Project 52 {11}

My favorite thing about you is:

How much you love the outdoors.

f/1.8 (should have been a bit more closed) 1/400 ISO-100

We have had an almost unseasonably nice week of weather.  Like, t-shirts and capris.  I would say completely unseasonable, but this is Colorado and really, there's nothing normal or average about the weather here, ever.  We've spent so much time outside this week, playing in the backyard, at school they've been outside everyday, even the gym has taken the kids out almost constantly and yesterday evening we took the extra hour of daylight and rode bikes in the street.  It seemed like the entire neighborhood was outside with us.  Can I just express how much I'm loving this weather?!  If I could pick one season to live in for the rest of my life spring would be it.

Haley learned how to ride a two-wheeler at the very end of fall which meant not a lot of practice when it's cold and snowy.  I was a little concerned that she might not remember the skills, but I guess riding a bike, is, well, like riding a bike.  She was a bit rusty at first but picked right up and I have no doubt that by the end of this summer she'll be riding circles around all of us (unless Kale decided to pick it up this summer...).  

And because this week, it came down to a tie for pictures, here is the other one from the same evening. And next year when I fight against Daylight Savings, someone remind me about the dreamy light that comes after the kids have full bellies and before bedtime. 

Want to check out some other super great Project 52 eye candy?

 . Styleberry . Wicked Kate . Adventures in Mommyhood .  Lucas & Mahina . Heather Marie Portraits . Something Insightful .  

Can I link you too?  Leave me a comment.

Memorial Day Weekend, or That time we hauled a lot of dirt

So ever since we moved into this house with it's ginormous backyard, we've known that we wanted to create a vegetable garden to teach the kids about where our food comes from, truly grow locally and seasonally, and mostly, just to enjoy (literally) the fruits (and veggies) of our labor. And ever since we started getting bids on landscaping the backyard and a lady suggested a terraced area in that corner, I knew what we were going to do. It took us the entire 4 days of Memorial Day weekend to complete it, but I think what we came up with is far better than I ever imagined. The specs on it are that it took nearly a pallet of bricks, 6 yards of planters dirt, 7 bags of compost, 2 strings of soaker hose (that doesn't get used), many sections of portable fencing (borrowed from the neighbors), the top section is 13 feet from the corner, the bottom is 16 feet, and the total planting area is approximately 201 square feet. Here are about a million pictures of the process and what all we're growing in this thing.

Kale really loved the wheel barrow. "Ride? Ride?!" He would ask, then when it was full he would "help" Jeff push it back into the back yard.

Working on the first layer of bricks. Amazingly it's pretty level all the way across.

What 6 yards (or two hydraulic trailers full) of dirt looks like when dumped on a much too small tarp on our driveway. Dumping the dirt was pretty easy, but getting a pallet of bricks off of the same trailer was quite the experience - it's a wonder we didn't break the entire load of bricks.

Haley had to go in and change her outfit to wear a cami top "like mommy". Then just for good measure made sure she had her butterfly wings on so that she could be our garden fairy. Also, she has on her good patent leather white shoes - they're highly conducive to working in a garden.

The diagram of the garden. If you're having a difficult time reading it, you should be able to click on it to make it bigger.

The top level all finished, and with Kale's pinwheel that seems to be keeping the birds out of the garden. Or, "Critters" as Haley calls them.

The bottom level.

We went to Harding Nursery for all of our plants. The starts were the biggest we'd seen in town and also really healthy (until I got my hands on them). This is my Roma tomato plant, all of my tomatoes and the Anaheim pepper came with fruit budding on them already.

These are the "Sweet One Millions" a hybrid of the Sweet One Hundreds, that's supposed to be heartier and produce more fruit. I don't know if there's a cherry tomato plant in this world that will produce enough for me plus the kids.

My "First Lady" tomatoes, also a hybrid of the Early Girls.

A blurry but point making photo of my first bloom... a sunflower.

As we call them in our house, the Greeny Beanys. We're going to get some wiring or mesh for the fence right there so that they have something to climb. these have taken off already with their blooms and buds. We have 4 total of these plants.

One of my beans closer up. This should give you a better idea of the blooms they're already starting to get.

Hopefully soon there will be some buds in this area too. It's supposed to be three rows of Sugar Snap Peas, or as Haley calls them Sugar Peas. It's only been about a week and we needed a bit of a learning curve to figure out watering out here, but hopefully they'll be popping up soon.

