Spring Has Come!

I had told the kids that we would make St. Patrick's Day cookies, but feeling pretty yucky myself meant that I really didn't have the energy to deal with making St. Patrick's Day cookies. Instead, we made sugar cookies in a number of spring shapes, and then of course we absolutely had to decorate them!

For the last couple of years Elias has asked us for a duck. Specifically a green duck. However, there is absolutely NO way to guarantee that we got a green duck without paying a small fortune for it (ducklings sexed at the hatchery are rather expensive!), and this year he decided he just plain and simple wants a duck. Who cares what colour it is. So we called up the person we knew of who hatches various birds every spring and asked if he happened to have any duck eggs due to hatch. He said he did, but they weren't due to hatch for another week, so call back and see what he had then. We called a week later and found out that his batch of eggs had been a pretty poor hatching result this time round-- he only got two ducklings out of the whole batch of incubated eggs.

We told the kids we were going to go see some ducklings, and possibly get Elias a duck, and Elias ran off to get his money he has been collecting for the last year so that he could buy his own duck(s). He was adamant that he be the one to get them! We are just letting him think he paid for them in full. I believe they are Pekin ducks, I'm not sure if they are both regular ones or if one of them happens to be a jumbo one. They are drastically different in size right now!!

And... our winter garden stalled out when the snow came, but we are finally getting really nice produce out of it! Perhaps next year I will try planting carrots as well?! I can't wait to use these turnips and their greens this week! :)

Feeling Talkative!

I realized today that it has been far too long since I really said anything on here, so I figure it is about time to give some actual news beyond pictures (which admittedly have been far too few and far between as well!).

We got some new neighbours about a month ago. The man works as a handyman, so we hired him to pull the cactuses out of the garden by the driveway (for very cheap, but he set the price, so we went for it). Anyway, out went the cactuses, and the discovery was made that the garden is absolutely full of poison ivy! We need to pull it, but I haven't been that brave... yet. Into that garden, we are going to put a few paths of (large) paving stones, a bird bath, a couple of little hummingbird feeders, various herbs, and different heights and types of perennial and annual flowers. I thinking about maybe a bleeding heart, hibiscus, milkweed, and then I already have seeds for columbine, yarrow, basil, oregano (I think), dill, forget-me-nots, African daisies, bachelor's buttons, California poppies, and probably a few others that I've forgotten. Most of those are perennial, so it will be minimal maintenence.

We've also revamped the garden in front of the house (near the porch) because it was full of bulbs, and we discovered that many of those bulbs have poisonous content either both in the bulb and the leaves, or just in the bulb, but regardless, Elias eats anything in reach/sight, so we pulled all the bulbs. They're going to go into the garden that has been completely ignored since we moved in here, and we've put in perennials in the garden in front of the porch. :) So far we have bee balm, prime roses, echinacea, some dasies, and potentially some yarrow... if it decides to grow. I've also got some nasturtiums, marigolds, and alyssum planted.

Elias is developing in leaps and bounds. He crawls everywhere very quickly, and I often will see him right beside me, turn around, and realize he's missing! Then I go hunting. While most boys are loud it seems, he is very, very, very quiet much of the time! It makes me glad to be able to say that we just got an Ergo baby carrier! He's spent about 2 hours in it every day since it arrived on Saturday. It allows me to get at least a few things done, and I discovered today that I can actually operate the vacuum with him on my back in it! I've tried three different carriers with him on my back, and this is the first he hasn't flipped out in!

Anyway, development. Elias loves to play with balls of all sizes. He likes to put things in and out of containers... particularly balls. :) He also likes to pull all the toilet paper off the toilet paper roll, and anything that has to do with the bathroom is his favourite activity. As soon as the bathroom door opens, he crawls as fast as he can to get in there so he can play in (yes, I said in) the toilet. The big news of the last week is that Elias has started taking the occasional step toward us or some other inanimate object! I'm really hoping that he isn't going to start actually walking anytime too soon though! It's already a lot of work chasing two kids in opposite directions! I don't want to have to do it with them both on feet! Oh yes, and of course, he has discovered the pilot light under the hotwater heater. I found out by discovering him with his arm inside the space under the heater trying to catch the flame. Yikes!

