, quite yummy, but the kids seemed to prefer my roses, which were so rich not as much cake was eaten (or maybe they were full from dinner!)

Here are 2 videos of Gwen opening presents, which I thought were quite funny-I am sad I missed the very beginning, because she received a "pop-out" card from her Godfather and she was so excited, when people asked her what she got for her birthday they mentioned the pop-out card. She has since popped out all the characters and played with them.

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

These next videos are of Gwen "racing" Eric. He's not wearing shoes or a helmet and he is using my bike, I'd say it was a fair race. She used to ride down the driveway on her old bike, but she apparently needs more confidence before she can start doing that with the new bike.

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

Another ride...

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

My garden

I thought I'd post a couple pictures from the garden, these were taken at the end of May- you see lettuce (that I think reseeded from last year), bell pepper and dill.
This is the tomato section, some of these I planted from seed, some we received for free from the farmer's market and some were moved from other sections of the garden were they apparently reseeded themselves from last year...we have Roma, cherry, big boy and purple Cherokee. This picture is also from May
This is the tomato patch from May.
This is 1 of 2 berries I got before the birds got them all! Blasted birds...I have a plan for next year though, we'll get some, next year!
This is also from May, we have beans and sunflowers in the back row, watermelon and squash in the row up from that.
Ok, so this is the watermelon now...2 plants lots of trailing going on now and i see a lot of flowers, I have found at least 1 melon growing, but I've only looked at 1 little section...I am hoping to have lots of watermelon slushies in my future!
This is the strawberry patch now, you can see we've had a lot of growth and we are having a lot of trailers that are making more strawberry plants. YAY! We are well on our way to a strawberry patch!
These are my green beans, so far I have 2 that I picked, not sure what to do with 2, next year I will have to plant more, closer together...now I know! (you can also see another tomato plant that I did not plant, but is just growing there...)
Here you can see more of the garden, you can see my sunflowers are getting big, my lettuce is going to seed, and I didn't plant any of those marigolds either.
I've decided next year I can plant some stuff closer together. I also hope that I will have some compost to go into the soil and if we keep the garden this wide, I can get at least one more row in there. I also think this year I gave the tomatoes plenty of space, but maybe they should go in the back...I am having fun planning and doing all this stuff...I just feel like I need more space! Damn reseeding marigolds, tomatoes and lettuce!

I think I have mentioned that between Gwen and Nate, Gwen is more reserved, more pensive, more a watch and see kind of kid and Nate is more I LOVE THAT. We have a new found appreciation for the public library, air conditioned-age specific activities, what's not to love. Last year we participated in the summer reading contest and Eric won a prize! So we've decided to try it again. The libraries have kick-off events where you can pick up your forms and they have stuff for the kids to do and some free food. FUN! The kids decided to get their faces painted. As you can see:Gwen the ever present ham:
Nate-he was so proud! He told her he wanted to be Captain America, she asked him if he had a red mask and white stars. I should have videoed his reaction he was like "YEAH". I know that you can't really tell that is who he is.
Today we got the met the mail man as he was delivering mail, sadly I did not know that Gwen was going to receive a little package from Grandma. I have successfully hiding all the cards, but when the mail man hands it to her, what was I to do? I gave her the choice to open now or on her birthday. She obviously chose to open it immediately. Then proceeded to put everything on. I made her pose with all the stuff on so I could take a picture so Grandma could see it...
If you look closely you will see 4 headbands and a skirt. Sure I probably shouldn't have let her open it today, but we are 3 days to her birthday and you can't say no to the birthday girl, can you?

Hi! How've you been?

I'd like to say we've been really busy, but I am not sure we have been really busy. Mom was here, then she wasn't, then we did Vacation Bible School. And now we are done with Fourth of July and almost to Gwen's birthday! I know, summer is almost over and I have pictures that I haven't even posted. I have been feeling like I haven't been finishing anything and have projects weighing on me, I guess not necessarily anything I can say hey guess what I did, but piles of crap that I have to accomplish are not still there, so YAY me. But that doesn't leave much time for blogging. So, maybe I will start blogging more, but I can't make any promises!
The kids have recently received lots of cash and since we don't often splurge on them or buy them anything Eric decided to just take them to Target and let them pick something out. Here is what they picked out:Nate sure gave lots of people in Target smiles, he almost ran through the store yelling "I AM CAPTAIN AMERICA". He might have added sound effects at the end, you never know with that boy! He definitely is a very vocal boy, and has no problem showing every emotion and letting us know about it. Seriously like to yell excitedly about stuff, I don't know where he gets it from, cause Eric Gwen, and I aren't like that. But he certainly keeps the older generation entertained, it is kind of fun to walk a little behind Nate and watch the wake of smiles he produces. I also find myself talking to a lot of random people who seem to feel the need to talk to me about his enthusiasm/energy level.
I made Gwen pose with all her accessories. Ok, so I didn't have to beg this time, she willingly went over and posed.
We were hoping to throw her a princess tea with her best girlfriend whose birthday is 4 days after hers, but all the other girls from her class will be out of town, so we've scrapped the idea and we are going to just do family thing together. Maybe we'll do something more later. Gwen isn't super princessy anymore but since we were planning the tea, I encouraged her to get the accessories also. She hasn't really worn the whole thing together, but I often see her fussing over the tiara, bending it back so it is just so (that is how you know it is high quality!). Purple is her new favorite color, if you must know!

