Lex has been full of love lately and not afraid to show it. His love notes make me burst with happiness!
Love notes, by Lex
Love notes
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Waste of time?
We had a busy afternoon today. Alan and Lex worked together to put in the air conditioners while Eve and I did some gardening. I read in a magazine that cats don’t like the smell of lavender, so I thought I’d plant some lavender around the yard and see if that reduced the amount of cat poop we are always cleaning up. I got two packs of seeds awhile ago but failed to read the directions or do anything with them. Then I thought it would be easier and more immediately effective to just buy lavender plants instead of starting from seed. I haven’t made it to a plant store though, so today we decided to just throw the seeds in the ground and see what happens. You are supposed to plant them indoors, wrap them in a plastic bag for awhile (humidity, I presume) and then slowly acclimate them to the outdoors. Or put down some dirt, drop in a few seeds, watch what happens. A total waste of time? We’ll see!
Fresh dirt, seeds...
Water, water, everywhere...
This was her favorite part of the process.
After that I prepped the old iris garden in the back yard, right next to our raised bed garden, and we planted some pumpkin seeds. Also potentially a waste of time. I’ve tried them in the past but we’ve never actually gotten pumpkins. This year they are in their own bed, with more space, and were more properly planted. Once again, we’ll see :) That seems to be my philosophy on gardening. Toss in some seeds and see what happens!
Something that is not a waste of time is our CSA this year. Look at what we had for dinner! Sesame tofu on a bed of romaine, spinach, and tatsoi. Soooo yummy!
One healthy photo per dozen cakes/cookies photos. That's a good balance, right?
The kids are in bed so I’m going to bake some Alaskan Sourdough bread (KAF mix from their overstock sale today!), try hard to stop eating animal crackers (though I’ll probably sample some fresh bread tonight!), and crash. I’m tired! Hoping my voice comes back tomorrow. Eve insists their is a frog stuck in my throat and my voice can’t get out. I love how kids hear expressions and run with them. At some point in time I’m sure she heard someone say “there’s a frog in my throat” and now she thinks the one in my throat is so big the voice can’t get past. Sweet silly girl.
Party at the bowling alley!
We culminated a week-long birthday celebration with a “class party” at the bowling alley. Fortunately (for me and my wallet!) Lex was happy with just four classmates and not the whole class. Even still, four classmates, plus Lex and Eve made for a hectic party! To make it even more fun I lost my voice on the way in to the bowling alley (seriously!) and then, halfway through the party, a huge crowd of high schoolers came in and they turned on cosmic bowling, which means lights out, disco ball and music on. It was fun, but chaotic! Thankfully we were wrangling just six kids! I think Lex had a great time, but I’m ready to be done with birthday parties for awhile.
The bowling alley provides pizza and I brought some snacks. The kids were all hungry and polished off the snacks pretty quickly!
Alan doling out tokens for the arcade. All the kids say they love bowling, but I think they really mean they love the arcade. I'm pretty sure it's the only arcade in our area.
Lex and his master technique. It payed off for him though because he ended up with the highest score! His friend is trying to explain a better bowling technique.
Boys! Sometimes it hard to tell fighting from fun. I broke this up but they both insisted they were having fun.
Eve got a lot of help :)
The bowling alley also provides a t-shirt the kids can color and the birthday boy gets to keep. I don't expect to see Lex wearing it anytime soon.
They were laughing hysterically at a birthday card. His friend said, "It's a monkey with a cake wearing a hat!" and they both cracked up. Silly kids.
Cake time!
I think they liked it :)
Eve made fast friends with the one other girl there.
This isn't a great photo but I love it because lately Lex has switched from duck-and-hide when he sees the camera's orange glow, to smiling automatically. Here he was drinking and watching people bowl, but when the orange glow hit his face he smiled. I LOVE IT!
I had something else to say here, but I forgot! I’m hoping my voice returns quickly. The boy is throughly six now and has had enough partying and cake to last him through the year!
Irises
The irises are blooming!
