What is up with kids and cold hot dogs?

I guess they are "fully cooked," but EWWW. We bought a pack of super cheap chicken dogs for sneaking Carter's medicine into, but Elijah has taken a liking to them so whenever he gives the dog his meds in the morning he snitches a little for himself. Breakfast of Champions right there.
I have this distinct memory of my Grandma LaCombe chasing me around "the farm" as we called it because I had gotten ahold of a frozen hot dog. Mmmm, Delicioso!

I have discovered some things about us this week:
1. I am ready to stock up on some tasty ingredients for salads. Our mesculun mix and spinach are about a week away from being able to start harvesting. I'm thinking about this roasted pear and blue cheese salad that I really like. I've also been digging the spinach/strawberry salad for the last two weeks. It is so pretty. Some people do not like fruit in their salad. I am not that person.

2. We like fish. Not even the stick variety (although I will be honest, we do eat them!). I made a very tasty, but spicy, rub for frozen catfish for dinner tonight and it was really good. I also have been craving this maple soy glazed salmon that we sometimes make. Again, many thanks to Cooks Illustrated for allowing me to become a more adventurous eater.

Steering away from food:

3. Emily is not ready to sleep in a toddler bed. I hadn't really talked about it, but we took the rail off her crib last weekend and put up the toddler rail. The big issue was that the big rail was broken and I was getting worried about the safeness. Like the night I went into her room and she had taken the piece off the rail that holds it up and she had it in her mouth and was calling it her paci. But. After several L-O-N-G bedtimes this week I think I can safely say that we will wait until a later date to attempt this again. Like when I don't have to get her up at 6:45 am to start the day.

funny Emily'isms

Today on a walk (while she was in the backpack): "Big bump mommy"(referring to the sidewalk), "be careful with me."

Tonight at bedtime she got her toy phone and said she needed to call Papa before she went to bed. She ended up calling several others as well. Here's how it went down: "Megan, mommy is changing me. I'm going to bed. Elijah's with daddy. So..."

It was very grown up sounding.

I also noticed that she is very aware of the pets around our neighborhood and their "daddies" who of course are the adults at their home, not their actual parents. Silly mommy.

New things, big things

I submitted my application for grad school.

I just realized that it is time for me to renew my teaching license. It will expire in March of next year, so it's now or never. It's the second time I've had to do it since I graduated. Every 5 years I will have to take at least 6 college credits at my own cost. It seems a little silly to keep paying thousands of dollars and not be working towards a degree (and a pretty decent pay increase). What's that old saying about necessity? Sometimes I just have a really hard time making decisions.

We've gone round and round about whether or not I will stay where I'm at, whether we will move and I'll find a new job (or no job). But when all is said and done right now we feel pretty comfortable with our home and community. We are loving our back yard with the privacy fence. The attic project is coming along nicely--we've been kicking around some new ideas for ceiling using recycled materials and when we re-roof this summer, yes, I said when, we will put in skylights as well. I think we are committing to staying here and taking out student loans. The kids are all getting big enough that I am getting pretty regular nightly sleep and I think I will be able to manage a few classes at a time. Maybe I have finally just gone off the deep end and am embracing the CRAZY!

Now, if we could just find room for some laying hens in our garage.

Weekend Warrior project

Brian has gotten the bug to start house projects and due to today's rain the outdoor project got nixed and we now have a whole wall of shelves in the "unfinished" side of our attic. (For those of you who haven't been in our attic, the whole thing is pretty rough, but eventually the other side will be finished-- in theory!) I am already loving it and found several things that I'd been looking for just today. I am excited to sort through and organize lots of the stuff--especially the mountain of clothes that we have acquired over the last 8 years.

Don't you just love that shaggy mane?

Helpers! They really did pound nails.

How many loads of laundry do you think one person can do over the course of a weekend? I didn't actually keep track, but I think it was close to 10. We hadn't done laundry in 2 weeks (well, we did one load last weekend to get us through) and I was in the attic and found a missing box of spring/summer 3T clothes that I thought was gone forever, so that was both a happy discovery and another load to wash.

Brian got some kind of food poisoning on Friday that had him in bed for most of the weekend, so we laid pretty low. We did lots of housework and playing in the yard. Our neighbor that has the 4 Jack Russell terriers that bark at us ALL. THE. TIME. (like when we turn on our bedroom light at 5:30 in the morning) decided to put up a sturdier fence between our yards--which was awesome because we were getting ready to do it ourselves once our tax return came back, so Brian was out today helping him dig the post holes and set the posts for the fence. We have started negotiations for a new puppy, and a completely fenced yard is one of my requirements.

