Author Archives: Chrissie

Ah, Sunshine

Well, all my griping must have payed off because the sun finally came out yesterday.   It was beautiful.  Beautiful!

Doesn’t even look like the same place, does it?  Of course, as soon as we rubbed the sleep from our eyes we immediately put on our shoes and headed out doors.  Artie lead the way.  He hates rain almost as much as we do.  The idea of lolling about on dry sunny grass was right up his alley!

Since this has been the first time I’ve ventured forth into our backyard since, oh, September, I decided to take stock of the general situation.  It wasn’t very good.  Lets just say the weeds were taller than I was.  Here’s a picture of my garden plot.  You won’t see much garden though.  It was totally over run with spiky prickly weeds.  Ick-o.

I’m going to use this as my “before” shot so I can look back at how far I’ve come once the garden gets planted properly!  But don’t worry, all was not lost.   I found my clematis just starting to bloom…

My rose garden is full of promising buds….

I found an early bloomer and named her Firebrand.  (For obvious reasons!)

Most surprising were the wild roses that grow along the back gate.  They have to fight for every gleam of sunshine but they seemed to be winning the battle with such grace.

Lovely, no?

The girls were exploring as well.  Leina’s favorite past time is to collect flower bouquets.  First, she picks…

Then she sniffs…..

And if the flowers meet her exacting standards, they are included and eventually given…

Kulia and Artie, however, decided to rest in the grass.  Artie found his ginormous cow bone and Kulia decided to keep him company while he gnawed the afternoon away.

It was a simply wonderful spring day.  (Except for the weeds.  Grrr.)  The forecasts predict the clouds will roll back in soon but for now, we’re just thankful for the little bit of spring weather and a chance to enjoy the green.

A Little Something

Here’s a picture of the little purse I made Kat for her birthday.

Actually, this is the second purse I made for Kat.  The first, I used this gorgeous, thick, woven fabric that unravelled before my eyes as I tried to sew it.  After much cursing and crying, I stuffed it into the trash bin and decided to start over with a good old quilting fabric and it went together easy-peasy.  You could also make it reversible but I’m a big fan of pockets so I nixed that option.

Since I have the pattern out still, I think I’ll make one of these for myself.  I might make the pockets a bit larger though.  I hate digging around the bottom of my bag.    I love having a place for everything.  The different length straps are the snazziest part.  Just loop together and go.  Totally my speed!

Oh yeah, and last night, it got down to 46 degees here.  I think we’ve been totally stood up by spring.  The bum!

Grey

I woke up to this today.

And this.

And this.

Who need sunshine when they have this level of sweet in their house?

The Kitchen Continued

We had a lovely weekend.  For one whole day the sun came out.  A whole day!  Of sunshine!  And no rain!  It was heavenly.  Of course, the grey sky and rain and cold dreariness is back but I will always have my memory of an entire day of sunshine.   You can’t take that from me, Oregon!  Ha!

Aside from basking in the sun and mowing the world’s longest grass, Kevin was hard at work on our poor neglected kitchen.  We should be done by now but work and kids and life keep getting in the way.  So this weekend, Kevin set aside a little time to work on my kitchen desk.  The base cabinets are finished but the counter top is still a prototype as we fiddle with height and spacing requirements.  But we’re getting there!

I can almost envision the final product.  Just a tad more tweaking….  Don’t you think it’s looking so purdy?

For Liza

Liza emailed me to gripe about my lack of posting.  This from the woman who is so busy we haven’t seen each other in over a month!  So to appease her, I’m going to sum up my life for the last week in 2 words or less.

Hectic.  (Ha!  Less than two baby!)

No really.  First, my baby insisted on growing and having another birthday.  She is now three.  She says this proudly while announcing emphatically, “you have no more babies!  No more!  Alls big girls now!”, and each time she does another piece of my heart shatters.  She can’t be three.  Not yet!  I still have at least seven more years of baby snuggling left in me!

Papa and Manny threw her a birthday party with a bouncy house and presents.   She was in heaven.  Oddly enough, she really liked opening the birthday cards.   Most kids toss the cards and dive right into unwrapping the gift.  Not Kulia.  She loved opening each and every card.

Of course, she loved the gifts too.  The girls have been dying to try out the chalk animal print maker thing-a-ma-jig but it has been pouring rain here so no dice.  Sorry kids.  Maybe next month.

She fell in love with her little birthday teddy bear.  As soon as she opened it up, she gave it the biggest, sweetest hug ever.

Oh how I wish I was that little bear.

Along with Kulia, sweet baby Amelia is turning two this week.  We have to miss her party so I gave Anna her birthday present a wee bit early.  It’s the sweetest little summer jumper.  Of course, I probably should have knit her a sweater what with the weather we’re having.  Grrrr.  But it sure came out cute!

And then we had the last day of preschool for Leina.  Due to the excessive rain (did I mention it’s been pouring lately?), they had to cancel their field trip.  Instead, they had class as always.  Leina was hard at work making a masterpiece for her teacher.

You can’t tell from here but the petals on her flower had to be colored in like a rainbow.  Red, orange, yellow, blue, green, purple and repeat.  No amount of hurrying could daunt her.  She was determined to make it just perfect.  That’s my girl!

Finally, we had the last hug good-bye.  Teacher Michelle has been a dream.  Everything you’d want for your child’s first teacher – sweet, kind, loving and patient.  Leina is very interested to learn where teacher Michelle lives so she can go and visit her every day.  So far I’ve been able to avoid answering this question.  I’m sure Ms. Michelle doesn’t want a bunch of 4 yr olds camped out on her front lawn all summer long with reams of colored paper waiting to be admired.  We’ll see how much longer I can stall Leina.

And so, there it is, my life for the last few days. Happy Liza?  Good.  And don’t forget, we’re on for Tues!