Rainbows, Bruises, and Siblings

We had a gorgeous double rainbow the other day.  You can't see the other one that was above this, but it was amazing.  It happened right after I put Ingrid to bed, I got her up from bed and she was all confused.  "Why did you wake me up to look at this?"  I thought she'd love it, I was wrong I guess...

Otis and I were playing ball the other day and somehow he face planted on the sidewalk.  Again.  I honestly do not know how it happened, one minute he was laughing and dancing, the next he was splat on the concrete.  His nose got a bit beat up...again.

Yesterday we did some painting early in the morn.  Otis is entranced by the finger paints, but he doesn't quite get that it goes on paper.  He also got one of the dot paints (like a big Bingo marker) and had a big smear of purple all over his cheek for the morning.  Apparently they don't wash off.

After painting we went outside to get some air before it rained.  We found all sorts of ways to get dirty before 9am!

 



Harvesting

Yesterday we went to check on our zucchinis and found five enormous ones just waiting to be picked!  One is so huge, it's like the size of my forearm, and so heavy Ingrid could barely hold it!  Nothing like homegrown produce.  I made a loaf of zucchini bread last night, it is amazing!  Our green beans are flowering and our strawberries are late bloomers, hopefully the birds won't eat them.  Also, our lettuce is finally not being eaten by whatever was nibbling on it, so we actually have beautiful big leaves.  I'm so happy to have a little urban garden, how fun!

Hot Hot Hot, or Thank God for A/C

It's been in the 90s here for days.  Last year we made a little getaway in our room with a window air conditioner, but this year--we have it in the whole house.  The whole house.  It's amazing. Granted, the upstairs is still a bit stuffy even with a/c on, but it's not 90 degrees. 

We have done a bit of going outside to break up the day.  Our poor neighbors must hate us, we are outside at 6am watering the garden, running around in our pjs and making a ruckus at the crack of dawn.  Sorry guys!

 Our garden is exploding.  None of the carrot seeds took, but everything else is growing like mad.  We saw a peek of a couple flowers on our zucchini, and the tomatoes are all getting bigger and bigger.  I saved one lavender plant on the side of the house and it is gorgeous.  I'm so glad to have a garden!

  Other than that, not much going on here.  Cleaning and doing laundry.  Hanging said laundry up to dry on the clothesline.  Another thing I absolutely LOVE about this house--a simple rope to hang clothes on.  It makes me so happy to hang my laundry up, how silly?  I've been trying to instill a sense of teamwork in Ingrid by making her help with little chores.  Today she washed the big window in the living room.  Doesn't she look ten feet tall?  She is growing as well as our tomatoes...

Summer is here.  Bring it!

Gardening

While my mom was here last weekend we did a bunch of gardening!!  I finished up digging up the grass and weeds from around my peonies.  They look so much better now, if I do say so myself. 

See where all that lovely mulch is?  Used to be this grass:

I worked hard on that!  It took forever.  Very pleased with the outcome.  Also planted our veg garden with my mom.  Ingrid helped.  She is going to be so pleased when we can start picking things out of the garden to eat!  We've already had a few very tasty strawberries.  Yum!

And randomly, here is a picture of Otis and me.  My little Irish child, I never knew how much I could not look like my own kid...

Ingrid is Four!

Ingrid turned four on Saturday.  We had a crazy hot day for the middle of May, but we had fun.  One grandma got a kiddie pool, the other got a sandbox, we had an EZ-up for the oldies to sit in the shade, and used a sheet on the clothesline to make a tent for more shade.  It was crazy hot, we even ended up having to come inside to get away from the sun, something that doesn't happen that often in Wisconsin!

Last year we went all themey, with rainbows and gnomes and toadstools, but this year I'm going easy.  I told Ingrid to pick a couple colors and I figured we'd make a bunting for the table and get matching balloons, maybe some matching candles.  I have decided that it was fun to do once, but I am just not a good themed party thrower.  I don't think anyone actually took home my goodie bags and I ended up with a million rainbow crayons and mushroom spinning tops in my house...So, this year was a simple neopolitan theme.  I made a simple brown and pink felt bunting, got some pink and white balloons, and asked our friend Carole to make another amazing cake.  She did not disappoint!!

