Garden Time!!

Spring is here and we are gearing up for the planting season. Dave has extended our vegetable garden area and put a fence around it to keep the dogs and kids out. We have had to do this in several areas of the yard. Here are a few pictures of our little garden paradise.

Dave does the really dirty and hard part - hauling in the soil, manure and does the tilling. This is a work in progress.

Another view.

These guys play havoc on our garden - so we have had to fence them out.

Dave has put these pickets and arbors on each side of the house - they look great.

Dave loves his water creations and is constantly re-arranging, designing, etc... We now have 5, yes 5 water fountains, falls, gadgets throughout our yard.

What a face; I just had to put him in. We can't imagine not having this little guy in our family - we love him, even Cooper - thanks Bruce.

The kids enjoying one of the water gadgets.

First plantings set on April 24 - these are tomatoes - cherry, roma, big girl, better boy and green peppers and sweet banana peppers.Also planted on this day: cabbage, sugar snap peas, brussel sprouts, spinach and salad greens. I am really trying to control myself this year and not plant too early or too much - but it's not easy.


We have started a rose garden - 5 bushes planted so far. I have never had a lot of luck with rose's - maybe this time.

And my herb garden - not doing as well as in the past but you never know from season to season... this is my favorite herb "rosemary". Wonder why? May have something to do with the Rose in my life...

This part of my herb garden is doing pretty well - THYME - there are so many varieties -silver, woolly, lemon, english, creeping, pink ripple, just to name a few. The "boot" planter came from last year's Herb Festival at Maymont Park. You can find so many different and wonderful things at this show and it is tomorrow and we are going!! I am so excited. We will take Meighan with us along with a wagon and a picnic lunch.

We planted 3 Clematis plants last year - a white, a pink and a purple one - they are all doing well - what beautiful blooms.

Friday Night With Meigan Rose

Dave picked up Meighan from daycare so we could have a little one on one. Dave said she wasn't very happy at first, she kept calling for Alex. But she got over it soon. We went to dinner at Applebee's, came home, played a little and before we knew it the time was 9:30 - a little late for our Meg. But she was in a great mood. It only took a very few minutes for her to fall to sleep.

Meg loves to write, draw, color, whatever!

She thinks she is going to sleep in our bed.

Getting tired? Meg has on her new Elmo pajamas. All we heard Tuesday was Elmo! Elmo! They wanted to watch Elmo on TV. But Elmo was no where to be found. So I bought a DVD "Elmo's World - What Makes You Happy". We will be prepared next time.

I think we are all ready to go to bed. Good night.

More Grandkids!!

Update on Dave's grandchildren. Emmy got this great swing set for her birthday and the entire family is enjoying it. From left to right. Carl, (Lance's nephew), Ian, Matlin swinging, Emmy and Grandpa.

Lance, Emmy and Carl.

Emmy, Carl, and Sidney (Carl's sister).

and

Dave's newest grandbaby, Samara who is 5 months old. We kept her for a while on Sunday. This is the best baby. She didn't cry one time! What a joy! We will keep her any time. Isn't she beautiful - she looks just like her Mom.

Twin Night

We had the twins on Tuesday night while Amy had bookclub. It was their second day at daycare and they are adjusting well. We are so proud of them. They are more fun every day and very, very busy!

I found this really cute bathing suit for Meighan, can't wait to see her model it. I haven't found the right one for Alex yet.


I made these "Birthday Hats" for the twins second birthday, but they were not in the mood to wear them. I did get Meg to wear hers for about 5 seconds.

Enjoying their breakfast before going to daycare.

Meighan loves Bandit and Bandit loves her. He is so much better with the kids than he is with our adult visitors.

Alex was not much in the mood to have his picture taken.

Baby Booties!

I worked on a pair of crochet baby booties all weekend; "Rose Baby Booties" from "Crochet for Babies" I must have torn out and started over 20 times! I just couldn't get the numbers to come out right. I finally figured out I needed to mark the beginning of each row and count carefully. You would think I would know that by now.