They called this a Salsa Pepper, but upon further review, it's an Anaheim Pepper. You'll note that there's already a pepper that's pretty big on it. Hopefully we'll get it to produce a few more. Aside from onions our garden is pretty set to produce everything we need for making our own salsa.

This is our red pepper - these things are so expensive in the grocery store, but really quite cheap to grow our own. As of this morning there were about 5 flowers and two tiny peppers starting to emerge. YUMMY!

These are our radishes. They had a pretty rough start, bearing the brunt of our watering skills (or lack there of), but have made up for lost time and are really starting to take off and do well. You can almost see them grow.

The strawberries. We were told that this year we might get 10 berries, but to pinch them off and next year they'll take off in my garden. Our goal is to be able to make our own jam out of these next year (and also snack on them). So it looks like we'll be buying them for one more year, then we should be seasonally self sufficient next year!

Many years ago, Jeff picked Atlas up from training in Idaho and the trainer had a gaggle of bush beans that grew like crazy into HUGE beans. He saved some seeds and we're giving them a shot this year. Another item we're praying pops up soon.

This is our Jack-O-Lantern plant. We bought this one started, but we also have planted a seed from our pumpkins from Halloween 2009 - we'll see what happens. I wish I would have taken this picture this morning, it has a HUGE orange flower that pops out on it in the morning but closes up by the afternoon.

My Zukes! We gave these and the Cukes a wide berth to grow and spread in the upper area and I hope that's what they do... I really want some homegrown zucchini with olive oil and garlic on the grill! Oh, and at dinner the other night we told the kids that the zucchini on their plates came from our garden and they ate it right up - this just might work!

The cucumbers. Yes, they look pitiful, but if you had seen them the other day, this looks like they've come back from the dead. Everyday as we water the snot out of them they look better and better.

I think I was most excited about doing basil. I had some last year but never ended up transplanting it out of it's bucket. This year they made it into a full garden - this is the sweet basil, and I've already used some of it in cooking... Oh Yummy!

I also did a start of Italian basil just to taste the difference... I definitely like the sweet basil better for most cooking, but it'll be fun to have some to put into spaghetti sauce.

There were some other projects that we completed over the course of Memorial Day weekend as well. Things that just needed done around this house to complete the overall look of things.

This is a lilac bush on the side of the yard we only see when we visit the neighbors. Our neighbor, however, sees it everyday and it's pretty plain, and covered in utility stuff. She has a gorgeous front yard that she has really improved this season and she found that she bought an extra lilac plant. Guess where it ended up? Hopefully it'll grow (quickly) and cover up all those utility things on the wall.

With this 4 day weekend, came heat like most people in Washington won't see in a lifetime over the course of a 4 day weekend. It was great! So we decided to finally install a ceiling fan in our room to help circulate the air conditioning. Sooo nice.

Our home has a large, tall front porch and the light that came with it was just disproportionately small, so we bought a nice bigger one. The funny thing is that it came with three lights up in there, and we had to unscrew two of them because when all three are lit up it's like daylight on our porch.

Since we were replacing the big light, we figured the rest of the lights probably needed done too. So this is the one that's just to the right when you're looking at the garage - it has a motion detector which is kind of nice, even though our room is on the other side of the house. On our (Jeff's) to do list is to install another one on the other side of the house (which will require drilling a fairly large hole in the house and playing with electricity - so glad I married a handy guy!), and replacing the cruddy jar lights by the two back doors with a smaller, non-paned version of this one.

After quite a few summers of backyard s'mores, our old fire pit was looking pretty sad so we decided to replace it with this one, which should look good on a patio someday.

And finally, last but not least, was this project. If you know one thing about Atlas, it's that if it's bigger than 1 foot vertical it's his by means of marking it. Ever since we got an air conditioner we've had chicken wire around this to keep him from peeing on it. I'm neurotically convinced that if he pees on something that sends air into my house, the air coming into my house will smell like pee eventually, thus the need to protect the A/C unit. Jeff built up an adorable cedar picket fence (he's kind of a pro at this), to keep him out of it. It still needs to be stained or painted (an ongoing discussion around here), but there it is, and it's so much better than the rebar and chicken wire that was protecting it.

So there you go, you're mostly caught up with what's going on around our house. It's taken us a year and a half, but we're finally starting to settle into this house and make it a home.