 We also had neopolitan ice cream.  The kids ran around in the sprinkler, splashed in the pool, and played in the sandbox.  It was super fun, totally summery, and Ingrid had a great time!  So did Otis.  He absolutely loves the sandbox!  He sat in there for an hour, just digging and pouring sand from bucket to bucket.  I see a very laid back summer spent in our backyard!

In non-birthday news, my mom and I planted a garden this weekend, too.  We have raspberries, blueberries, zuchinni, lettuce, carrots, green beans, and strawberries.  So excited to see how things turn out!  It's my first time planting food plants, so we'll see.  And in completely other news, I am still in shock after finding out one of my close friends is having TWINS!!  She never had a dating ultrasound, just heard a heartbeat, went about her first few months preparing for a new baby.  Then today at her ultrasound the tech said "Here's baby number one, and here's baby number two."  Wait, what huh?  If I'm in this much shock, I can't even imagine what she's going through!!!  I am super happy and excited for them, though.  I know it's going to be crazy and hectic and I hope that I can help her out when she needs it.  Jeez louise, twins.  With a two year old ready to help out :)  Crazy.

Mother's Day Weekend

I totally forgot to post about our amazing weekend!  It was seriously the best.  Saturday was the neighborhood rummage, so we went out to look for some bargains.  It was kinda drizzly so it wasn't that great, but I did score some vintage kid's stuff for Toadstool Vintage.  Then it cleared up and we spent loads of time in the yard.  Ingrid is perfecting her baseball swing, that kid can really hit the ball!  No tee for her, she is hitting pitched balls and will not stop begging someone, anyone, to pitch the ball for her! 

After nap time we headed to the zoo.  As a family!  Usually I bow out of outings like this and let Brendan have kid time by himself so I can have mom time for myself, but I went and it was amazing.  The perfect weather, the kids were in good moods. We saw the goats, our favorite.  Ingrid couldn't stop hugging them.  My girl!

 Ingrid was super excited to go on the carousel, so of course we had to do it.  She was giddy waiting in line and she kept trying to decide which animal she'd ride.  She chose the ostrich.

 And to end the trip we took a relaxing ride on the train.  It was a perfect trip to the zoo!

Sunday was great, too.  I got to do a boat load of gardening in the new yard.  The people before us did not care about gardening.  They planted a few things but not with much planning.  For example, there are about five peony bushes by the garage, just sprouting up amidst the grass.  No flower bed, just tall grass and weeds all over the place.  So my goal is to get the grass pulled up and make a flower bed, add a couple more plants there, and attach it to the little garden on the other side of the garage, which so far has strawberries and asparagus and tons of weeds.  So  many ideas!!  But the grass is not coming up easily and it's been about three days of trying to chop away at it.  I am going to be so proud of the end product, I should go take before pictures so I remember how terrible it looked before!

Something that will help me in this endeavor is the fact I hired a babysitter!  Alex comes two mornings a week for a few hours, it's awesome.  She is a local college kid and she just jumped right in and took over as soon as she came.  I quietly went downstairs and did some work and she just played with the kids, took them to the park, changed poopy diapers.  Heaven!!  At first I felt a little decadent for hiring a babysitter being a stay at home mom, but screw it.  I am running two etsy shops, and I have two more craft shows lined up for this summer.  Instead of fighting every weekend with Brendan to watch the kids so I can get shit done, I'm gonna have someone play with the kids while I do it and thus have my weekend free for family.  It is amazing.

Also, gramma is coming today for Ingrid's birthday!  She'll be here a few days, allowing Brendan and I to go out for our six year anniversary.  God bless grammas.  It's gonna be a great weekend!