Spring has sprung

Spring is here and our flowers are starting to bloom.  I am excited because it's the first new growth of our deer resistant, perennial flower bed the Captain built in the front yard.  I was anxious to see if everything would grow back.  

The lantanna are growing like gang busters.  I love their color combination.

All of the lantannas are doing great, except this one.  The one in the middle did not survive the winter.  Four out of five survival rate is pretty good.  We had to dig him up and replace him.  Hopefully, we will do better next winter.

I am dying to see the santolina bloom.  We planted them last year knowing that they were slow growers, but I did not realize how slow growing they were.  They are almost ready to bloom.  Can't wait for the beautiful yellow.  (I just realize that I sound like my mom.  She would get all excited about plants and I would think she was weird.  Well, here I am.  Mom, you are not weird or we are weird together.)

Here's what the santolina looked like ALL last year.  They hardly grew and never bloomed.  Apparently, they need a year to get their root system established.

Yeah for spring!  Glad I am here to see it all bloom.

Favorite cookies

These cut out sugar cookies are one of the kids favorites.  I have an assortment of cookie cutters and we use them at different times of year with different colored frosting.  They are so good.  It has unique ingredients like almond extract and cream cheese which make a yummy cookie.

You definitely get an upper body workout making these.  The dough is soooooo stiff when you first start working with it, but it eventually softens a bit.

The hard work is well worth it.  The kids get so excited when I make them.  I usually leave them unfrosted.  After dinner, they get to pick out their cookie, their color of frosting, and decorate it with sprinkles.  It's a fun tradition.

Easter 2011

We hope you all had a blessed Easter!  Here's a shot of the boys and I before church.

Here's all my boys.  Aren't they handsome!

After church, we had our family egg hunt.  Wingman is the only one I could snap a shot of.  The other 2 move too fast for the camera.  He was very excited.!

All the boys after 2 successful egg hunts.  They had so much fun, that we hid the eggs a second time.

The boys enjoying their spoils.  My kids are not big fans of candy especially Crash.  There were some skittles but mostly sugar cereals (that their mom rarely lets them eat), animal crackers, and other sweet treats.  Wingman claims that skittles are good for him.  Ahem.  That boy has such a sweet tooth.

Rock, Paper, Scissors

Getting our 3 boys to sit still for long periods of time is a challenge.  We have practiced at home, practiced at church, etc.  I guess it's getting better but it's still a challenge.  They can sit for so long before a wrestling match or a light saber battle begins.

A few weekends ago, we were meeting some friends at a restaurant and it had a 20 minute wait on a table.  The Captain decided to teach the kids to play rock, paper, scissors to pass the time relatively quietly.  It worked pretty well.

Recently, we were at a restaurant and noticed that our creative children had modified the game.  The game is now called Clone, Jedi, Sith.  In case you don't know, the Sith is the bad guy Jedi in Star Wars.  They have made up different hand motions to go with each character.  I am not sure who beats who, but they love their new game.

Boys!

Wings of Freedom

The Wings of Freedom came to our town.  They have actual World War II aircraft such as the B-24, B-17, and P-51 on display.  There was also a Vietnam Era Huey helicopter.  The boys were in heaven.

They really cool part is that these are all flying aircraft and they let you climb through the whole plane minus the cockpit.  The boys loved finding all the bombs and guns, inactive of course.  I heard, "There's 2 guns up there.  Sweet!" more than once in our outing.

There were a lot of veterans present when we visited.  We were near one man who turned out to have piloted a B-24 during the war.  We got a first hand account.  It was really neat.

I did not realize how small it is inside these planes.  It was difficult to board them and definitely difficult for a woman with child bearing hips to walk forward facing at times.  I did  a lot of side ways walking.  The veteran was amazed that he used to be able to fit in these areas.  He was only a 19 year old skinny lad he said at the time.

Here's the P-51 Mustang.

Here's the boys in the Huey.  They really wanted a ride.

They have been building bombers out of legos ever since our return.  The poor lincoln log town has been bombed repeatedly since our field trip.

Strawberry picking

We went strawberry picking at a farm in a neighboring town.  It was a beautiful day with lovely weather.

The workers give the kids a tutorial in berry picking then off you go to pick.  You just pay by the pound.  The kids did well discerning what were good and ripe berries.

They actually prefer mutated berries such as double berries that have grown together or ones that have 2 or 3 points on the tip instead of one.  They told me those are "toes".  Wingman tried to find "baby" berries which were tiny.  They had a good time.

We picked enough to enjoy several rounds of strawberry short cake, strawberry ice cream, and handfuls of berries with meals.

Looking forward to coming back to pick peaches later this summer.  Here's a shot of the blooming peach trees.

We finished the day with a trip to an area park and a picnic.  It was a near perfect day in my estimation.

I am a cool mom

My darling little children needed shoes.  

Stride Rite has continued with their Star Wars themed shoes so we ended up with 3 pairs of Boba Fett shoes.  For those who may not know, Boba Fett is a bounty hunter in the Star Wars trilogy.  The shoes resemble his helmet.

I can not tell you how excited they are to have Boba Fett shoes.  They light up too!  This definitely keeps me in the cool mom category.

PS- Please pray for the Test Pilot.  He is wearing the largest shoe size that Stride Rite; therefore, no more Star Wars shoes after this pair.  I did prep him because for him this is devastating.  At least we have a few more months before we have to deal with that.