I think the bootie turned out cute, but it wasn't easy.

This is the pattern. The sole in blue is what I just couldn't get to come out per the pattern; persistance paid off. There was an error in the pattern which I didn't pick up on for a long time - patterns are suppose to be right - this has never happened to me before. I also had problems with this crochet hook. It is one of the new, ergonomic ones which was hard getting use to, but I love it now.

The next step was the "instep" (in yellow) - not much of a problem with this.

Then the sides (yellow) - a little trouble here - the second bootie was a lot easier and faster. The rose was fun!These are for Amy's friend who is having twins, as I mentioned in previous posts. There are a cute pair of booties that look like tennis shoes in the same book that I may attempt for baby boy. Here are some other items I made for these little ones:

Six baby wash cloths - the picture isn't very good, starting upper left - Pink Baby Feet, Yellow Baby Bottle, Multi Pacifier, Blue Baby Feet, Hearts in Pink and I Love Mom.

These little hats were fun - The yellow one has a flower and the blue one has a star.

More booties - I love making booties - fun and usually pretty fast. The tan booties have doggy buttons and the pink booties have rabbit buttons. I love buttons, I tend to buy them whenever and add them to my stash to use for future projects - I just can't resist them

A Cold Saturday Morning

The weather has been so nice and warm for the past couple of weeks. But winter returned this weekend.

This was what we woke up to - the first snow this year. But it only hung around for a couple of hours.

My pansies were so pretty - but they are hardy and will survive.

I discovered a new drink - an orange martini with sugar around the rim. Delicious but the apple martini is still my favorite.

Continuation of previous post

Hard to tell but these are strawberry and lemon meringue cupcakes. They tasted a lot better than they looked.

I always love coloring eggs - next year hopefully Meg and Alex can help. They did apply a few stickers to these. Sami wasn't with us this year but we thought about her and missed her. Happy Easter Sami.

Aren't they cute!

Easter 2007

We had a very nice Easter. I was in the kitchen a lot on Saturday and Sunday morning. Loving cooking,

something that I haven't been doing much of lately. Dave picked up Mrs. Robertson in the early afternoon, so we had some quiet time to talk and catch up until Paul, Amy and the twins arrived at 4:00. They were so cute and really enjoyed their second Easter.

Meighan Rose and Alex love to blow bubbles, but they tilt the bottles and loose all of the solution. For a while they were satisfied to let others blow bubbles at them - but they are independent and want to do everything themselves. So I was very glad when I found these spill proof containers at Target. They were a hit. Meg actually produced a few bubbles, but they both put the wand at their lips and more of the "soap" goes in their mouths - but they have a blast anyway!

Everybody was blowing bubbles - even Mimi!

Meighan Rose attempting to produce bubbles.

Meighan Rose enjoying a deviled "chick" egg - see pictures below.

Meighan and Grandpa sharing an Easter kiss.

The many cute faces/expressions of our sweet Rose:

And our little man, very determined and focused - he is high fiving Daddy but his eyes don't leave the TV - "Elmo" is on - his current favorite:

This little guy is full of personality too and so smart.

Alex likes hugs and kisses too, if he will stay still long enough.

It is really hard to get a picture of everybody; this was the best I got from about 12 attempts. Alex doesn't look too happy but more so than any of the other shots.

Mrs. Robertson, our Mimi - it was so good to have her with us - we all love her very much.

Now the food - Dave loves deviled eggs and I have been meaning to make these cute little "Chick" eggs for a long time; the recipe is from "Taste of Home" magazine from several years ago. Dave and Paul cooked tenderloin steaks on the grill - they did an excellent job - Delicious!! I also made a recipe from the most recent issue of "Everyday Food" - roasted mini red potatoes, fresh asparagus and mushrooms. The potatoes weren't quite done so I had to zap them in the microwave after we had started our meal, but everyone seemed to enjoy.