Wordless Wednesday

I took this picture the other day at the zoo and I love how it turned out!

Have a happy Wednesday!

Quiet morning

I love mornings like this. I'm enjoying my first cup of coffee of the day and everyone is still asleep but me. I can turn on the news and not listen to, "My shows, Mommy, I watch MY shows!" I can check email, catch up on my google reader and sip coffee in peace and quiet. This is a particularly quiet morning. There's a gentle rain falling outside and it's still nice and dark outside, so hopefully the kids will sleep a bit longer and let me enjoy my peace.

Gardening with the Kiddos

I knew I wanted to put a garden (or three) in this year so I went shopping yesterday for the supplies we would need. I didn't buy enough dirt for all 3 of my gardens, but we at least got 2 done today. Here's Keegs dragging some dirt to the back yard.

Liam opted to spend most of his gardening time doing this and Keegan, who was the one who wanted to do the garden in the first place, lost interest shortly after he realized it was WORK and at least managed to entertain Liam.

He did manage to come around again when actual tools were involved. I'm not sure why he needs his tongue sticking out to do anything that resembles work...see above photo also.
Jaidie and Miss Priss were good helpers. Here they are after putting the tomato plants in.

Here is our herb/salad garden with a rhubarb plant also. We've got basil, oregano, cilantro, lavender, rosemary, chives, dill, sage, spinach and lettuce in this one.

Miss Priss asked for a rose bush, so we obliged and got her this one and put it out by the driveway. She was pretty mad that she didn't actually get to help plant it but dang, that thing was thorny...

Here are my potted impatients, impatiens, I can't ever remember which it is....

And a hanging basket of those also for the screened in front porch...

Since we didn't have enough dirt to do the 3rd garden, I went ahead and planted the seeds to get seedlings for when I can finish things up. Here are the zucchini and cantaloupe...

And then green onions and cucumbers in this one. I think I might need another trellis too...not sure yet.
I also planted some ground cover plants and a couple of butterfly bushes. All in all, everything turned out great and it's supposed to rain the next couple of days so I didn't bother to water, yet. My dad loved to garden and I think on his birthday weekend he would have been happy to see the grandkids out digging in the dirt.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all of the Moms out there! I'd like to say thank you to the decent fathers out there that make us mothers and help teach their children respect and love of their mothers, like my husband. He is a great role model and father figure for all of the children, mine and ours alike and I appreciate it so much! This is what I got for Mother's Day from the kids and the hubby:

Isn't it gorgeous? I absolutely love it! I didn't wear it today though because we're spending our day putting gardens in and I don't want to mess it up. :) More to come on the gardening later...I'd also like to thank my neighbors for providing awesome BBQ to eat for lunch today, it really hit the spot!

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there!

Happy Birthday to 2 very special people in my life..

I tried to be in denial last year that I was the mother of a teenager but now that he is 14, I don't think I can deny it anymore. Oh wait, he isn't "technically" 14 until 11:02 pm, so I can live in denial for a few more hours. He's reached the "teen-I-hate-you" years but I love him anyway. He was my first. His younger siblings adore him, especially his baby sister. How could you not adore him? Look how handsome he is... Happy birthday, son. I love you so much!

It's also happy birthday to another one of my favorite men. Today would have been my dad's birthday but we lost him to cancer a couple of years ago. I miss him every day but I know he is with us in spirit. On a day when I've done something particularly stupid I can hear his voice in the back of my mind saying, "Girl, you need to grab both ears and pull." (pull your head out of your butt, for those that don't speak Jim-language).

My brother is the best...the cemetery is about 2 and a half hours away from me, and he lives closer so he went and put flowers on his grave this morning. It looks so nice. I wish I could have been there in person to see it. Today is kind of rough for me, this Daddy's girl is missing her daddy. Happy birthday Dad!

Children's Music CD Review

Recently I was contacted via Twitter for a free link to a song from @beauticreatures and a request to review their CD.

Here is an excerpt from their website http://www.beautifulmusic.co.za/aboutus.php

"Beautiful Creatures was formed in South Africa in November 2004 by Alan Glass, Ed Jordan and Paul Choritz who felt there was a need for "Parent Friendly" children's music. Using the best session musicians, actors and singers in the country, Beautiful Creatures prides itself on being uniquely South African with a positive global message."

I downloaded the rest of their CD and set it to play a few mornings ago while the toddlers and I were going about our morning routine. We go to the zoo a lot around here (we have a family Friends of the Zoo membership to the Kansas City Zoo) and so my little ones LOVE animals and so songs about animals were an obvious fit for them to like.

They danced all over the living room to songs like, "Imvubu the Happiest Hippo" and "Zee Bee Dee Bee Dee", that was a song about a zebra. The only songs that they didn't love were the lullaby songs but it was because it was only 9:00 am in the morning and they said "Mommy, it's not bedtime right now!!" However, they were great songs and as an adult, they didn't make me want to gouge my eardrums out, which is a DEFINITE bonus. Sometimes "kiddie music" just doesn't "do it" for me but this was not standard "kiddie music" and was something that I enjoyed listening to with the kids.

You can get the songs at iTunes here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/beautiful-creatures/id327863543 for 99-cents each, which I would definitely be willing to pay for to have music that the kids and I can both enjoy together.

**Disclaimer : I got the CD for download for free but my opinions are my own and I wasn't paid to write this review. I don't normally do reviews so I'm not sure how this disclaimer is really supposed to work but I think that should pretty well cover it.

And I'm behind again...

So much for the trying to stay on top of blogging this year. I'm a week past again and I had things I wanted to blog about and then got sidetracked and then forgot and now I can't remember what it was I wanted to talk about...it's "mommy brain", that's what I'm blaming at this point.

Also the month of May is always crazy-busy around here. We have the oldest son's birthday, which was also my dad's birthday :(, and then Mother's Day and then Rockfest and then hubby's birthday and then my birthday...craziness! We were supposed to have court this month also but that has been cancelled, which I will try to "vaguely outline" in another post...It's good/bad news type of scenario and I'm disappointed that it's taking longer than I wanted but in the end I feel like it's going to work out the way it is supposed to.

I did finally launch into the cell phone revolution. Yes, I know, I've been living in the dark ages forever and hubby finally said it was time. Then I picked some over-the-top gadgety phone - I got the Motorola Android - that is probably too much phone for me but I love it anyway. And I especially love the pink cover that hubs picked out for me! :)

I also got a new camera, which I LURVE (this means really really really really really - you get the idea - love). Here are a few pictures of a few of the kidlets for your perusal.

So I've been spending some time learning how to operate my gadgets and not been keeping up on the blogging. I've got some awesome picture posts coming up and also I got asked to review a kids' music CD that I need to tell you all about. I don't normally do reviews unless it's a book that I've read or picked up myself at the store but I gave a listen to this CD and found that it was well-worth talking about and the little ones love it so that's coming up soon too. Maybe tonight if I can manage to pause for a minute to get it done. Now I need to get a notebook out and make notes of the posts I said I would do so that I don't sit down at the computer later and say "Now what was I going to write about??" LOL

I hope everyone has a good weekend and a fantastic Mother's day!