Sometimes I love that my memory is terrible. Like right now when I am experiencing my yard almost like it's the first time. When we moved into this house 7 years ago this month it was a big deal. We had been living in the apartment above Brian's parents 3 car garage and neither one of us had a full time job (a.k.a. very little money). Neither one of us had lived away from our parents for very much of our lives. Yes, this house was kind of a dive, but it was ours.


We moved in about mid-April and I remember the child-like joy that I experienced each week as our yard was new with fresh blooms. Because we had looked at the house in the winter we had no idea that the yard was a treasure-trove of perennial plants, lovingly tended by the aging widow who lived here, and frankly were not at a point in our lives where we would've even thought to look at landscaping when touring homes.

First it was the lilac bush. Deep purple, wonderfully scented and pretty old. It's more of a small tree than a bush. Then came the forsythia (which unfortunately are now gone--a sacrifice to the new porch!). Then the poppies. The gloriously beautiful poppies. The whole length of our yard is filled with them and once they get their large buds they seem to pop open within minutes of each other. Later in the spring the iris, purple and white clematis, and white hydrangeas.

I'll be honest, I've pulled several things and moved others to make room for things that are more...me. The vining rose bush had to go, the sweet peas were too messy looking for me, and we've been making room for plants that produce food in some of our flower beds. Now we can also look forward to some newer plants that we've added, like the ones lovingly shared by friends and family at my 30th birthday party.

Oh, man! What a great weekend. I keep thinking that the fabulous weather we've been having is going to disappear back to average temps, but we're going on two weeks of 70's (with a couple of cold days in there). So I'm just going to enjoy it while it lasts. The garden is looking great--the lettuce, garlic, onions, spinach and sugar snap peas are all up and thriving. The lilacs are about to open, which means the poppies are not far behind. I've been longing for a magnolia tree, but am content to enjoy other peoples just as much. Unless we put it in the back yard (where??!!) we wouldn't even be able to enjoy it.

We put the hammock up on the back porch this afternoon and instead of cleaning the house or doing laundry I lounged and drank sun tea. Emily came down with a fever last night and has been pretty fussy all day, but slept for most of the afternoon. Mary said her throat and head hurt, so it seems likely to me that Emily is fighting the same thing. Come to think of it, my head hurt really bad today too, but I thought it was the wine I drank last night! :)

Looking forward to just 6 more weeks of school. Brian and I have been voraciously planning our summer. We can't wait!! No big house projects this summer--well, maybe a new roof, but we're still thinking on that, and looking forward to LOTS of down time.

Grandma Betty's neighbors have a mini-farm with sheep and chickens. The toddlers were glued to the window that overlooked the fence or they were at the fence calling the animals to them for much of the day. The little black baby sheep was named Pepper and Elijah got to bottle feed it. His little cry sounded like a human baby's cry and it was kind of intense, so once Pepper actually came to the fence Jonathan wasn't so sure he wanted him to stay!

Christ is risen!

Indeed, He is risen! We had a wonderful end of holy week and a blessed Pascha--pronounced paska (Easter). Because the kids and I were on Spring break we were able to attend lots more services as a family this year. Our Paschal celebration began on Saturday evening after liturgy (around 2 am) and ended yesterday evening. We had a wonderful day on Sunday with our family at Grandma Betty's and then a great day with our church family on Bright Monday. It was a little hard to go back to work today.
Emily and Jonathan call the "sheepies" over
Mary models her dress. My mom bought it for her on their recent visit to my sister-in-law's family in Mexico. It is very pretty, but very sheer. We had a heck of a time finding a slip to go under it. (In fact, we didn't. We just improvised with a tank top and white shorts)
Emily's dress is very cute too, also from the Mexican market.

A dog post

We were relieved to find out this weekend that Carter does not have heartworms like we had suspected. What he does have is thyroid trouble. He's gained 2o lbs. in less than a year and is almost unable to walk around the block anymore. All he wants to do is lay in his crate. Thankfully it is treatable and once we start the medication he should start losing weight and gaining energy! Yay! One of the reasons we got a dog was to get more active, but at this point we can't even take him with us when we walk because we have to drag him along. He is also much older than we originally thought, like twice as old. The vet placed him closer to 8 years old! He has some aging problems like arthritis and eye sight that is starting to go bad. But at least we aren't putting him down this weekend like we thought might happen.

BUBBLES!

I seriously cannot believe how warm it has been this week. Yesterday the high was 83! We've been really enjoying our Spring Break outdoors.

It's a great day!

Today I reconnected with the best pair of bermuda shorts I've ever worn. Last spring I bought a pair and wore them once. Yes, once and then proceeded to snag them on a picnic table at Columbian Park and tear a rip all the way down the front of one of the legs. I went back to get another pair, but they only had them in brown. I bought a pair of course, but still missed the khaki variety--it's just so verstile. Anyhoo...I went shopping today and found another pair! YAY!!!!