Happy Father's Day

to my babies' Daddy and to all the Fathers out there. What do you think, do they look alike? I have heard people say they think they look alike.

New bike

Today I am going to post the videos I took of Nate riding his new bike. I seriously can't keep up with him, I had to run next to him! I am noticing his balance, if the bike begins to tip to one side he can usual compensate for it. Today he had his first hit the pavement with his chin spill. He was ticked, but he hopped right back on. To watch him "fall" off his bike is something kind of funny that I can't describe, one day I hope to get them on video. Gwen had the idea to attach her stroller to her bike so her bear could go for a ride, so I took some video of that also, because I thought it was so sweet.

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

Happy 3rd birthday!

Today is Nate's 3rd birthday! It is so hard to believe he is 3, mostly because he's talked like a 3 year old for several months now. He's also now day potty trained, which you don't often see in 3 year old boys. He is much improved this year. We are still suffering through a boy who does not nap but probably should, but who would want to nap when there is so much fun going on during the day with Gwen home.
He is quite a sweet boy. He has his favorite people and he gives them leg hugs and such. He still gives a good hug and kiss to all of us, he loves to cuddle for sure.
As I've mentioned he is a very good talker and seems to be very smart. It will be interesting to see if that translates well to book smart. He is a very active boy and has to be watched all the time! He also seems to be very musical. He always wants to listen to music and often plays the piano or the guitar or whatever.
Today has been a very good day for the birthday boy. We decorated the house up and woke up to the sounds of Gwen yelling about balloons. Nate has been walking around all day declaring "it is my birthday!" He seemed to love all his presents and is so aggreable and happy that we all had a lovely day. His godmother and her daughter were able to come up and join us for the afternoon, which was lovely. And although we could not find Nate's "Speed" car to put on his cake, he loved it nonetheless! He is currently camping outside in the new tent he and Gwen have received for their birthdays! Here is a slideshow from today. Enjoy!

The videos-preK graduation

I have uploaded all the videos, they are all less than 5 minutes, some have several songs some have just a couple. I have only viewed the first one, I might eventually go back through and watch them all, but wanted to get them posted, in case someone out there is like, "I can't wait to see the videos!"

Halloween & Thanksgiving songs from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

I have to give credit to Eric for most of the videos, I think I might have done 1 or 2 of them, and probably the ones that you missed the beginning of because I was like, oh, I'd like to video this one!

preK graduation

Before my sweet Mother's head explodes from the excitement of seeing Gwen's preK graduation I thought I would post the pictures. (Ha! I'm just kidding, she is excited to see them for sure, but she won't be able to see them because she doesn't have an internet connection currently, so this will be a nice surprise for her!) We also have several videos to post, but that will take longer, so for now pictures of my sweet girl. I took pictures of her on her last day of school, just as I did on the first day of school. She looks so different! If you'd like to compare, here is the post about the first day of PreK.

On Thursday was the end of the year ceremony, "graduation" if you will. The kids performed all the songs they had learned throughout the school year. I think it was 10 songs, I am too lazy to go count, sorry. They did seasonal songs and Jesus songs and fun songs. The kids were really funny, some had stage fright and some half participated, but they were cute! After their performance we went back to the classroom where we had refreshments and gathered all the stuff they had for us, including their graduation certificate. They also gave 100 picture album book stuffed with pictures of Gwen and her friends throughout the year. Then we said goodbye to her friends and teachers (sadly one of her teachers couldn't make it, she was in Ohio watching her son become a Capt. in the Air Force).
Gwen seemed fine about school ending but Friday evening she became pretty upset. She was showing Grandma the pictures from her photo album over Skype and I guess she realized how much was going to miss her "kids" and her teachers; she started crying about how much she missed her teachers. I coaxed her into making a card to her teacher that we could deliver to the school. She was still upset but sat in Daddy's lap and started the card before dinner. Both kids were incredibly tired so we put them to bed early and it was very quiet in there and I went to check on Gwen and she still had tears in her eyes and had her photo album opened to her teachers' pages. She was also kissing their pictures. Poor sweet child! Guess we have to work a little on transitions with her.

