Iris, Hamster Cages and Soft Scrub

One of my favorite spring flowers is the iris. We had iris in our yard when I was growing up for as long as I can remember...Grandma Darlene had a lot too. Some of our different bulbs came from her mother, Grandma Nellie. Our first spring in this house, I planted iris. We had some beautiful ones. My favorite was a white one that was a "descendant" from my great-grandmother's. Last spring we dug them all up since we were redoing the front yard in hopes of moving. We didn't move, but with a new baby and all, I didn't get them replanted last fall. Last week, I replanted a few. I missed my iris this year and caught myself really looking for them around town and checking out the different varities in different yards. Last weekend when we were up visiting my parents and grandmother, Brian and I took pictures of some of their different flowers. I did this several years ago and have made some pretty cards with them. I'll probably do that with these new pictures one of these days. Here are some of my favorites from Grandma Darlene's yard:

And here are some of my favorites from Mom's yard:

My first digital scrapbook page was about iris...

Anyway, I just cleaned the hamster cage - ick!! I keep threatening to give her to the cat as a snack, and somedays Joshua agrees with me. Especially since Nathaniel can now reach where we keep her cage and there is really no other place to put it. I'd so love to be down to just one pet - the cat. She's so low maintenance! Anyway, it smells better in the computer/school/scrapbook/craft room now. I'd better go get us some lunch. Nathaniel napped for about 40 minutes - almost long enough for me to get the cage cleaned and put back together (I'd have been done if I'd been able to remember where I'd put the liners for the cage!) I need to clean the sink out once again...I cleaned it right before we left for the weekend with Soft Scrub. I love that stuff...makes the sink nice and shiny and white. For some reason it seems to brighten up the whole room. If the boys cooperate with me later on today, maybe I'll have a chance to post some pictures from our Memorial Day weekend.

Well, I'm having issues uploading photos right now, so I'll have to add the rest later when this machine cooperates!

Planting Seeds

Wow - two posts in one day - maybe I'll get caught up.

Yesterday Joshua & I planted some seeds in some of our pots outside. Yes, we probably should have done this several weeks ago, but with birthday & Brian's ongoing stomach problems, I just haven't gotten around to it. Finally, Monday night as he was getting ready for bed I told him that we'd plant some of the seeds before or after Storytime the next day...well, Tuesday the wind was awful...which, of course, made my allergies kick in horribly. So we postponed the activity until Wednesday. Well, it was still windy on Wednesday, so we had to wait yet another day. Finally yesterday was the day! I plopped Nathaniel down in his stroller & put his cap on and parked him in the shade under the tree with some toys - he was content watching us the whole time.
I drug a bag of potting soil out of the garage to add to what was in the pots. We planted some zucchini seeds, some roma tomato seeds, some snapdragon seeds and some asters. Some we should've started in the house several months ago, but we didn't so we'll see what we get! I also replanted a few of my iris in one of the flower beds. We'll see what they do. It's way too late for this year, but hopefully they'll reroot and we'll have them for next spring. Joshua loved it, but was ready to go in when we finished. I thought we'd only been out for a little while and figured it was around 12 or so and time for lunch...well, it was time for lunch - it was almost 1 o'clock! Now we just have to remember to water them and see what happens! Especially when we go to Arizona for a week in June.

Other exciting news...Nathaniel is starting to walk. On May 6th he took his first few solo steps, then got so excited that he just bounced and couldn't do it again. He's getting braver and braver and trying a little more each day on his own. When he walks to someone, he gets so excited about it that he throws himself at his target person and buries his head in their lap and laughs. It's such fun having him in our lives and home.

Thomas!!!