Birthday Party and Easter Day

So it was a busy weekend for us at the Roberson Homestead. Saturday was Hailey Madison's birthday. Hailey is Haley's same name friend from way back when Crystal and I were pregnant. They're BFF's whether they like each other or not, the or not doesn't seem to be a problem. Anyway, Hailey Madison turned three this week and we got to go celebrate. Crystal planned a bunch of really fun games for the kids to play and they all had a ball (then went down stairs in a sugar rush and tore up the playroom in the basement... good times).

This is Kale with our friend Owen. Poor Owen drew the short straw and got Kale for his partner, and he was such a good sport about the whole thing, just put his arm around him and was so patient and helpful. They didn't really move very far from this spot for the race, but everyone got a prize.

Haley and Hailey waiting for the go sign... I think Hailey is talking some trash here and our Haley is backing her up. They did pretty well, but it's hard to beat a couple of 5 year old boys.

Speaking of trash talking, Kale may not have enough words to tell Haley to "Bring It!" but I think his expression says it all.

The party was a blast and my kids came home and crashed for bed. Crystal was a fantastic hostess (as always) and it was great to see everyone.

So on my way to bed Saturday night I realized that I had forgotten my camera at Crystal's so I sent her a text at 11:30 and was on my way to her house at about 7:00 in the morning to pick it up before the kids went downstairs to see what the Easter Bunny had brought.

Kale was super excited about his truck load of Easter stuff. That scratch on his face? Yeah he wouldn't share one Mega Block with his sister (we have about 500 of them), so she took four fingers and scratched him right down his cheek, that's the one that really stuck. I think we mentioned this in the post before this and the phone call to the Easter Bunny that ensued.

As you can see, we really followed through with that whole "just bring a basket for Kale" thing. She was excited about the stuff in her basket too, but when she saw the pretty dress that he brought her, she about lost it, jumping up and down and couldn't wait to put it on (Mean Mom made her wait till after she ate her breakfast).

After Easter baskets, we all got dressed up in our Sunday best and headed off for Easter Sunday services at church. It was a nice service and a great reminder of the reason for the special day. After that we ran home and got some things and headed off to our friends Ashley, Tim and Addison's house. Now here's an Easter rabbit trail for you: Ashley and Jeff went to school at The Academy and had a bunch of classes together, then were both stationed out at Vandenberg after school, and then went our separate paths. Fast forward a few years and I'm out at the pool at our gym and this girl asks me if I'm Jeff Roberson's wife, "why yes, I am... why?" Ashley re-introduces herself to me and we end up being workout buddies training for the triathlon together and now we spend pretty much 5 days a week at the gym accountable to each other. We're currently training for our half marathons together. She's a great motivator and most of all a great friend. But I digress, Ashley and Tim had us and some other friends over for a delicious Easter Brunch, and Easter Egg Hunt in their back yard. There were some rumors about them hiding champagne in the bushes for the adults (me) to find, but it turned out to be just talk. Boo.

Haley and Addison hanging out on the couch talking (like their mom's do) and reading books. They were such girls and so adorable.

Hey look! A family picture!! We're all dressed up and it's actually documented... a regular Easter Miracle!

Haley outside in her Easter dress. She also had little white gloves that matched, but they made it kind of hard to play. She's also wearing the necklace that she got from her God Parents at her baptism for the first time. She loved having her diamond necklace on (like Mommy)!

The Dude-A-Man modeling his Easter clothes for us. He kept looking at me and saying cheese, but I wasn't fast enough on the trigger.

Dad and Dude playing in a backyard with grass... they do exist! Hopefully we'll have ours by the end of next month!

Haley doing her best at the Easter Egg Hunt. She picked up a ton of eggs, including the ones that "fell" out of Kale's dump truck.

Kale pretty much just enjoyed following the other kids around and watching them pick up eggs, but he finally got the hang of it, then he would "dump" his truck when it got full (because that's what you do when a truck gets full... duh)!

Showing me his egg that he picked up, he really did have a fun time.

Haley, looking around suspiciously at the other kids while she loads up her basket. When the hunt was over she was only a couple of moments away from being that kid that takes eggs out of other kids baskets. We stopped in the nick of time.

So that was our weekend, busy but so great and full of nice family time. I think Easter is officially my favorite holiday, I went to bed Sunday night and could only think that it had been such a fun day.

Hippity Hoppity Easter's on its Way!