A post only my Mother can appreciate

I have been spending a lot of time focusing on my Dad, so I thought I would do a post my Mom would enjoy! I asked Gwen to clean up their room this morning and this is what I saw, I quickly ran the vacuum through thereI then opened the closet and found this:
I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree and thank goodness Gwen's bed is on the floor and not on the bed rails!

Here's a story within a story that doesn't at all involve my kids!

I mentioned the jury duty service thing that I had the other day a couple things to note. First they made a big production of the fact that you are doing your civil service and we shouldn't call it jury duty. It was quite humorous, judges, clerks all called it jury service as jury duty had gone through a PR campaign and the powers that be had decided that changing the name was going to make it more appealing to North Carolinians. HA!
Ok, so that totally wasn't the point of the story, more a digression. Have I mentioned I have signed up for a half marathon? No, well I have, my training partner and I are going to run 13.1 miles in Oct! She is very confident that we will make it, I am trying to figure out if she is going to notice if I walk the whole time. But, we've made it to 30 minutes of running which is more than I have ever done in my life and if I could just run somewhere with no humidity I think I could run for hours.
But, I digress again, so back to jury duty service. I immediately get selected to be in the jury pool for a trial. So we proceed to the courtroom where we get the spiel from the judge and he has the court clerk call out 12 people to sit in the jury box. So far so good, I'm not called! The judge asks the 12 to tell a little background information: married/single, employment, spouse employment, where in the county you live, etc. Everyone goes through there info and we get to juror number 7 and he gives us his neighborhood. Right then I think that is odd, is the judge from Wake County supposed to know where that is? I certainly have never heard of this "transitional neighborhood" before. The judge turns the questioning over to the ADA and she starts asking a bunch of questions, at first the questions are routine, do you know anyone here in the courtroom, any of the witnesses, etc. But then they have to get into the more personal stuff, will you be able to be unbiased? Through this process people answer questions and a couple get removed for "cause". Whatever but juror number 7 must realize he is going to be on this jury and he's got to put the heat on, because he doesn't want to be here, so whenever he feels that it is appropriate he talks about his "transitional neighborhood" and maybe he feels like the victim looks familiar, but he isn't sure and if this crime happened in his neighborhood he would have to side with the defendant. The ADA asks him if he knows where the address the crime took place is at and he says no, but if it was in his neighborhood...blah, blah blah. He was like broken record and I kind of wanted to stand up and yell, "we understand you don't want to be on the jury, tell them you can't be biased" At this point we had been sitting in the courtroom for an hour or so, I was done! The ADA finishes up, he spews his crap at least one more time and she kicks off a juror and then has to start again. But is satisfied so the defense attorney starts his spiel, which actually was humorous. He started out saying who he was and if the selected jurors had ever heard of him, or his law partner, or seen advertisements for his business, in case someone had a bad opinion of him or his practice/who he represented. The whole way it played out was funny, because it seemed so cocky, and like he was shocked no one had heard of him. So he gets to juror number 7 and says "it sounds to me like you really would like to serve on this jury, but you feel like you can't be unbiased", all polite and political like. And the guy starts again, well you know if this happened in my neighborhood...blah, blah, blah. It kind of went around and around for a couple minutes, which was funny and then the defense attorney finally got him dismissed and put us out of our misery. Thank goodness!
What strikes me as funny is I couldn't remember the name of the neighborhood, he said it like 5 times, so you'd think I would remember, but I didn't. Today I was trying to look up the course elevation profile to send to a friend complaining about the elevations of a 10 miler she was thinking of running (which is 3.1 miles less than what I signed up for, and she's a runner!) I found the course map; low and behold I get to run very near that damn transitional neighborhood, "Walltown"! Lucky me, I guess now I know where it is and I'll be able to talk about its transitionalness. Lucky me!