Rebecca is growing up so fast lately. She loves to play with the neighbourhood kids. Lexi is Rebecca's favourite by far. She watches for Lexi's mom to get home every evening so she can drag me over to play outside with Lexi and Lexi's little brother, Aaron. She's thrilled with the warm weather that allows us to get out every day for hours at a time... I'm not so thrilled by the pollen we've got lately though! Brianna and Chris are her other two "older" playmates (more often Brianna than Chris), and Amaya is her only age-mate playmate on the street. However, she is also the friend Rebecca sees least.

Rebecca is also developing a fascination and love for many little creatures such as worms, beetles, spiders, lady bugs, butterflies, etc. She actually (finally) picked up a beetle last night! She has refused to touch just about any 'creepy crawly' for the last year, so this is a huge milestone. :) And, speaking of creatures, Rebecca still loves frogs, adn we still walk up and down the road looking for them in the ditches, but she also absolutely loves turtles, fish, alligators, and the latest love is dolphins. To the point that she actually begs me to put on movies that are about dolphins. :) She loves the old Flipper television shows. Anyway, instead of having eggs or anything, we gave her a little Pillow Pet dolphin for Easter, which she absolutely loves, and she's actually taken a nap with it willingly for the last week and a half! :)

We're heading to Florida with my parents in a week and a half, and Shannon and Mara will be joining us there. We'll be spending a week there, and then heading back up to home. Thankfully our neighbours across the street have agreed to look after all our creatures and the house while we are away... but I'm still trying to find someone to take the dogs if possible, because they throw a little loop into things for them.

Anyway, I think that's all the news!

Around the House

Well, things are busy with a toddler who decides it is time to toilet train when there is a newborn in the house... but I did manage to get some pictures on a few days in the last week or so as well. :)

The book on the piano was Rebecca's 'music book' that day. She usually requires a book in order to play the piano, but it's almost always one with pictures instead of music. :)

Elias tried out the Boppy pillow... and then Rebecca crawled on top of him. But he seemed to enjoy the different perspective until that happened.

We went outside to play for a little while... Elias slept the whole time. (See that yellow pacifier? That's the colour he was spitting up last week!!)

One of the last things Cokum did before leaving was get Rebecca some digging toys. Rebecca LOVES them, and uses them almost every day. My garden shows the evidence now!

...and the rest of the pictures are purely for your enjoyment purposes. :)

I'm still around

I decided to get myself organized, and clean my house from end to end (not top to bottom, because I'm not in the mood to climb into a 120+ degree attic right now, lol). So, I've spent the last week getting many things organized. I may have to make another trip to the dollar store, to get more containers to organize into (they had some wonderful cloth fold-up baskets there!).

Anyway, I got Rebecca's toys all sorted into three containers and put onto a shelf of a book case we picked up from the trash. The thing was missing one shelf, but that's perfect, because the bottom shelf holds all her toys in their baskets perfectly, and then the top shelf will have a purpose in about 6-9 months beyond just holding books/toys. Of course, I'm guessing that we're going to end up with more books and toys in a few months for her birthday and Christmas, so maybe that shelf won't serve the purpose I'm planning for it! The three baskets of toys were because I wanted to be able to limit the number of toys she has to play with so she doesn't get bored with all of them at once. So right now we're on basket number one, which has a book of pictures, a rattle thing, her drum and drumstick, the ONLY battery operated little toy we have (a butterfly), and a pull 'n' play musical dog thing. We also have a ball wandering around the house at the moment, which will be shelved along with those five items. The next basket has cloth blocks, plastic links, and a few other things, and we'll get her Fisher Price books back out with those. The final basket has a cloth book, a rattle bear thingy, a few other things, and we'll get the alphabet blocks out again with that one. It's really helped to cut down on the amount of mess she is able to make, and she plays with one item much longer than she was when they were all available to her!

Rebecca has recently started doing a lot more standing on her own. I was actually sitting on the floor with her a couple of days ago, and she stood up holding on to me, and then all of a sudden I realized she'd let go and was still standing there beside me! What a proud look she had on her face! She got all excited when I got excited though, and sat down since she lost her balance, lol. :-) She's done it at least a few times since then as well, so I'm just waiting for her to figure out how to take that first step. She doesn't like to walk holding on to anyone's hands, so I suspect she's going to be a rather independent little one. She prefers to be held or carried if you're going to touch her, but if she's going places she's constantly on her feet, stretching "just one more inch" to reach that next sturdy piece of furniture.