Yup, Easter is around the corner and the kids (me) are really having fun prepping for the holiday. To date there are 2 batches of sugar cookies mixed, rolled and frosted and put onto plates ready for brunch. For the record, frosting butterflies is pretty dumb. Jeff will tell you the best part about these two batches of cookies is that he didn't have to do one little thing... not even the dishes... he owes me. I baked the cookies while the kids were napping and when they woke up, they were more than excited to see them laid out on the table. Kale was given a butterfly with no frosting and gobbled it down, I guess he liked it so much he decided to try a bite out of a bunny, tulip and egg. But just a bite mind you.

He's the new cookie monster in town.

She didn't want to miss out on an opportunity to lay on the table and take a picture.

The kids have really been pushing me lately with their sibling rivalry and Haley has been especially fantastic with the behavior. You might notice in a few of the upcoming pictures of Kale he has a great big scratch across his left cheek. That would be his sister's revenge for him not sharing a block. After she did this I made a phone call to the Easter Bunny (who works surprisingly like Santa). It went something like this: "Hello Easter Bunny? This is Mommy. How are you? Are you getting ready for your big night? Oh great! Well I just wanted to let you know that you don't need to bring Haley her pretty dress, any candy or presents. Yeah, she hasn't been nice to her brother lately so you can just bring Kale's stuff and that would be fine. Thanks. Yup, you have a good Easter too. Bye!" She freaked, but has been a little nicer to her brother. She'll still get her basket, but desperate times call for desperate measures and when you have a three year old and an almost two year old, it's survival mode.

Then there's the main event of Easter (besides church on Sunday I guess). Dying eggs. This is Haley's 2nd year and Kale's first year. You can tell that the extra year of experience has really paid off for Haley.

I feel like I need to preface this whole situation by taking you back about 15 years to the first year I ever dyed eggs with Jeff's family. Jeff's mom was so wonderful to make me my own dozen of eggs and I really love my eggs to be beautiful and bright and just colors. Don't draw on my eggs, don't try to get all creative, they should just look like perfect one color Easter eggs. So I have my own eggs and I make a quick run to the ladies room, while I was in there Jeff took out one of my eggs and colored on it - I don't even remember what he wrote, but he ruined my entire dozen eggs with that one little coloring and I cried. I will never, ever, ever live this down.

So I told you that, to tell you this: I'm kind of particular when it comes to dying eggs in my own home and in trying to be a good mom, I'm trying not to pass this neurosis down to my kids. I really had to let go and let them be messy and put one egg into many different colors and just let them turn out as strange as they want them to be. This was no easy task for me, but I think it turned out fine and the kids had a great time.

The before picture with the white eggs that Kale is happily grabbing from any carton and throwing primarily into orange and yellow. We decided to do this on the kitchen floor and just threw an old sheet down (I couldn't find any newspaper and honestly, the thought of sitting on the newspaper was yucky to me).

See? Orange and Yellow. You can't see them all but there are three eggs in orange and five, yes FIVE eggs in the yellow. Three quarters of his eggs in those two colors (just let it go Mommy, let it go).

Haley didn't mind reaching in with her hands to pull the eggs out. This proved easier with the hands than with spoons, the spoons made the mugs too tippy.

Kale showing me his hand, not quite as yucky, but getting there.

Pulling one of three out of the orange, and still marinating the yellow.

This is the aftermath. Messy, and will probably be stained forever but it's pretty much just used for a dog sheet on our bed, or a picnic blanket in the backyard. Also, at one point when Kale was rough handling the eggs he picked one up and threw it at Haley, the sound of it cracking as it bounced off her head was a sound we couldn't help but laugh at (as we told Kale not to throw eggs at his sister).

More aftermath, and a painted leg.

Haley showing off her eggs. Now, after that whole story above, Haley's eggs are gorgeous. For the work of a three year old, I'll definitely take it. I can't help but look forward to years ahead when she wants to get creative to make beautiful eggs with rubber bands and marble paint, and glitter and who knows what else "they" and she will come up with.

Kale showing off his eggs. He's pretty proud. I don't think any of them came out with less than a few cracks, some were completely trashed and chunked up.

The finished products side by side. I don't feel like it's necessary to tell you who's dozen is who's.

Kale's name egg.

Not that you can tell, but Haley's name egg.

So I guess that's Easter for now around here. There will definitely be pictures to follow of them in their Easter outfits and likely of our brunch at friend's house Sunday morning.