Yum!

Tonight, for dinner, I made a yummy veggie stir-fry using stuff from our garden: squash, broccoli, spinach and fresh basil. (I also used olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper, which were not from the garden.) Not only was it YUMMY, but it was so satisfying to know that I grew most of it.



As I was putting the broccoli in the frying pan, I noticed a caterpillar on on of the pieces and thought, "Whew! That was close. I almost stir-fried a caterpillar into my dinner!". Yeah, well... guess what I found when I sat down to eat my yummy concoction? Caterpillar #2.... good and cooked.

Luckily, I'm not bothered by stuff like that and was still able to enjoy my veggies, but I was definitely careful about inspecting each bite. :)

When Daddy is in charge of hair cuts....

....things like this happen:



Not too long ago, Ben wouldn't let anyone touch Asher's hair but last night, he told Aunt Rileigh to go ahead with the mohawk.



It's a good thing Asher can totally pull it off. He's so cute no matter what.

Speaking of being cute.. it's a good thing, because otherwise we probably would have given him away by now. Just this evening, he got into my makeup. He was so proud of himself.



Little stinker.

Boo Boo

Poor Evan took a pretty hard fall on his bike yesterday and has a pretty massive fat lip to show for it. Every time I look at the poor little guy it makes me sad. :( He's been tough, though, and is good about keeping his ice on it.



Just look at that big old thing! When I took a picture of it, Evan insisted that I take a picture of his "wiggly tooth", so here you go:



Gross.

Asher also insisted that I take a picture of his "wiggowy teef". :)



But I told him only if I got a smile, too.



There has been a lot of talk about the tooth fairy around here because of this mishap (even though we've warned Evan that it might take a long time for that tooth to fall out still), and we've discovered that the Tooth Fairy was just a bit more generous with Ben than she was with me.... by about a quarter or two. Hmmmm.....

;)

My happy place

Since I failed miserably with just a little bit of basil last year, I'm happy to say that we actually have stuff growing in our yard this year! A lot of stuff, actually. Just look at all this veggie goodness:

Cucumbers, squash,


peppers, carrots, spinach, basil,


more cucumbers, watermelon,


corn,


tomatoes, broccoli, more peppers, chives, and strawberries.






We planted almost everything ourselves and I'm so proud to see it all growing bigger and stronger. The chives and strawberries actually just grew by themselves and were a pleasant surprise.

We also have a ton of beautiful flowers that have grown all by themselves, too. There are lots of different kids, but my favorites are the lavender and the roses.





We even have stuff growing on some of our fruit trees. I'm excited to see which trees grow what. Some of you could probably tell what they will grow just by the look of the tree itself, but not me. It's all going to be a surprise. :)



Yes, right now, our back yard is my happy place.

Adding a bit of cheer

I decided that my living room needed a little something to make it less dull. I've avoided trying to decorate in there (aside from some family photos) because our couch (bright red) doesn't match the window treatments and trim (royal blue), so figuring out a color scheme is frustrating. Well, I found some cute fabric that incorporates red and blue without being "Americana" (no offense to anyone who decorates in this style, it's just not "me") and got excited about making something for the wall!

I used a combination of the tutorials here and here to make this little beauty:




Ben thinks it's a bit strange, and it's definitely different from my usual, but I'm loving it and it's certainly better than a plain white wall. :)

Sprinklers!

On Sunday, Ben decided it was time for the boys to try out the sprinklers. They weren't too sure about it at first. Asher wouldn't go near the sprinkler and Evan kind of just stood on the edges.



Ben decided that they were going to get wet whether they liked it or not...





...and of course, they loved every minute of it. :)







Muscles!

Preschool Graduate!

Last Monday (yes, I'm a whole week behind!), we had Joy School graduation. Evan has officially graduated from preschool!



It was so much fun to teach these little guys all year. They really were a fun bunch. Here they are singing "I've Got Joy" during the graduation:



It was a nice little ceremony with a few words said by the mothers, the song by the kids, the presentation of "diplomas" and "report cards", and refreshments (of course).

(Evan getting his report card.)


I'm ready for a summer break, but I'm also looking forward to doing it again with Asher in the fall. I can't believe Evan will be in kindergarten!!