Crazy Neighbor

So I'm that neighbor, the one everyone comments about behind closed doors to their families. "you'll never guess what our crazy neighbor was doing today, she was picking the wild violets and putting them in a jar" I wonder if my neighbors think I'm some kind of witch or hippie with all the "harvesting" I do around here. Who else purposely plants wild raspberry bushes... hey they have great raspberries, bigger and better producing then burpee's, plus they are helping ease the river bed erosion! We have such a small plot of land but I have like 20 raspberry bushes, 5 blueberry bushes, a cranberry bush and a huge garden, then comes the weeds... yeah I use them too! Today I picked a quart of wild violets for jelly. You place them in a glass jar and pour boiling water over them and 24 hours later you've steeped the sugar and colour out of them, the last picture shows the colour coming out already... that alone was totally cool! If I hadn't gotten called into work tonight, we would have eaten dandelion fritters for dinner! Gonna make dandelion jelly over the weekend! Hopefully a quart of dandelion wine and mead also next week! I just hate picking the tops off in an attempt to end their takeover and literally having to throw them away... this year we are recycling the dandelions!!!!!

haircuts for the boys

Since T-man kept threatening to do the boys hair himself, I broke down and took them to get their haircut... I was too afraid I'd come home to shaved heads otherwise! Not sure that either one liked the experience that much... but it's done. My little man sat so still and was so good, the little dude had to have a few talkings to though, but not too bad for his first salon haircut!

The Animal Show

Last Friday the little man's school had an animal show, the kids were asked to bring in a stuffed animal or the real deal. Our little man choose to do the real thing and Grandpa brought over Sylvia since Daisy barfs in the car! Sylvia won the little man the award for friendliest animal. His friend James brought the kitten, which he loved petting... especially since our cats are over the love me/pet me stage and far into the feed me/ignore me stage of life. Then came Lane's animal... a race horse named Virginia Hero, all the kids got to feed him a carrot and pet his nose. We all had a great time!

kit-tay por-kno

So sorry Amy I had to. This is Reuben and he is just beautiful... and sweet as can be... and talkative... a purrrrrrrrrrrfect cat! Amy was afraid she'd find him on the "web" a little inside joke, since I was taking so many pictures of him. Truth is while I don't think he enjoyed the camera in his face he is quite photogenic! These are from my visit to the Outer Banks last month... when life was still enjoyable!

We went Topless ;)

Yup we decided to go for a trip up into the mountains today... with the top down. The boys were not impressed at first but they got into it eventually. When we started driving down the mountain the little man says to me, " I've never seen something so the beautiful, I can see the whole world from here mama." Sometimes the things he says are just so cute! I'm glad we took this adventure today, even though I felt bad for wasting the gas!

Making up for lost time.

Mama and daddy got yelled at by our wonderful nutritionist during our last visit... no more spoon feeding the little dude! We were too afraid he'd drop too much to be able to weigh his food correctly. Obviously from these pictures the little dude is making up for lost self feeding time, as he is not only doing a great job of feeding himself but he is doing it double spooned! Yep every meal is now self serve and he maybe drops one spoonful which he desperately tries to scoop up anyway! Guess we parents need to let our little baby grow up to his little dude title! Poor little man is in the background here fairly disturbed by the camera's flash... he still has an ear infection and allergy issues which just makes everything intolerable - to HIM!

Signs that Spring is finally here!