Fun In The Backyard...

We spend a great deal of time playing in the backyard, and my kids never get tired of being out there.  Ellie is learning lots of new tricks:

They both love the swings:

The girls' favorite new trick is to hang from this bar on the swing, and then let go and drop down into the seat:

Mollie was actually the mastermind behind this...

I'm not sure why they both dressed themselves in their winter shirts...it was about 95 degrees outside:

While Ellie prefers to have her hair down hanging in her face, Mollie likes me to style hers a little bit.  This is her new favorite 'do.  She calls them her "buns", and many days while we're playing outside, she'll walk back into the house, and then moments later she'll return with a brush and hair bands, asking for her "buns".  

So much fun with these two!

Conversations With Ellie...

Ellie has a funny way of saying strange and unexpected things.  (I'm trying to document it all because one day, I know she will love looking back and reading it.)  Like the other day when she said to me, "Momma, I really love you...and I don't ever want to kill you."  And then tonight as Matthew was putting her to bed, he told her to dream about Olive Garden (because that was where we were going to eat the next day.) She replied, "Daddy, I don't really want to dream about Olive Garden.  I'd rather dream about scary stuff like monsters and ghosts!"  She's so silly...

My Girls...

Lately this sweet toddler is looking more like a little girl.

She really loves to climb.

And lately this spunky little girl is looking more like a big girl:

 She did this puzzle with minimal help from me.  She loves puzzles.

 Sometimes I wish I could just stop time.

Second Grade Soccer...

Here is a re-cap of Mason's year of second grade soccer:

My Attempted Vegetable Garden...

I've wanted to start gardening for awhile, but since I seem to have a black thumb and can barely keep my grass in the backyard alive, I've been hesitant to get started on one.  Our soil is not great here, so I decided that first I'd try a cherry tomato plant and a strawberry plant in large pots with better soil.  I liked them so much that I purchased a second cherry tomato plant.  Then walking home from Mason's school the other day, my sweet neighbor (who recently started gardening herself) let me have my pick of any of her leftover seeds that I wanted!  So then I was off to find more large pots for more vegetables, but quickly found that these pots were getting expensive.  So I tried to think of less costly ways I could get my garden started.  We have this one particular side of the backyard waaaay back in the corner where no one ever goes.  The only things that reside back there are our compost bin and a small concrete slab housing a large pile of unused bricks.  I immediately decided that, instead of buying more pots, I'd use the bricks we already had to build up a raised garden.  This gave Matthew the opportunity to have his first experience with masonry...he wasn't too excited about this.  After he took apart the brick frame that I built, and then rebuilt it using mortar, this was the result:

Twelve wheelbarrow loads of soil later.... 

 This was our finished product.  Mason and I transplanted my tomato and strawberry plants, and then we planted seeds of spinach, lettuce, green onion, cantaloupe, and cucumber.  And now, we wait...

Piggytails!...

Mollie's first piggytails!  But why oh why does she suddenly look so much older?  Wish she could just stay little forever.  

She seems to look a lot like Ellie at times.  I remember Ellie's first pig tails, so of course I wanted to go back and compare.  Ellie was about the same age here.

Our Newest Cousin...

Over spring break we got to meet the newest member of our family...my new nephew and the kids' newest cousin...and boy were they excited to get to hold him!  These will make great memories for my kids--because pretty soon this little guy will be running around with them!

The girls were thrilled to get to feed him his bottle...especially Mollie!  But she figured that if he was going to have a drink, she might as well too:

Welcome to the family, Baby Oliver!!!