Weekend fun

These are flowers from our yard. Inspite of my best efforts to neglect these roses, they just keep growing.
Lovely aren't they?
Dahlia let me wake her up early Saturday morning so we could go to the farmers market.
Here we are, stunning the crowds with our beauty.

The farmer's market is so fun. I get such a kick out of buying fresh locally grown produce. Tonight for dinner we had seitan with roasted fresh asparagus, and wild brown rice with strawberry, rhubarb crisp for dessert. All ingredients bought from the farmer's market. It was delicious! We had never had rhubarb before. It's my new favorite vegetable. I plan on making a crisp with it every week until the season is over.


After our outing, I decided we needed to reorganize our pantry which turned into removing some shelving and painting. Thank God I have little slaves, I mean children.
Before...


During...... who needs this much stuff in their pantry?


After.....


I am reformed! I will never buy too much food again. My pantry will always look this neat and sweet.
I had no less then 10 bags of angel hair pasta. Good lord! Mark says I am just like his mother. I equate my desire to over purchase food with my dad's ability to eat 1 thing for months at a time. I need constant variety and I want all ingredients to anything I may want to make on hand. It's a problem, but I am cured.

Otis' has just found knock knock jokes. His current favorite is, "Knock, knock. Who's there? Banana. Banana who? Banana eat up the whole world." Yep that's it. He thinks it is hilarious and he will laugh every time. Imagine this very funny joke being told over and over again. It only gets funnier. Believe me.
nicole

Mother's Day is my favorite

In general I am a fan of the holidays. Some are pretty lame for me, like, Valentine's Day and Easter. Of course I love all fall and winter holidays, but Mother's day is becoming my favorite. I think it's because I have such a wonderful husband. First off for the day is breakfast in bed followed by handmade gifts from the kids. Dahlia is becoming quite the cook and made cinnamon rolls fresh from the tube, all by herself.

This year Mark came up with a great craft project for the kids to do. They made large butterflies which they decorated perfectly and Mark put great quotes about families and mother's on the back. I am quite pleased with them!

After breakfast I am free for the entire day! This year my good friend Heidi and I spent 9 blissful hours, eating, shopping, walking around downtown and movie watching. It was so wonderful!
I highly recommend seeing Waitress. It has the girl from Felicity, Kerri Russell in it. It was a really great movie. I am itching to make a pie now since there were so many in the movie.
I am such a lucky mom!

It was a beautiful hot day today so Otis and I spent it pool side at in impromptu BBQ at a friends house. There was food, sand and water. What more could a 4 year old want. He did have to dodge a few bee's though.

Mark took the kid's on a bike ride yesterday and Dahlia is hooked. Last year she hated bike rides and made sure we were aware of that the entire ride. She says this year is different and she loves her bike. She rode around for hours after school today. I love it!

More soon,
nicole

Bugs are scary

Otis and I had a busy day today. It was his last swim lesson for this session and he is quite pleased it's over. He is a tough and fearless kid in every aspect of his life except when it comes to bugs and swimming. Any flying insects can send him right over the edge. So the fact that it is warm spring weather is complete torture for him. We don't have screens on a few windows or on the back door, but I need fresh air, so I occasionally open them. This causes high pitched screeching whenever a fly finds it's way indoors. Otis says he just hates the sounds they make. He wears protection (a hoodie, zipped all of the way up) whenever we leave the house. He means business.


As for swimming, he hates getting water in his face. I attribute this issue to bathing with Milo. Otis has improved greatly due to his swimming lessons. He doesn't scream or cry when the kid next to him accidently splashes him and is even able to partially submerge his face in water. Today however was just asking too much. Since it was the last class they try and make it more fun. They let the kids slide down the medium sized water slide and ride on the big foam boat. Otis took one look at the slide and said "No, you do it" to his teacher. He graciously let all of the other kids go before him and then decided it was definitely not for him. The look of disgust on his face was priceless.
After the teacher got the boat out and loaded everyone onto it, Otis tentatively boarded, visibly skeptical of it's sturdiness. The teacher pushed the boat around the kiddy pool and the kids screamed with joy, except for Otis. He was holding on for dear life. When the others had the nerve to move...around...the...boat... he was clearly annoyed and afraid for his life. It was sad, but so funny to watch.

The big kid's school year is almost over. Just 3 1/2 weeks left. This means that Dahlia, my baby, is graduating from elementary school. The parents are putting together a yearbook for the graduates. Otis and I stopped by the school to take some pictures to contribute.


Milo has a huge crush on the little girl who sits next to him in class. Apparently he has been crushing on her the entire year. This is the little girl he asked to be his Valentine. The kids periodically change their seating arrangements so the have new table mates and make new friends. Milo says he used "The Secret" to get Caitlyn to be his neighbor. He gives me a daily update on how many times they talk, if the sit next to each other during non class times and what they talked about. He's a lover!

Now it's friday and we are getting ready for our weekly movie night. Tonight we are watching Happily Never After.
More tomorrow,
queenbee