New plants!

When we moved into our house, I kept saying, "We'll finish the backyard some day and I'll plant my fruit trees then." This Spring, my next door neighbor put in a block wall and it added a finished element to that side of the yard. I got tired of waiting for the cash to "finish" my backyard. I saved up $80 and bought dirt, an apricot tree, a pomegranate bush and a grape vine. That was the easy part.

The hard part was digging the holes for said plants. Imagine my backyard as a huge boulder field. In between the boulders are smaller rocks, gravel and clay. The clay and gravel act as cement and holds all the rocks and boulders together. Yeah, good for house foundations, bad for digging holes with a shovel and pick ax.

But I was able to finish all the holes and only needed the Scout to pull out one of the boulders with a strap. (It was about 2 1/2 feet in diameter and about 1 foot tall.) Here's the apricot tree: (Notice all the small rocks in the background.) :)

Here's the grape vine. It's a red, seedless variety!

Here's the pomegranate with Juliet for scale.

The leftover boulder field that I'll move eventually.

The best part this adventure is that the apricot tree had blossoms on it when I purchased it from Star Nursery. It sat in the pot for about a week, waiting to be planted and meanwhile those blossoms turned into little apricots! I bet there's a dozen. I just hope the shock of transplanting doesn't make them fall off. I might eat an apricot this year! Yeah!

Jack's Mini Cooper S

A couple of weeks ago, Merril was gone for a bit because he was hanging out with some pals from Australia. They were in California and came up here to stay for a couple of days. The guys were gathering car parts from America that are otherwise unavailable in Australia.

Anyway, one of the guys, named Aden, draws sketches of concept cars for his occupation. While they were here, he was talking with Jack and asked what kind of car Jack likes. Jack said a Mini Cooper. So Aden, I'm guessing because he was itching to draw something, grabbed his art supplies and started sketching. This 12x18 sketch is what came out:

I was amazed because he did this completely from memory. I'm going to frame it and hang it in Jack's room!

Jesus and the one-armed man...

So anyway, a few weeks ago, Merril comes home from playing racquetball with his BFF, Jared, and said, "We played racquetball with Jesus and the one-armed man today."

I paused, blinked a few times and then said, "What?"

He kind of laughed and then said that He and Jared played another doubles team today and one guy was Hispanic and his name was Jesus (hey-suess) and another guy who was hurt in a motorcycle accident and only has the use of one arm. (I think his name was Brent or Brett) Technically, he has two arms but his right arm doesn't work anymore so he straps it to his body and has to play with his left arm. Merril says he's pretty good, especially since he thinks he used to be right handed before the accident.

So there you have it! Merril and Jared play racquetball sometimes with Jesus and the one-armed man.

A day of change...

It's that time of year again! The daffodils are springing forth from the ground, birds are singing in the trees and Merril shaved his head.

So this is how he looked Saturday morning.

By afternoon, he looked like this:

By evening he'd evolved to this: (The shaved head and beard was my idea. He didn't really go for it.)

By bedtime, he looked like this:

What can I say, he gets bored easily. At least he keeps things interesting! Hope you're having a great weekend!

Yeah Spring Break!

Even though we didn't go anywhere exciting, I still feel like we had a fun Spring Break. We roasted marshmallows and had s'mores for FHE with some neighbors and friends.

I think Maxine was trying to blow on the fire to get it going.

Juliet refused to wear shoes even though the ground was littered with glass and nails.

The fire could've been a little bigger but our Christmas tree just wouldn't burn after all the rain.

On Friday, I took the kids to see The Princess and the Frog at the cheap theater with some other friends. I had visions of my kids sitting and watching the movie without moving a muscle. And they all did great for a solid hour. Then Juliet had to go to the bathroom and when she came back, she didn't want to sit still anymore. About this same time, my friend Shauna gave up and took her wiggly kids home. Then Jack had to go to the bathroom. Then they were all switching seats and Juliet spent the remainder of the movie running up and down the aisle. We made it until the end of the movie but I was exhausted by then. Juliet needs another year.

On the last day of Spring Break, the kids and I took a picnic and went hiking. Jack perfected his bum slide. Then he found this hole and climbed up into it. I promise I didn't pose him. That's just how he sat for his picture.

And then Maxine and Juliet didn't want to be left out of the hole so they all climbed in.

Then we hiked up some narrows. I should've been in the middle so I could help Jack and Juliet climb up so we got stuck for a second until I told Maxine to boost Jack up. That place is skinnier than I remember.

Wahoo Spring Break! I can't wait for summer!

Enter the Easy Bake Oven...

For a couple of months, Maxine has been bugging me to get her an Easy Bake Oven. I have miniature cake pans and loaf pans and said we could make a little cakes in the big oven. I got an eye roll and was told, "That's no fun." But Christmas is over and her birthday is not for another 9 months. (Basically, I said she was out of luck.)

But then I came up with the idea that she could sell something on Ebay to earn money for her Easy Bake Oven. So that's what we did and she made enough money. Today we purchased the Easy Bake Oven and a clear 100w bulb. (Which was harder to come by than I thought it would be.)

She donned her apron:

Waited patiently for it to cook and cool:

And frosted her cake:

Apparently Lucky Charm marshmallows needed to be added:

I remember it taking forever to cook something but it only took 12 minutes. That's about as fast as my oven. So it's all good. I always loved my Easy Bake Oven as a kid.

On a side note the quality of the cake mix and frosting were, how do I put this, so extremely poor. I've already found a ton of Easy Bake Oven recipes so we can make home made cookies, cakes, brownies, and even pizza instead of the crummy, and might I add overpriced, Easy Bake mixes. Not that she noticed, it was just me. I guess my standards for baked goods have gone up over the years.

The Tahoe drove away...

The guy that was going to buy the Tahoe didn't work out but another guy came and looked at it on Wednesday night. He arranged for financing and drove it away Friday night. *sniff, sniff* I'll miss it. (No, the Jeep isn't ready yet but that's okay. I'll ride my bike or something.) As fun as it is to have a 3rd row seat, it'll be nice to only have one seating option. With 2 rows of seats, someone always wants to sit in the very back and then there's whining if someone gets left out.

I did fix the door on the Jeep today. It wouldn't open very well from the outside. For me, that's a frustrating issue. I don't like objects that don't function as intended. I'm waiting for the JB Weld to dry and then I'll put the door back together on Monday. I LOVE JB WELD!! If you've never used it, think of it like liquid metal glue stuff that bonds items for life. The only downside is it takes a long time to cure (15-24 hours.) I've used it to repair motorcycle fairings, a broken knob from the radio, chess set pieces, china and much more.

Sorry you had to suffer through that infomercial.

Crazy hair day...

This week at school has been Dr. Suess week. Yesterday was crazy hair day so we did this to Maxine's hair:

There's a u-shaped wire from a hanger weaved into the braids to make them stand up. I actually had to fix them around lunch time. I was in the library anyway for a PTA meeting. Other than that, they stayed up all day.

By the time I turn 30...

Last night, I was looking through my past blog posts and ran across one entitled, "What do you want to accomplish by the time you're 30?" It was written in December 2007. Now that I'm 30, I was interested to see if I'd accomplished any of my goals.

My first goal: To survive until I'm 30. (Juliet was a hard baby.) DONE!

Second goal: Finish the backyard and basement. Not so done.

Third (and my favorite) goal: No more diapers. All kids potty trained. DONE and DONE!

Two out of three ain't bad!

P.S. Can you believe it's March already??