My Only Sunshine

I'm so sore (or how I spent my weekend)

See this sad pitiful flower bed in front of my house?  It doesn't look so good here, last Easter.  It looked worse after a long hot summer of extreme drought here in North Texas.  All of those azalea bushes died.  Upwards of 20 of them dried up into what looked like anchored tumble weeds.  Once everything died off we TOTALLY let it go and the weeds took over.

Now that it is spring again we decided that things had to be taken care of.  We though about paying someone to do it all but we are spending our money on a vacation instead.  That left us with doing it ourselves.  Obviously if we were any good at gardening we wouldn't have let things get so carried away to begin with, but we are going to give it a shot all the same.

This is what the flower bed looked like after I pulled all of the bushes and Buster and I got rid of as much nasty weed stuff as possible.  That part wasn't so bad other than having to bundle it all into bags for disposal.  After we got everything up Buster sprayed Round Up over the entire mess and we went off to bed to rest up for Sunday.  That was mostly done Saturday afternoon/evening after getting back from taking the girls to dance.

Sunday morning we got up and got back to work.  Unfortunately we had to take lots of breaks for other commitments but we did get a good deal done.  I broke up the top 4 inches or so of the entire flower bed and Buster shoveled it out.  We are having to take everything down to the bare bones in order to rid ourselves of all of the weed debris so we can start again.  The next step will be adding in some new topsoil.

I even have pictures of the next few steps.

This is how Bit feels about all the work that is left.

Spring Break

This week has been Spring Break for the Girlies.  We didn't go anywhere due to the huge amount of work Buster has to be doing at work right now and the fact that we are going to California later in the month.

Having 5 and 7 year old daughters under foot all week meant I had to come up with some things to do.  There is just so much Blokus any mother or child can play.  We started out the week with cupcakes.
These are Pink Lemonade Cupcakes made because Bug LOVES pink lemonade.  I change the recipe up just a little because the cake turned out quite tart and the girlies thought the icing was better without the lemon juice.  My little ones are very good "chefers" as Bit says and the cuppycakes came out fabulous and bright just as FoodieBride said they would.

We've got all the ingredients for Chockylit's Cherry Vanilla Cupcakes as well but I am not sure if we will get to those today.  I'm betting today will turn into an Easter chocolate pops kind of day.

Yesterday we made coffee filter flowers and I can't begin to tell you how much fun it has been.  For the most part the girls have been making their own colored filters, cut the flowers out themselves, and then I have been using wire and florist's tape to put them on the stems.  We have tons of these things and each is beautiful and one of a kind (like my daughters).  I do have some hints for anyone out there who might want to make these with a kid or two in their lives.

1. On the web I noticed that most people used skewers as their stems.  I didn't like the idea of perfectly stiff stems so I used floral wire and it makes putting these flowers in a vase so much easier.

2.  When the kids start working on this project they will want to assemble flowers as soon as they are done painting (we used watercolor markers) and spraying wet (this makes the colors do that nice run together thing) but when the filters are wet they aren't at all ready to be assembled.  I know my kids well so I whipped up a bunch of pretty colored filters the night before after they went to bed.  This worked out very well and this project has actually given us two full days of fun.

3. Use washable markers, paints, or dyes to color your filters.  These suckers can make a HUGE mess (just the coloring part, the rest is easy) unless you have something that just wipes right up with a little paper towel action.

Bitty Made this one.

I made this one.

I do plan to show pics of something knit related next time, I promise.  I will also have pics of the package I put together for my candy swap buddy.  Mmmm chocolate.

Spring

 

The Girlies

Music Video

This is Bug's first grade music program. It's over 7 minutes long so feel free to skip it if you'd like. I have a feeling my family will want to watch though.

Husband

You see this guy?  The good looking one over there on the left?  That's my husband.

I talk about "Dude" or "Buster" all the time around here but I have been planning a post just about him for a while.  Why does he rate his very own post on the blog, you may ask?  Well because he is my husband.  More importantly than that, though, is that he is an amazing husband who just gets better each day.