Ironic

This was an unusual week for us here. I had jury duty service on Tues, which is kind of fitting if you knew my Dad. The story goes he was called for jury duty the day before inventory which was a day he had to be at work for, he tried to change it, but they wouldn't let them. He had some choice words for the judge, or so the story goes. Now that I was in the jury pool for NC I can judge some different areas of service. Each state has it's own process and at this point I am saying I liked AL process the best, it seemed to go much faster and they didn't tell you if you were an alternate until the jurors went to deliberate. Which actually is awesome because you pay attention but if I was an alternate and knew it I would probably not place as close attention. I think that the only problem with jury service is they don't let you change your date. I was very concerned I was going to get called to a trial and not have childcare. I think all states should excuse Moms like me who state at home, had to rely on a friend to selflessly talk my children all day, with not much else but my thanks!
Today was Gwen's preschool graduation. They sang all the songs they learned though out the year. We sat in the music room and listened to their "performance" Eric got some video, which I hope to post some time soon. They didn't have the hand out the certificates and wear the caps and gowns. I am cool with that, they are only 4 after all and while it is cute, it is not necessary, because really all it does is make everyone cry and act silly. With this week, I am sure I would have cried and I did cry when Gwen's teacher blubbered over her class gift. (the kids laid down on the ground in the letters spelling out her name. It appears almost all of Gwen's classmates will be returning in the fall, one girl and her family are moving, but everyone else will be there next year. So our summer has begun. And at this point we really don't have anything on the agenda! YAY!

5 years

I have been trying to come on here and post but have not had the words. I finally realized why, 5 years today. So, I guess I will post about that. I am still a bit distracted, but I guess I will try to type out how I feel.
A couple days ago I thought, I'd like to talk to Dad about that. This is random and not usual for me and I suspect if I figured it out, it would be one of the "significant" days of Dad's last days that subconsciously remembering. It was actually then that I realized I started several posts and hadn't finished them.
As I was thinking of my Dad today I was wondering if my ideas and thoughts about him are getting romanticized, which I guess is what happens when you don't get to talk to people, you remember the good times and forget the bad, you remember things differently. I have been considering what Dad and I would talk about today. And I have had a good giggle, when I think about how I would lament the damn bunny that is getting into my garden STILL and he would talk about the squirrel that is climbing on the pool enclosure. Then we would talk about Uncle Jack and how he would give the squirrels a ride in his town car in his humane traps.
I have determined it doesn't matter if the death of a parent is expected or not, it still is an adjustment and difficult. And just when you think you are fine a little something will sneak up on you, but fortunately those moments are few and far between for me now. Of course the problem is that you never know when things are going to sneak up on you. I suspect I will always have some kind of funk around this time, some years worse than others, but I still have my Momma left to talk to about it and although I imagine the depths of her pain are worse than mine it is nice to be able to say "How you doing?" and to have someone to share how your feeling without having to say "since Dad died".

Strawberry picking

A couple weeks ago we went strawberry picking at a local field, since that darn rabbit was eating all our strawberries! We had a good time and filled 1 basket. We haven't been back, but will probably go soon...they were delicious!
Nate started out really good, but he soon realized that he could eat them, so his production wore off pretty quickly.
Gwen also didn't work as hard as year's past, but she did her fair share and eat a few too!
They also have a sandbox and these picture things that I couldn't get the kids to pose for in 1 together, so they did them separately. Crazy kids!

Gwen was quite obsessed riding this thing. Luckily some little kids came on and joined her and Nate. Her morning was then complete!
It was a fun spring break activity!

The garden

I thought a fitting post for Mother's Day would be a post about my garden. Happy Mother's day! We are experimenting with a garden again this year. The garden last year did pretty well and Gwen came home from school with some plants they grew in science class, so we planted them in the garden! Sadly, a bunny has been taunting us, we have been eating dinner outside and a rabbit has been sitting on the "hill", waiting for us to finish our dinner so he can start us. When the rabbit started eating the leaves off Gwen's stuff from the garden I had enough, and we went to the store and got chicken wire and random post type things and Eric fashioned an enclosure.
Sure it is tacky and whatever but at least it is keeping the bunny out! That is all I really care about...sure it looks like nothing in this picture, but now all those spots have something popping up. And, you can see at the very right side of the picture, our lettuce which is growing in the grass! (Note, when having the kids help you with the lettuce planting, don't hold the seed packet over the grass)
Here is our awesome strawberry patch, that I am hoping that will recover from the rabbit eating all the leaves and we will actually get some strawberries to eat.
Hope everyone had a happy Mother's day. We had a nice day, the kids were sweet, the husband made a nice dinner and I got to take a nap and celebrate a good friend's baby get Baptized. A good day!