Morning snack
Today in photos
Lex rode his bike to school this morning. Alan ran along. I took pictures :)
Snack under the "club house"
Chillin' on the swing, waiting for someone to push her :)
We transplanted some flowers the kids brought home from school last week. Lex's is a sunflower and Eve's is unknown. She can't remember. I'm hoping they grow just so we can find out what she planted!
He was really interested (for a few minutes anyway) in learning how to properly transplant a flower.
We decided to decorate the club house with the plants. Lex carefully placed them and watered them.
Looks good to me.
Slide race!
Cake for tomorrow's bowling party!
I rock! :)
CSA
We went today for our first CSA pickup. I had to bug the kids to get them in the car (they are whiny today!) but when we got there they loved it so much I had to bug them to get them back in the car. (I’m kind of whiny today too!) The farm is just beautiful, the owner is super nice, and we had a great time exploring. As an added bonus, we came home with TONS of veggies! Standard stuff like romaine, spinach, and mesclun, but also some fun stuff like asparagus (so tall!), rhubarb, parsnips, radishes, and tatsoi. We’re going to be trying new recipes this week!
Chicken coop and water cube
This is a blurry picture, but don't those chickens look funny? See all the naked pink butts? Is this because their feathers haven't grown in yet? I didn't have the heart to tell the kids that those chickens would be in the freezer pretty soon.
We were all interested in the water cube. There's a hose attached and it runs down hill to the greenhouses.
These are the baby lambs we saw in March, all grown up.
Broccoli and more!
Following the trail up to the swings.
Do these look familiar? Still fun, even in the summer.
I like these flowers. What are they?
Oh yes, this is why we went. I think we will have enough veggies to tide us over for a few days!
Happy 6th Birthday Lex!
I’m filled with emotions today, but I’m going to keep this short and sweet because my thoughts don’t often come out well through my fingers. Instead I’ll just say Happy Birthday (quietly) to the sweetest little boy I know. The boy who made us a family. The boy who changed my world forever. The boy who can make me laugh, cry, yell, and hug, all within the span of six minutes. I love you Lex. Thank you for being you. A strong, confident, silly, smart, loving little boy.
Happy Birthday!
I like to leave a little something for them to find on birthday mornings. I was also going to make a special breakfast, that didn't happen, so instead he had oatmeal with leftover chocolate "dirt" sprinkled on top. He was happy.
It's 6:00am and this is his "put down the camera and let me open presents" face.
A Rubiks cube. It's good to challenge your brain at 6am, right?
Lex had show and tell today and he had to bring in something that starts with the letter X. He chose to draw a xylophone with his fancy new markers. I love this boy!
I uploaded all of the birthday party pictures to Picasa. Check ’em out! (just click on the little picture below)
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| Lex's 6th birthday party |
Tonight we are going out to dinner to celebrate. When I ask about their dinner choices they always choose “out” instead of me cooking for them. I try not to take that personally! Lex threw us a curve ball today by requesting Friendly’s instead of Panera Bread. Assuming he doesn’t change his mind, that’s where we’ll be headed tonight. I can’t wait for him to come home from school!
For school…
A birthday party sneak peek
I’m super tired and about ready to pass out, but I wanted to post a few pics for those who couldn’t be there for Lex’s party this weekend. I’ll post more during quiet time tomorrow. For now…
The birthday monkey testing out the monkey bars. He's good at them!
Eager swingers, patiently waiting (kind of) for the swingbar to be ready.
Ahh... this is what I've been waiting for all these weeks. Swing set up. Children playing happily. Life is good.
Reach for the trees!
Cake time! Can you believe he's almost six?! It makes me want to cry!
In a happy way. Usually.
Bagels for dinner. His choice, of course. Sandwich fixings as well. We did cake first, then presents, then dinner.
Lego love
Hope that will tide you over for now. I promise more pictures soon to come. Thanks to all who attended. We had a fantastic weekend! Those who couldn’t make it were missed. Hopefully we can see you all again soon!
It was hard choosing just a few pictures to post! Also, I have to say, one of my favorite parts of this weekend is that Lex happily smiled for the camera. Many times! He’s so good to me.