A good day to be outside!

The weather felt a lot like spring weather today so I couldn't miss this opportunity to get outside for awhile. So I did a bit of yard work.

Here is the side I worked on. I started out trimming the rose bush. Then I just kept going by cleaning out the rocks, leaves, and dead branches from around the bush.....and kept going. Before you knew it I was throwing old dirty rocks in the garbage and taking out the old ground cover and throwing it away as well. Then I raked up the dirt to even it out and make it look better. I think the pictures are a little dark because my battery was about to die. If you click on the picture to make it bigger you'll notice we have tulips sprouting up already thanks to my friend who planted them for me last year.

Here is the other side that I didn't get to today. That will have to wait for another day.

Garrett even came out after he woke up from his nap and wanted to help. He wore those yellow gloves and helped me rake the dirt and pick up rocks and leaves. After we finished he discovered the little trampoline and started jumping.

Then realized the big one was better. It's nice for him when he's the only one jumping. No one to bounce him down.

This was taken a few days ago. Jack and Garrett love to play under the kitchen table. Just had to share this because it was too cute.

Who says vampires don't exist?

I have two vampires living in my house!

And their teeth are yellowish green!

We've had a couple of nice days lately so last week the kids went out on their bikes. Nikki decided she didn't want training wheels anymore. However, she didn't realize how hard it would be to keep from falling over. But she kept telling herself "I can do this, I can do this". I ended up holding the back of the seat most of the time. The rest of the time she would stand there and keep trying to put both of her feet up on the pedals and end up quickly catching herself. We'll work on this some more when it gets warmer.

We have a date!!!!

We have finally come up with an exact date to when Curtis will be home for good!! And the date is.........drum roll please.......................May 30th!!!
For the last few days we had played with the idea of taking a vacation to Hawaii but to be able to afford to do that he'd have to stay until the end of June. After having a meltdown tonight I decided that Hawaii is going to have to wait because I can't wait one more month. I need him now, but we have a goal to reach that will be reached by the end of May!! HOWEVER, we will take a vacation when he gets home....without kids. So we'll be in need of babysitters ;) Maybe we'll drive to the Oregon Coast or something. It will be a lot less expensive. But we definitely NEED some alone time and I NEED to get a real break from the kids.

Jack's 1st Birthday

Last Friday was Jack's first birthday. Once again Curtis was able to join us via web cam to enjoy this memorable event. I am very happy to say that this will be the last of the kids' or my birthdays that he will miss in person. Yay! Some family couldn't make it because of illness or other obligations but we had a good turn out. I feel bad for the way Jack's cake turned out. I was going to try and take it out of the pan and onto a foil covered cutting board like I did Nikki's but when I flipped it over it wouldn't come out. Then the top of the cake ripped off and got stuck to the pan I was using to flip it with. So I decided to leave it in the pan and cover my mistake with frosting. But I didn't wait long enough for the cake to cool so as I was spreading the frosting I was finding little cake crumbs being spread around too. So I covered it with a lot of sprinkles and decided I would do better on his cake next year. Turns out he just doesn't like anything sweet right now so he didn't even like the cake. Good thing I didn't put too much effort into it. But he sure enjoyed all of his presents, especially all of the toys. He received Donald and nephews beanie baby dolls from Gma Verne and Gpa Tony; an Elmo outfit and 3 soft balls from Gma and Gpa B.; a package of cookies from Stillman and Michelle; and a toy phone, straw sippy cup, and lion sit and ride/walker from Mommy and Daddy and siblings. Happy 1st birthday Jack! We all love you so much!