Last Friday we took the boys over to Woodland to see Thomas the Tank Engine. Joshua was really excited...and Nathaniel didn't really care. Which is why it was so funny once we got on the train and Nathaniel had a blast and Joshua was rather worried about the whole thing. The sides of the train were open (not enough that anyone would fall out and there was a roof overhead) and Joshua kept saying, "This ISN'T like the other train we rode on before!" (Last year we rode Amtrak from Davis to Sacramento (about 20 minutes tops) and went to the Railroad Museum.) By the end of the short ride, Joshua was liking it a little better. Nathaniel giggled and grinned the whole time, loving the breeze on his face. We did this during Brian's lunch break, so didn't have tons of time. We hurried and looked through the gift tent, but ended up putting the few items we'd picked up back since we didn't want to stand in the long long lines. There wasn't much we'd wanted - a cool looking domino game for Joshua, a snack container for Nathaniel and a replacement thermos for Joshua's Thomas lunch box that we got him at a thrift store several years ago (the thermos was cracked). I'd picked up some stickers, but put them back...didn't really need those, I'd found a Thomas scrapbook kit on clearance at Walmart a few weeks ago and it has all the paper and stickers I'll need to do a couple of pages for each of the boys' albums. Joshua wanted to ride on some little train/car things that kids made move by turning a handle (in place of a steering wheel). Only five kids could do it at a time and there were about 15 kids ahead of us. So we talked him out of that and waited in the much shorter line for the clown who was creating things from balloons. He was thrilled with his twisted balloon sword (yellow, of course). We skipped right on by the bounce houses and head back to the car so we could grab some lunch and get Daddy back to work on time. Both kids slept on the way home (yay!).

Five Years Old!!!

Joshua is now five years old!! He celebrated his birthday at Easter with a cake at Grandma & Grandpa's, then he had another special cake at Uncle Terry & Aunt Theresa's the day before his birthday, he celebrated on the actual day at home with Mommy, Daddy and Nathaniel and the finally the following Saturday with a party at the park with some friends! He wanted a Cars birthday party so I bought the Lightning McQueen cake pan at Michaels when it was on sale a while back...this was my most adventurous cake decorating experiment to date (I'd concocted a lion cake for his second birthday that had turned out pretty well, but the next year's Spider-man cake was pretty pathetic). We weren't sure how many kids were going to show up at his party, so decided we'd do cupcakes for that and do his actual cake for his actual birthday. Brian took the boys on some errands that afternoon and left me with a couple of hours and that's about how long it took me to decorate his Lightning McQueen cake. It turned out pretty good - much better than I'd planned! Joshua's one disappointment with turning five was that he couldn't start kindergarten the next day. We found something that would be an okay substitute...his own library card!!

Our library lets you get a library card once you are in school or when you are five. Since storytime and library day was the day after his 5th birthday, we planned that that day we'd get his library card. He was very excited and after storytime was over, we filled out the form to get his card. Then the big moment came for him to write his own name on the back of the card...which was hard because ball point pens had a hard time writing on the surface of the card. So we decided to use a sharpie marker and that worked. Everyone, the librarian, Sister Oliver (the storylady and a friend from church), and I were very excited for Joshua...he quickly picked out some books to take home and informed everyone (for several days) that he was now 5 and had his own library card now so he didn't have to borrow Mommy's.

Catch up time....Youth Day!

Man, a lot has gone on in the past week. I'll have to do a couple of catch-up posts to get it all in!

Last Saturday was Youth Day here in our little town. There's a kiddie parade, followed by the big parade and then booths, food and activities at the city park. There are other activities also, but we didn't hang around for them. The Friday before Youth Day, high school kids are "elected" to run the town for the day. Everyone seems to enjoy themselves. This was my third time (in 10 years) of going to the parade and my 3rd time of going to the park. Before I met Brian, I went to the parade with some friends and walked over to the park. The year I was expecting Joshua we went to the park and walked around - trying to convince him to come out since he was already a day or so late. It didn't really help because he still held out (held on?) for a couple more days. The next year I took Joshua to the parade with a couple of friends, but Brian was at a class. Every year we seem to be busy with something (especially since it almost always falls on Joshua's birthday weekend) so we never make it. This year nothing was planned, and we made sure to attend. Joshua loved it (Nathaniel was kind of indifferent until the end when he just wanted to be fed). Some of Joshua's friends from church and storytime were in the parade and he thought that was cool. He was a little disappointed that he didn't get to ride in a fire truck or something like he gets to when we got to his great-uncle's for his town's parade. He enjoyed playing some games at the park afterwards and eating an ice cream bar and sliding down a blow-up slide. By that point we were all hot and tired and getting grouchy, so we called it a day. The only sad thing is is that it seems that I lost a memory card for the digital camera. There were only a few pictures on it - and I can't even remember what they were now - but it also had all of the pictures from Nathaniel's birth protected on it and I couldn't figure out how to get them off. I don't know how it got out of the camera bag and out of the bottom of the stroller, but I haven't been able to find it yet. Hopefully it will turn up somewhere.

