Peaches!

Ever since we bought our first house in North Carolina, I have wanted to plant fruit trees. I thought it would be so amazing wonderful to walk out my door and have peaches and apricots and pears and apples right there, waiting for me to eat. I remember going to Grandma Loveridge's house and picking and eating fruit from her trees. So after we bought this house I was ready for fruit trees! I looked and lookes for Apricot trees, but couldn't find any. We did however find a lovely peach tree with a one year guarantee. (Very important for those of us who kill plants by simply looking at them.) Last year I was so excited because we had dozens of little fruits growing all through the tree. Then to our sadness, the spring frost came and killed everything. I had learned my lesson. This year, instead of decorating my trees with lights for Christmas, I decorated my peach tree for the spring. It was really very festive twinkling in the night with it's colored lights. On especially cold nights, we would wrap it in plastic making it look like an odd little multi colored ghost protecting our home. Our little peaches survived and we get to savor our little peach harvest! Peaches anyone?

Free baby wipes

I have more to blog about later, but I just found this on the Knoxville mom's site and thought I would pass it along. It is for a free container of Huggies wipes. The link is: http://marthababysteps.com/reqform.php

Sunday time at the park

Aspen and Cedar posing in the trees!


Everyone elase has a bike! Maybe I should get Jonathon a bike for his birthday!




What CUTE kids!

Photo books and English Gardens!

Everyone knows that I love photo books! It's my type of scrapbooking...No scissors, glue, fingerprints, cleanup... Well, you understand. So I have discovered a new online photo place. They are called artscow.com. I have had one book made by them, and while it's not the best, (they are still getting the kinks out.) It's not the worst either. They sent me an email with coupons to give out. They have 8x8 30 page photo books for $11.99 with free shipping. I can't use them since I already have an account, but I can give them to you. If you want one, please leave a comment telling which one you took because they are all unique and if everyone takes the same one, only the first to order gets it. Oh, before I forget. They are in Hong Kong or China and though I haven't had any troubles, I suggest using pay pal to pay for it. (They say it's secure, but it's better to be safe than broke!) They expire Sept 5, 2008.
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And for the even better offer. My sister in law, Allison, the fabulous photographer is giving away a garden session. If you go to her web-blog and leave a comment under the garden give away blog then this Saturday she is going to pick (randomly, pulling a number out of a hat or something:) a winner to have their kids (of the same family) photographed in her gorgeous, labor of love garden. Seriously, if I were within 500 miles I would be banging down her door for her to take my kids pictures there. The link is to the left of the screen. And I forgot, she is in Park City, UT

The zoo, the hail and the first day

So, Monday Cedar started "Jump Start Kindergarten." It's where they go for one week in the morning with 15 or so other kindergarteners and get used to the rules, the building and some of the routine. He was very excited and we are all working on our getting up and ready before 8:00am skills!

Yesterday was also very exciting because after having a very hot 92* day, it hailed like crazy for ten minutes! The hail doesn't look like it, but they were between the size of a regular marble all the way up to a shooter marble size! I was very worried for my van that was parked outside!

The zoo on Saturday was hot, but I really feel bad for whoever was in those bear costumes! My kids opted for the cooler costumes in the dress up area of the zoo!

Wet and wild Wednesday

The local parks and Rec department put on "wet and wild Wednesday" at the park yesterday. The kids and I met a friend and got "wet and wild." We were actually glad that we got there early and helped them work the kinks out because ten minutes after it opened a school bus with a summer care group came, about 100 extra kids! This was a totally Tennessee activity. To me, Tennesseans can get really creative with how they do things. It's not usually polished or pretty, but it does the job. The water slide that they put together consisted of a really long piece of black plastic, some foam bumpers and a fire hose. And oh yea, baby soap for extra slippery-ness. The kids had a lot of fun, until the lines got really long and the ground was bumpy and hard, but it was wet and bubbly! Later in the afternoon, we had some more "wet and wild," this time with the weather. There was a huge downpour! I don't know how many inches came down in 30 min, but I think it topped Wyoming's annual precipitation! It also hailed for a few minutes. Aspen got a real kick about that! Speaking about Aspen, Thanks to all who commented about her story. She loved seeing her story online, and then knowing that people were reading it and liked it made her feel great! Thank you!

A bee sting...or not

This blog was written by Aspen. She has made a little book out of it. (Click on the picture to enlarge it.)

(Bee, "She's beautiful!")

You won't believe what happened to me today! But you probably don't want to hear it. But I'm going to tell you anyway.

Well, it all started when we went outside to play. We were playing chalk.

Then a bee just came up and landed on me! I screamed! I think it thought I was pretty!

(Cedar in background, "Mom! Mom!")

I was scared! But thank goodness Cedar called Mom!

Swimming pool gardens

We have been having so much fun with our gardens! I saw a picture of someone who had planted a garden in an old pool and I thought that it sounded like a good idea. I had three little blow up wading pools, one for each child. We blew them up, pokes a LOT of holes in the bottom, filled them up with dirt, took the kids to the store and let them pick out whatever they wanted. They each have a tomatoe plant or two, and they each have at least one cucumber plant. Aspen planted a sunflower in school that she transplanted in her garden along with some carrots and beans. Cedar and Olive each have a few GIANT sunflowers and also some assorted flowers with their beans and carrots. I wish I would have taken a weekly photo to show how our little gardens have grown, but since I haven't you'll just have to believe me when I say it has been so much fun and the kids excitedly examine their plants daily to see what is growing, blooming and sprouting.