A Spring Thing

SO proud of Kael's self portrait. He has never been in to drawing, he may scribble a bit but it is very rare for him to have any real purpose for the lines he puts on the page. Raegan, on the other hand....

Hers was the only self portrait with a story and style of it's own. EVERY other child had a stick figure. My head was enormous.

The kids' preschool has an annual Spring Tea for each class, and I've got to say, that was just crazy fun! Sitting next to Kael sipping my coffee and his lemonade, snacking on little chocolate dipped strawberries the kids prepared the day before.. It was just cute. We got to sit across from Kael's twin girlfriends which led to some great conversations amongst us moms, that's for sure! For Raegans, the kids did a sign language song which was a-dor-able. She was such the little lady, sitting with her feet crossed and lifting her pinkie for each sip. I really do love their preschool and am glad Kael will be attending again next year. It will be a bit of peace as I freak out about Raegan attending Kindergarten, lol! More about that later...

Oasis

It started out like this.. crumbly, muddy, hard on the feet.. ugly. The house was built on a mound of hard packed gravel, and that's what the yard is... grass seed sprinkled on top of hard packed gravel. No drainage means a muddy swamp half the time, and no soil, at ALL, means the grass really doesn't grow.

We popped a pergola in over the porch to make the outside room feel more intentional.

Matt managed to single-handedly move that giant play structure over to the corner of the yard where it helped camouflage the water access pipe we have to keep handy for the city. The yard was tilled up ( and my sprinkler system with it) in preparation for all the healthy nutrient rich top soil that was to come.

Smoothed out, the side yard is separated off and leveled out with gravel, and the play structure corner is separated off and filled with round river rock. Sprinkler system is re-placed and replaced.

And then he hauled in the sod....

We. LOVE. It. We've got a few more days till we can really enjoy it as the sod takes firm root, but we are just in complete LUST with how this has turned out. We've also decided the pergola isn't quite finished. We'll top it off with some lattice and some plexiglass to make it weather proof so we can enjoy sitting outside even if it's raining. I can NOT wait for more warm spring and summer days!

Spring Cleaning Salad

Emptied my veggie drawer and ended up with the BEST salad. Kids not impressed: more for mom!

third head of iceburg lettuce ( diced)
generous handful of baby spinach (shredded)
5 baby carrots (julienned)
stalk of celery ( diced)
handful of bacon bits
generous handful of blue cheese
6 dried cherries ( diced)
3 tbsp blue cheese dressing
3 tbsp Italian dressing

stinky cheese salad perfection!!!!

For Grammie

With the Cooper family.

And sweet baby Lilly

With most of the great grandkids.

Growing by leaps and bounds

I've always said I'd not get Raegans ears pierced till she asked for them. Always said that. Which kind of kicked me in the butt when she went, overnight it seems, from fearful fascination to eager anticipation of the event. So after calling around to every local jeweler, the pediatricians office, and half the city in general for advice, I took her in to Claire's, the only "jeweler" in Central Oregon, it appears, who does ear piercing & is not located in a tattoo shop. To say I was nervous was an understatement, but not Raegan! She was just excited! But as the time drew nearer, you could see the nerves creeping up on her....

Oh my goodness, was I hurting for my little princess! We've watched gobs of YouTube videos of other children getting their ears pierced so she knew what to expect. She knew it would hurt. But she was still surprised!!

Going in to this, she knew this place would do one at a time where most of the videos had two ladies piercing, so it was both at once. She knew that she had to get the second one done if she got the first one done. So we took a minute after the first piercing and calmed down. A nice mama had just come into the store with her own child who'd had hers pierced recently, and she did a great job of distracting Raegan for the second piercing..

I am SO proud of her. SO PROUD. She was all done with the tears and eager to look in a mirror literally 30 seconds after it was all over. She got over it quickly. But whoa. It totally broke my heart to see her hurting.

And now... well I'm all a gush. We went to a movie directly after getting them done and I ended up cuddling her on my lap for the whole thing. It feels like today was kind of a big step towards big kid, towards growing up, towards being her own person.... away from me. I don't think I was nearly as ready for this as Raegan was.

Squish

It's actually warm enough for this ^^^ today. Crazy! Figured I might as well let the kids make a disaster of the "yard" while they can, contractors scheduled to come out and start our new yard project next week!!! SO excited!!

Moose & the Mouse

Kael and one of his BFF's

Tater Maker

While Matt and Kael were busy putting together the ceiling fans and at the store hunting down new light bulbs, Raegan and I made dinner... Mashed potatoes! She has SUCH fun helping me in the kitchen, something she really never gets to do. When Kael is around, it's just not possible, he is just too much kid in the kitchen. This was a great one on one girls only fun activity, I had a really great time with her. Thinking we're going to have more Boys/Girls nights now!

Ooch, It's A Wee Ditty Dandy

Weird light fixture upstairs.

Lack of circulation.

Midget ceiling fan.

Perfection.

Ladies Man

Kael has two best friends in school. Inseparable, if you find them doing something you'll find him close behind. He talks about them all the time, wishes he could trade Raegan in for them as his constant threat, and asks to buy them things in the store each time we shop. It's the cutest dang thing I've ever seen. His friends are the tiniest little twin girls in his class... and methinks I may be raising a bit of a player, lol!