I Know What I Did Last Summer

Last summer I committed a horrible crime.

Let me start from the beginning. Every spring, I start my planting rituals with a good ol' bottle of Roundup weed killer. I spray the soil a week or two before I plant and, voila! It's all weed free and ready for seeds and plants when I'm ready to put them in. Last year, I discovered Roundup had come out with a new product: Extended Control. Who wouldn't want extended week killing capabilities. Sign me up!

Even the bottle looks super advanced. So I bought it. And I sprayed away. I made sure to apply liberally around my rose bushes. I loved those rose bushes and I didn't want any weeds choking them out. It wasn't until after I applied it that I decided to read the label.

I was horrified to learn that this particular product was meant not just to kill weeds, but ALL vegetation. FOR FOUR MONTHS. Meaning that not only was this going to kill my roses, it would also kill any seed, seedling or fully grown plant I put in the dirt for the next four months. That was a sad day. And a sad summer. I did my best to replace the topsoil and I got a few petunias to grow, but my roses were putting out these sick little spider like leaves and no roses. Did I mention how much I love my roses? Summer was ruined. I planned to replace the roses the following spring, when the extend-o-kill wore off.

Then, this spring, a miracle happened. Two of my three rosebushes were putting out REAL leaves. I let it play out.

Finally two weeks ago, I got a Cabana rose.

Then a Bella Roma.

And then, finally the Nancy Reagan rosebush decided to show some life (believe me, this is a huge improvement over last year).

Add that to the promising buds on the new rosebush Chris got me for Mother's day and I am finally having a happy summer. My roses won't win any prizes at the county fair, but summer just isn't quite the same without them.

The Freshness of a Summer's Eve

Our clan loves Summer. Around here, Summer is shorter than balloon boy's fame. So we have to take advantage of it.

Here's what we've been doing:


Taking advantage of the short growing season of sweet corn.

Drawing on sidewalks.

Learning to swim. (I must say this is not Mommy's favorite. Who wants to spend a lovely summer day in a swampy pool area? But Emily loves it and so I endure. Sorry about the dark picture. The atmosphere in our municipal pool is quite cave-like)

Eating s'mores.

Eating some more s'mores.

Keeping our rides sparkling for all those summertime trips down the main drag with our music blasting and our windows rolled down.

 I love Summer. I hope that this year it kind of forgets to end until late November.

A House of a (Slightly) Different Color

Of late two startling things have crept into my realization: 1) As of this summer, we have lived in this house for 7 years. 2) A paint job (specifically one of a darker hue) can't be expected to last much more than 7 years.

With those two bombshells having been dropped, we decided it was time to paint. And with the additional shock of a few price estimates from painters, we decided it was time that we painted our house ourselves.

It took us three days to take the house from this:

(Obviously this is not a recent picture, but we kind of forgot the "before"shot)


To this:

We really liked the main body color, which is why we chose it in the first place, so we decided to use a similar color, but switch up the accent color and lighten the trim a touch.

Here is some interesting trivia associated with our house painting adventure:

• We went through 16 gallons of paint.
• Chris logged approximately 30 hours of painting time.
• I logged approximately 6
• A paintbrush duct-taped to a dowel makes an excellent tool for reaching 2nd floor eaves. 
• It is impossible to paint while small children are running around the yard (this accounts for my token amount of help)

It's nice to have a freshly painted house, but I hope the next 7 years go slowly... very slowly.

A Farewell to Preschool

This past week, we celebrated a proud day for our family. Emily has completed all the requirements to graduate from preschool. While her major was snacktime, she also excelled in many areas including pasting, color identification and playground physical science.

Emily's excellent teachers put together a cute program in which the kids participated to varying degrees (Emily had a touch of stage fright that day).

I dare you to find anything cuter than Emily's little class all lined up.

The highlight of the day was when Daddy gave Emily a rose. Since then she has been carrying it around the house, sometimes in the vase, sometimes out of the vase, sometimes singing to it, sometimes pretending it is the enchanted rose from Beauty and the Beast.

I'm not sure who will miss preschool more - Emily or I. We are so grateful that she was able to participate in such a wonderful program with her amazing teachers. I am excited for her to move on, but we will always remember preschool with a great deal of fondness.

Running with the Wolves

Yesterday was my birthday. I'm getting to the point where I kind of like to just ignore my birthdays, but I have a great family who makes sure that no birthday goes uncelebrated. Among many wonderful gifts, I received this fabulous card from my sister:

Finally, my invitation to join the Team Jacob elite in the form of a temporary tatoo. I couldn't resist.

The results were stunning. Now, for those of you who don't read my blog closely and would spread rumors: THIS IS A TEMPORARY TATOO FROM A GREETING CARD. I WOULD NEVER, NEVER, NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS GET A TATOO.

Okay, now that we're clear on that, I'll let you see how awesome I look:

Jealous much? Yeah, I thought so.

Number 5 is Alive

Yesterday Emily turned 5. I still can't believe it. My preschooler has been replaced by a ready-for-kindergarten five year old kid. In just a year, she's become big enough to buckle herself in the car, pay attention while I read her a whole chapter of a book, order for herself at a restaurant, read a book and (most importantly) ride most of the roller coasters at Disneyland. As hard as it is to say goodbye to all the cute baby characteristics, I must admit that I love all the things that Emily is adding to her resume.

You can't turn 5 without a little recognition. There's nothing Emily loves like a blowout party. Unfortunately for Emily, she has a mom who is not a big fan of party planning or large groups of children. So after a lot of negotiation, we pared the guest list down to a few kids and threw a simple party the Saturday before her birthday. Her chosen theme was Toy Story (changed from Princess so she could invite boys)

This cake was my first foray into fondant. Thanks to Chris' help, it turned out pretty well... for an amateur.

Here is Emily sitting and waiting impatiently for her friends to arrive.

Once they did arrive, we had a rousing game of pin the badge on Sheriff Woody.

*Note: The one on Woody's nose is Jane's. We didn't even blindfold her.
 
And then some pizza, from none other than...

Pizza Planet!

The pinata took quite awhile to crack.

In this shot it looks like Emily had just given the star its deathblow, but let me assure you that the pinata had been wounded for a good 10 minutes and was still a good 10 minutes away from meeting its demise. Oh, and just in case you're wondering... A mid-May birthday in these parts means you have to hit the pinata in the garage rather than the backyard. A tragedy... I know.

The party was actually a relatively mellow success, and none of my worst fears realized themselves.

The celebration continued on Emily's real birthday with presents galore.

I told Emily she could have whatever she wanted for dinner. Her menu: blueberry pancakes and bacon with beignets for dessert. She must have been carbo-loading for something, but I'm still not sure what.

Happy Birthday, five-year-old girl!

Easter

I love Easter. It's a great time to celebrate, the kids love our little traditions and it's about a tenth the work and cost of Christmas.

Who wouldn't love some good old fashioned egg dyeing?

And the loot.

(I must add that only about half of this loot was parent contributed and that 90% of the candy is still in the cupboard, being doled out a few pieces at a time.)

I'm pretty sure that no one loved having 9:00 church. That kind of situation results in Easter morning pictures like this:

 Things improved after church when the kids remembered their loot.

While munching jellybeans, Emily announced, "There was a kid in my class who thought the Easter Bunny was real. I told him he's not real". Like mother, like daughter. Still, we tried to instill a bit more sensitivity in her.

We rounded out our celebration with dinner and an egg hunt with our wonderful adopted family.

All in all it was a lovely celebration and the kids even managed to remember from time to time what we were celebrating. I would consider that an overwhelming success.