Good Times Rollin’

The Pops and the Toots have arrived!  Hallelujah!  Let the choir of angels sing!  The Grandparents are here!  They even brought some lovely hot weather with them so we decided to open up the backyard.  While Tutu entertained the minions, Papa & I set up the deck for summer.  This involved dragging out tables and chairs and sun umbrellas.  By the end of the day, our backyard was ready to play.

We broke out the croquet set and the art easel.  The kids adored both.  They loved whacking the balls and creating masterpieces.

Leina went with a realistic landscape full of flowers and butterflies.

By the time she finished her pictures, she had worked up quite a sweat and had to cool off swinging for quite a while.

Kulia, on the other hand, took her painting very very seriously.  Long after Leina had skipped off to the swings, Kulia was still diligently working on her brush strokes.

I like to call her finish project “Jellyfish at Sunset.”  It’s quite a smashing modern statement in my mind.

Every time my kids make art, I wish my sister was here to see them.  I just know she’d love to dip in her brush and join right in.  They loved showing off their creations to their adoring grandparents and the grandparents loved ooohing and ahhhing over every color choice.  All in all, a very satisfying day!

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?