MY DAZE

To celebrate this joyous occasion I:

Mowed the Lawn
Weeded the Flower Beds
Finished up some Homework/Emails
Washed and Dried 3 Loads of Laundry
Folded the Laundry
Fed Children
Did the Dishes
Vacuumed
Picked up Multiple Toys, Clothes, and Garbage
Bathed a Toddler
Nursed a Toddler

I am going to be grateful for this day as I did not:

Clean up Puke
Change Diapers
Clean up any Potty Accidents
Dole out any Meds
Drive to any Sporting Events
See any Blood
Repair any Furniture, Walls, or Replace any Dishes

Our family tradition for celebrating this spring holiday is to visit a local farm that fills plastic eggs with apples, carrots, and corn that the children get to hunt for and then feed to the farm animals that have been rescued from abusive situations and now live on this vegan farm.
Here is somebody who looks particularly happy to see us.

The children are peering in at some doves. I love photos like this where I catch them engaged in what they are doing, especially when I'm lucky enough to catch a pic of the two of them together.

Kyla and Riok heading out in the field towards the goats.

Mama & Riok feeding one of them.

...and sister giving a little extra love to the goat. LOL

However, after a couple of hours of wind, mud puddles, and walking, even an abundance of farm animals is not enough to keep everyone in good spirits.
Especially this one.

To find out more about this wonderful farm, their amazing animals, and how you can help visit the Lighthouse Farm Sanctuary website.

What a fabulous day Monday was for getting the mail. I splurged this month and decided that my family needed presents to help us feel all the more excited about spring. My present to myself was a couple of new books. I am a geek like that. I will admire MAC make-up, clothes, shoes, and complain about never having anything new. I will dream of the day I have a place to wear heels and accumulated accessories that go perfectly with every trendy outfit. Yet, when I get an extra $20 I will choose books every time.
Yesterday I received one of my books.

...and the children obtained the last part needed to attach the new hammock swing to the swingset. A metal and plastic contraption doesn't look very exciting to kids in the packaging, but it was an entirely different story when paired with the hammock swing that had arrived a few days previous.

This is what our swingset now looks like. Note mommy's hammock in the background. Hammocks Rock!!!

This is Riok enjoying his new swing with the neighbor, one of his best friends.

...and this is just cute, even if a little blurry, as this is a spinning hammock swing.

Soccer is in full swing. I wish I had more and better photos, but the battery charger is not currently working for my camera. I borrowed a friend's camera to snap some shots of this game, but I would really like more and better pictures to choose from. I'm totally jonesin' for my camera to be in working order. Of course if it was working, I would just bitch that I don't have a 70-300 lens with image stabilization to capture shots all the way across the giant fields these pre-teens play on.

I hope to grace this blog with some more fabulous soccer imagery before the season ends. However, if my photography skills don't improve too drastically, softball is right around the corner.

Spring is here. I have had a busy week getting in the gardening spirit. Last week we stopped by the nursery to get the tomatoes and several other plants off to a good start. Dear Megan, your Romas are in there too if you still have a home for them. The other varieties include cherry, beef, and pear. Pear tomatoes are my favorite! I have the best memories of my grandma's garden and her delicious pear tomatoes.

This photo had to be included for the "look, I'm smiling" value.

...and what do we have here? Peas, growing in my own backyard garden. I have planted peas three or four times on a weekly basis, as they continue to sprout all season and we LOVE fresh peas. Today Riok and I put the first lettuce seeds of the season in our garden.

I have many flowers doing a wonderful job growing and blooming also, but today it was all about the veggies, or perhaps, I'm just all about food!

All of the neighborhood children are equally impressed with the new swingset. This welded together contraption can support full grown adults and all manner of underdogs.



I also plan on getting a hammock swing with a swivel to add to the fun, but until then Riok happily wanders back and forth between the swingset and hammock.