The night before Youth Day was a scrapbook crop at the church that I was in charge of. It was fun...Carrie was over for a couple of days and went with me. A couple women from church came and one of my friends and former co-workers. So there wasn't a huge turn-out, but hopefully, as we continue to have these nights, our attendance will increase. It's just nice to get out and visit for a few hours without having to talk over and around kids and all. On Friday Nathaniel also hit the 8 month mark. He is trying like crazy to get up the confidence to walk. He lets go of things and then grabs them quickly and cruises along and boy is he fast! He loves to get into things and explore his surroundings. (Literally, he likes to get into things as you can see from this picture).


Well, that's all until I get to Joshua's birthday post in a little while. Nathaniel just woke up from a nap and Carrie's over again this weekend and took Joshua to a playgroup at the church. They're not back yet so maybe that means someone who is closer to Joshua's age came too...last time we went there were 3 babies, 3 2 year olds and Joshua. He did okay but as we left said it was boring playing with a bunch of babies :)

Afternoon at the Park

Last Tuesday Brian was home early (he'd had to lead music at a funeral) so we took the boys to the park. Nathaniel loved swinging and try to crawl off the blanket and eat the grass. He also liked sliding down the slide with Daddy. Joshua loved everything - including playing with the new lawn games we got at Walmart awhile back. Yesterday was Youth Day here in Winters...I'll post pictures of that when I have time to download them. Tomorrow is the big day here in our house - Joshua turns 5! He is so excited for the birthday that means he's old enough for kindergarten. Nathaniel hit 8 months on Friday...and his third tooth (and first upper one) FINALLY broke through sometime between Friday night and Saturday morning. Hopefully he'll be in a better humor now! We had a few practically sleepless nights earlier last week.
Here are a few photos from the park...enjoy!

Colds Again!!!

I swear, Joshua has the eternal cold this spring! It goes away, then a couple of weeks later he's got the sniffles and a cough again and starts to lose his voice. Then Nathaniel starts in with a runny nose, etc. Well, part of his problem is his upper right front tooth is about through the skin, so that doesn't help. I stayed home with both boys today instead of going to church...that was fun. Actually, I'd been up with Nathaniel most of the night, so probably couldn't even have played the piano in Relief Society like I was supposed to. I did tons of laundry today - washed sheets, blankets, pillows & stuffed animals...flipped their mattresses and got the air purifier going. This crazy weather isn't helping either...we were up in the upper 80s for a few days, then dropped to the 60s and then rain and now this coming week we're supposed to be back in the 80s!
Joshua is anxiously anticipating his birthday in 8 days. He can't wait to be five. He wants to start kindergarten that very same day, or maybe the next one, but I think we've finally got him convinced that he has to wait until August. He does get to get his own library card at Storytime the day after his birthday (you have to be 5 or in school) so that is helping him some.
I did a scrapbook page yesterday and finished it today...I like how it turned out :)
http://forum.storytellersclub.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=21783
It was going to be an entry for a monochromatic contest, but I ran across this dotted paper and loved it so skipped the mono. stuff :)

We're having a crop night at the church this coming Friday...I'm in charge so I hope it turns out and we have a good turnout. We're hoping to do this the last Friday of each month...I've got to get all my stuff together for the mini-class I'm teach at it as well as pull my stuff together to take to work on.
Well, better get the sheets on our bed since I didn't get to that earlier today and try to get to sleep at least for a little while before Nathaniel wakes up. He was in bed shortly after 9, so I'm sure he'll be waking up at least once in the night!