Planting....

Every year for Mother's Day and Father's Day we give the gift of adding to our garden.  We jumped the gun a little this year and did some serious plant shopping in April.

We bought a new Wisteria and a Clematis for our climber, an orange azalea to replace a rhodi that died and a bunch of annuals to fill my pots and the flower beds.  Emily LOVES to plant in the garden and was super excited to test out her new potting gloves so we headed over her umbrella tree and got to work...

She did a great job on the pots as well...

After all of that hard work she needed a little popsicle break...

...and I headed over to my tomato project.

The year before we had Emily (in our old house) my dad and I had a tomato growing contest.  He used rubber tires to grow his and I used a bail of straw.  Both of us were convinced our strategy was the best and it was a lot of fun comparing our plants as they grew. 

Well this year the competition is back on again.  While I did get a two week head start we are both convinced it will not a make a big difference since the weather hasn't been that great.

This year I planted two Sweet Hundreds and one Early Girl but apparently I need to get one more variety this week...

By the time I was done Emily was ready for some dinner.  Have I ever mentioned how much I love to eat outside?  No mess and no dishes....how can you go wrong?

Just as soon as Emily finished Jack woke up, walked down the stairs by himself and sat himself at the table and chair.  While he is a boy of few words his actions speak for them self...

For the rest of the evening they played and played and then played some more.  I love to watch them interact with each other.  They truly are best of friends...

By the time they were done playing about half of the sand was gone.  Most of it went on the ground, a few bucket fulls went on top of my freshly planted pots and the rest went in Jack's tummy.  Maybe I should also mention that the pot with the sand had nothing but decapitated stems in it as well.  You gotta love boys...

Time for a good shaking and a bath...

The mall...

I am not a big fan of the mall but we do venture once or twice a year.  Usually it is to make a return from shopping online, as it was on this day.

Apparently in the last 6 months or so the mall people decided to put these cars right in the middle so you cannot walk through the mall without running right into them.  Well, we were ambushed...

After the car ride my mom and I took the kids to the Children's Museum for a little bit. While the turtles were fun to watch there really wasn't anything else they had that we didn't already have at home except for TONS of kids and A LOT of germs.  This may have been our last visit.  I thinking we are saving up for trips to the Seattle Science Center instead...

Jack loved playing in the kitchen but it was a lot of work to keep snatching food out of his little hands before they made it to his mouth...

Emily stayed in the sand box most of the time before venturing to the play house....

By the time we got home the kids were TIRED.  Emily changed into her swim suit and scarf and passed out soon after...

Baby Jones #3 Update:
I went in for another routine doctor's appointment yesterday.  I had a long list of things to discuss so the appointment went much longer than expected.  Since I have been experiencing intense contractions every evening she did another ultrasound just to check things out.  Emily came along for the appointment and was absolutely thrilled to watch her baby brother on the "TV."  Although she probably didn't know exactly what she was looking at she kept saying things like:

"Ohhhh, isn't my baby brother so cute!"
" I just love him."
and my favorite....
"My new baby brother gets to have slumber parties with my brother Jack every night!"

When all was finished we got a nice little picture of the little guy's foot...symbolic of how much he was kicking and moving around the whole time. 

Everything else looked pretty good.  While the hematoma (blood clot) is still visible it had shrunk by 1/2 cm.  This may seem like a little amount but it is a good sign.  At this point we can hope to pregnant for 39 weeks which would make my delivery date July 7th.  There are still many situations that could take place before then, which she went over with me, but I have my heart set on July 7th.  She also gave me permission to do light exercise (walking) which was music to my ears. 

As my dear husband put it, I can now feel better about doing the things that I have already been doing.

Tulip Festival 2010...

The tulips are finally out and we have been too.  As the days have gotten nicer I have had terrible mommy guilt about all of the adventures the kids may be missing out on so I decided to venture out for a day at Tulip Town.  The kids were absolutely perfect but my body quickly reminded me that I am supposed to be on bed rest...

The first thing we did was stop and get Emily's face painted.  She really wanted the tiger face but when I saw that it cost $15 and would take 20 minutes I convinced her to pick out something else...

From tiger to tiara...what a versitile child I have...

 It was a long walk out to the tulip fields so we decided to go on a tour with a tractor ride...

 

 Seriously, does it get more beautiful than this?

By the time we got home both of the kids were exhausted and I have to say that I was too.  We took a few more pictures of Emily's tiara face and I had to promise we would go back for the tiger another day...

More Easter....

After the Easter festivities at our house we headed up to my Grandma and Grandpa's house to join the rest of the family.  This was our first year of splitting up holidays and I have to say it was bitter sweet.  We spent Thanksgiving with the Jones's and had a fabulous time but I missed spending time with my family.  The same happened with Easter.  We only spent Easter with my family and I definitely missed all the fun at the Jones's. Thankfully we are celebrating this next Sunday with them.

What Bryan and I didn't miss was the mad dash of running around, spending maybe an hour with each side of the family, spending half of our day driving to the various locations and feeling exhausted upon arriving home.  It really does make sense to split a few holidays up but I am still trying to get used to it.

When we got to my Grandparents the kids quickly settled in and helped my cousin's son unload the toy cabinet.

Jack was obviously not too shy about it...

and definitely proud of what he had accomplished...

While the rest of us enjoyed all of the wonderful food Uncle Mike and Emily sang the Fritos, ate Fritos and drank loads of "special juice" (orange juice and Sprite).  I know this may seem like an odd picture to post but if you were there to listen to the song you could appreciate their "crunching" simultaneously a little more...

After a bit the kids were getting a little stir crazy so we took them outside to explore the farm...

Emily searched every inch of the barn for the owls and cows but had no such luck so we headed back outside to play on the tractor...

Jack does the funniest faces when he driving his trucks around the house and I finally caught this one on film.  I call it the "farmer face."

I can't help but think that while Emily was gazing out on the pasture she was secretly wishing she never had to leave.  If this little girl could live on a farm she would be the happiest girl in the world.  One day Emily....one day....