We met in college when we were both 18 and have been together ever since.  We've had up times, down times, and just day to day times, but it has always been with a flow towards the better and better.  Being the "bread winner" for our family hasn't always been easy either.  Actually it's been mostly really damn hard but he has worked hard to make it work and is finally being paid back for all that hard work.  For most of his career he has been undervalued and WAY underpaid.  Now he is at a job that he loves, for a company he enjoys working for, and his salary and bonuses are helping us to live in a way that is so much more comfortable for us.  Heck, he even bought me this last week as a surprise gift.

I am so proud of him for how hard he has worked (and some of the places he has worked have been HARD) to support the Girlies and I (not only because he bought me a MacBook Pro.)  I am also very proud of what a good father he has become.  Before we had children he had zero experience with kids and very little interest in them at all.  Now he is a Daddy, a tickle monster, and our Girlies' hero.  He's just dang good at it.

He's a great husband and father and we three girls are lucky to have him.

Sadness, busyness, all the otherness

My stepmother, Theresa, was a nice woman.  I mean that exactly as it is, she was nice in the very most basic sense of the word, pleasant natured, caring, and kind.  She has died and it is sad but we are all very relieved that she is not in pain any longer.  This morning when I went in to wake up Bug she was already awake, laying in bed waiting for me to come.  She looked up and said, "tomorrow is the funeral isn't it?"  I nodded and told her that it was and she just nodded back.  I asked her if she was sad and she said yes.  Quite simple really, she loves Theresa and will miss her.  It is sad and we are all sad.  The kids don't understand the kind of pain Theresa was in, none of us do, how could we?  They do understand missing someone when they are gone and that is not an easy thing to feel.  Bug is also feeling empathy for her granddad and asked if she could make him a card and also one for Theresa even though she knows that Theresa won't be able to actually look at it.  She is an amazing child.  I need to learn more about how to help children with loss.

I haven't posted too much lately because we have been very busy at my house and things aren't really letting up.  I would like to show you some things though.

Lisa sent me these lovely things to thank me for sending her the last ball of Peace Fleece she needed to finish a sweater.  The bag is actually quite perfect for keeping all the many balls of yarn I am using for my mittens right next to my spot on the sofa.  When I opened the package Bitty said, "Oh, she sent me something too!!!"  Ofcourse she meant the mints.  *chuckle*  Thanks, Lisa!

It's funny, I already had the magazine, which is rare, so I am going to give it away in a contest.  Check back next time for that, I might even give away some other things.

I bought another knitter's stash last week.  Well no, not the entire stash, but one offering.

It is Classic Elite Waterspun and I am trying to find a good stitch pattern for it so that I can make it into a circular shrug for Bit.  I like the mock rib but it takes up too much yarn and is too thick.  The other stitch patterns I have tried haven't looked good in this felted yarn.

Did you notice the fantastic green Le Cruset the yarn is in?  Yes yes, how could you not notice?  I have been wanting a Le Cruset dutch oven for most of my life and I finally have one.  Isn't it wonderful?

While cooking up yarn in a big expensive pot (ok, I only photographed it there, I didn't actually cook it) I have also been making some stitch markers.  Aren't they cute?

They are real gummy bears, dipped in many layers of polyurathane so that the gooey sugary candy never touches the precious yarn.  Aren't they so sparkly and lovely?  I love them.

I even made one skittle marker too.  Making those takes more practice.

Theresa

I think I have mentioned here before that my Stepmother, Theresa, has been in the hospital for a long time.  She has been struggling with the after effects of a stroke that she had over 20 years ago.  Most recently she has been having trouble with her non paralyzed hip and the multiple hip replacements and infections she has had.

Last week the fight for her health got the best of Theresa and she passed on Friday.  Though we will miss her very much I am glad that she is no longer suffering.

On Thursday I will put the girls in their toile dresses and we will go to the funeral to say goodbye to their first grandparent to die.  So far they are taking it pretty well though they have told me several times that they miss her.