Bits and Pieces

This is the time of year when everything moves SO fast.  Between end-of-the-year school activities, birthday celebrations, and gardening requirements, it's hard to find time to sit down to document a little bit of life.  I apologize for the randomness of these stories, but I just need to get them written down so I don't forget!

A few weeks ago Kate's school had a crazy hair day.  Although sending her to school in these braids would have been awesome, we actually did them so that her hair would be crinkly the next morning.  I can't believe she slept with her hair in braids like this!

One Saturday in early May, a nearby park hosted an event called "Kids Building Wisconsin".  A variety of vendors ranging from Home Depot, to Lycon cement, to electricians and plumbers, set up different booths with activities allowing kids to get a small taste of the construction/building industry.

Because of the differing abilities of our kids, we split up.  Kate and Ethan went with me while Matt and Anna trekked around together.

Of course Ethan wanted to sit in the cab of every truck he saw :)

All of the kids ended up in the Home Depot tent building their own tool box or flower box.  Surprisingly, our family only had one bashed thumb (Anna's), and all of the kids did a fine job building and painting their projects.

On Mother's day after church, we picked up some lunch from Culver's and went to a handicap accessible nature preserve.  It was a beautiful day, but we are learning that sunny days with little or no breeze are no fun for Anna.  She just gets too hot and uncomfortable without a way to move and cool herself off.  We will keep working on this issue.

Kate and Ethan had an enjoyable time finding turtles, "waterfalls", and seeing all manner of different birds.

Even though our lunch was from Culver's, our dessert was pudding cups :)

I had two memorable parts to my Mother's Day.  First, the girls are old enough now to initiate cards and/or projects for me, instead of having Matt lead the way.  Both girls gave me touching gifts.

Secondly, the whole family helped make dinner!  Kate sauteed the peppers and onions for our fajitas; Matt made the guacamole; Anna and Ethan set the table.  It was great :)

In the afternoon on Mother's Day, I worked on planting more vegetables in our garden.  Our tomatoes were itching to get out of the basement, as were the cucumbers and zucchini I started a few weeks back.  Everything was growing along merrily until this last weekend when we had a FREEZE!  Not a frost, but a real freeze!  In the middle of May!  What's with this weather?

Kate and I had gone around and covered all of the plants we thought were susceptible to the low temperatures.  Surprisingly, we only lost one cherry tomato plant and one regular tomato plant; the rest are still going strong.  The potatoes, however, lost some leaves due to the freeze.  I'm pretty sure the plants are still alive, but it was just a bit too cold for those normally hardy plants.  The broccoli survived without any problems.

We have only a few more weeks of school left.  I think we can make it!  But I might forget about a few more things between now and then :)