Iris Surprise

Last spring some of us from church helped an older lady in our community who needed some work done on the exterior of her house...yardwork, painting, that kind of thing. This woman had irises all over her yard. She had them in almost all of her flower beds and also had pots and pots with bulbs in them. She had so many she was throwing some of the bulbs away. So I asked her if I could have a few of them and she said yes. I took them home and planted them in one of my little flower beds out back (in between some other pink flowers I planted last summer):

Well my little bulbs took root and grew over the course of the year, but there was no sign of any flowers until one morning a few weeks ago when I went to let Toby out in the morning and discovered this:
I noticed that the color of the bud peaking through wasn't purple, but I thought maybe that was just the way it started out. Most of the irises at the lady's home were no longer in bloom, but the few that were were the typical purple irises that you often see. So in my head that's what I was expecting. You can imagine my surprise to discover this the next day:

A few days ago, a second bud appeared on one of the other plants. This one appeared tinged in purple, so again I was expecting the usual purple bloom with a yellow center. And again, I was surprised to discover this:

So far none of my other plants have produced buds (I think I planted 8 of them), but I'm looking forward to what other colors might appear.

Acting Silly with Aunt Janina

More fun with Aunt Janina

This weekend Lila got to spend the night at Aunt Janina's house. We had fun together and she did really well. No tears or asking for Mommy. It had been about a year since the last time she spent the night. I am happy to report there were no waking up in the middle of the night screaming or 3 am conversations after putting her in bed with me this time.

[Lila, head raised: Toby's on the bed with us!

Me: I know. Put your head down and go to sleep.

Lila: Our dogs don't get on the bed.

Me: I know. Put your head down and go to sleep.

Lila: When the sum comes up, it will be morning and we can have muffins for breakfast!

Me: Maybe. Put your head down and go to sleep.]

I remembered to take a few pictures of our evening together this time (courtesy of the strong hint from my sister :)

We watched Finding Nemo. Lila hadn't seen it before and she didn't get scared. Her favorite fish was "all of them".

Pizza and breadsticks for dinner with carrot sticks and ranch dressing. Yum.

Cookies and cream ice cream for dessert. Double yum. I got her a cup of water and then she informed me she wanted milk. So I got her a cup of milk, and she got the biggest kick out of having both. She would take a drink of milk and then a drink of water. It's the little things in life.

Going to bed with a few new friends.

Enjoying one of the books from Aunt Janina's house on the trip back home after having breakfast at IHOP (forgot to take any photos there).

Fun with Aunt Janina

What do we do when Aunt Janina baby-sits? Do we take naps? Nooo. Do we have "room time"? Nooo. We get every blanket we can find and we build a ginormous fort in the living room.

Then we get some toys and stuffed animals and...coaster holders and we take them into the fort.

It's always more fun to play with our toys (and coaster holder) in a cool fort than playing in our room.
The best part of playing in the fort is going in and out. Pants optional of course.

*Lila was also playing in the fort but for some reason most of my pictures had Wyatt in them and the one I took of her was extremely blurry. Phone cameras with no flash have a hard time focusing in forts.

Toby One Year Follow Up

It's been one year since Toby was diagnosed with oral melanoma last February and went through six rounds of radiation therapy. I took him to the vet a couple of weeks ago for his one year check up. He needs to have his teeth cleaned, but everything else looked good. Yay! I took this picture of Toby listening to the other dogs while we were waiting for the vet to come in the room. I like how he lounges on the bench. You can see that the treatment turned his face more white. But at least he's still here.