We have thus far gotten two pumpkins off our pumpkin plant that decided to grow out of the compost. The vine is nearly half the length of our fence and is still growing and flowering!! There is at least one more pumpkin almost ready to come off it, and I don't know if there are going to be anymore, as Justin and I haven't checked recently! I'll have to make a pumpkin pie... or maybe just mash the pumpkin and we'll eat it like squash. :-) Rebecca's been thoroughly enjoying a large variety of new foods in the last few weeks, her favourites being watermelon and cucumber. I normally don't peel food for her, but I think the cucumber skins are just a little too thick and stiff for her to do much with. Anyway, she's also tried broccoli (which she loves, so long as it is whole, not mashed up!), chicken, oatmeal, and peaches. I have still yet to find something she really will not eat, though she wasn't too thrilled by the idea of actually eating green beans... she seemed to think they were more interesting to squeeze and make the little beans pop out of the pods!

We've been having a lot of thunderstorms here lately, Justin says it's approximately every other day (though it's a lot more often than that this week) we've been having them! We lost power to one last week for about 1/2 an hour in all... and I'm currently listening to the rain and thunder of another one. *sigh* It wouldn't be so bad if the storms would just kind of skirt around us, so all we got was the thunder and rain, but most times it's right over top of us, and going out in that is not particularly safe at all. Of course, I suppose I should find Rebecca a rain suit of some sort before taking her out in the rain as well, but I figure we have enough clothing that we can always change her when we get back home! :-)

And, I believe that's about all that's happening. It's been a rather quiet couple of weeks. :-)

Pictures, and lots of them!

Okay, so I have a ton of pictures on this post... it might take a while to load if you have a slow connection!

Tuesday Afternoons

This is the knitting group Rebecca and I go to on Tuesday afternoons. We get together in one of the church's fellowship rooms or whatever it is called, sit in a circle, and they talk (I mostly just listen) and Rebecca visits each person around the circle and everyone knits. It's a great way to find out everything happening in the church!

Knitting again.

Our Garden

This is what you see when you look out our front door right now (though those daffodils are starting to die off now).

And this... is a robin's nest! It's in our front porch hangover thingy.

From our front door, looking to the right.

A little closer up.

The robin sitting on the nest!

I thought it quite brave, but on further reflection, perhaps it is a little foolish seeing as it just sat staring at a big black piece of machinery while I took pictures!

Eggs! There are actually five now, but this is from last Monday.

A hyacinth getting ready to bloom.

And in full bloom!

Daffodil

I have no idea what that bug is, but I thought it looked kind of neat.

Pansy! We have purple, bright orange, and the previously posted wine coloured ones in the garden, all in full bloom.

Crocuses.

Daffodils. I think these are particularly pretty with the frilly edges of the centres.

A bit of a view of our garden from the front.

Our house! The driveway happened to be empty since Justin was at work and my car was in getting a bunch of belts and things changed that day, so I took advantage of it and took a picture.

Rebecca Pictures

Hanging out on the front lawn.

Getting ready to go for a walk! She has just recently started riding in the stroller itself without sitting in her car seat, and she just loves watching where we are going.

Looking at all the flowers from our front porch.

Sitting up! Though she does have my legs and feet for support, but she was mostly doing it herself.

Rebecca really loves that frog. Shannon gave it to me a couple of years ago, and for some reason Rebecca thinks it is one of the best stuffed toys to play with. I think it is because it is easy to maneuver, as she also likes that little duck toy in the background there.

Another of Rebecca's new favourites! This is one of the neatest toys I have ever seen. It rattles, spins, flips around, and there are little mirrors all over the interrior!

Sitting up! This and the next two are from yesterday. Our church had an Easter egg hunt for the children, and they insisted that Rebecca was old enough to participate, LOL. She got seven eggs, and enjoys playing with them. I think we're supposed to return them though... so I'll have to do that sometime!

Yes, she's actually on her hands and knees. She's not crawling yet, but she *can* get up on her hands and knees when she wants to. She prefers to push herself forward with her toes and backward with her hands though!!