Tent City

Time is flying!  This has been one of the smoothest preschool years.  I can't believe we are nearing the end!

We've been plowing through the Spring birthdays, one after the other.

We are working on the letter Vv, and have begun using pencils.

It's a much different experience using a pencil instead of a crayon.  There is a little bit less control, but they did pretty well. 

Something cool happened that I forgot to share!  A week ago we took a trip to the mall, which is rare.  I'm not a mall shopper.  My boys needed shorts, so we had to go to Old Navy.  It turned out to be "Free Comic Book Day", which is observed nationally.  We hopped over to the comic book store and everyone was allowed to choose EIGHT of the comic books they had laid out for the event.  They had some great kid ones, and I snagged several for the kids to flip through in the play room and several for the treasure box.  Score!

Meanwhile, at Henle House we are enjoying 80 degree weather this week.  It has been so heavenly, I am already mourning the rain in the forecast for this weekend.  It felt like summer!  We created a tent city yesterday.

The kids are always active outside, running here and there.  They are usually jumping off of the patio or climbing up and down from the tree platform. Adding tents was great for their imaginations.

The Snow White Cottage became the jail.

The police officer was scouting for criminals.

But he was corrupt, so this girl kept him locked up.  It was so funny!

It was bliss.

We have been noticing some butterflies and bees.  We recently ordered our live caterpillar larvae.  We will watch them eat, grow, cocoon and hatch.

During nap time, Petra hung out in each tent.  She has always liked them.

Zuko put himself in jail.

I sat and watched the breeze.  What you can't hear in the photo is that somewhere in the distance, for two days in a row, someone is playing an accordion beautifully.  It was kind of magical.  

I am in love with Tori Amos's new album "Unrepentant Geraldines".  Here's a fun fact for you about Tori.  Her favorite album of all time is Led Zeppelin's "Four" album.  When she was young and playing piano for peoples funerals, she would secretly mix tiny bits from that album into her playing and the people just thought she was playing hymns.  That's  an amazing sendoff!   You can download her new album here at Amazon.

The song above is called 'Trouble's Lament'.  

Something I love about her is that no matter what my mood is, she caters to it.

♥♥♥Happy Thursday!♥♥♥

Birthday And Garden Work

So many Spring birthdays-- so many smiles!  He wore these amazing glasses for his photo. :)

One wish later-- out the candle went!

It's so fun to see the excitement over each child's Birthday.

The Birthday boy gets to choose activities and be the line leader.  Off they went into the sunshine with balloons.  I forgot to snap photos.

It was because I've been digging in this vegetable garden.  

 Hours of weeding, tilling by hand, fertilizing and planting later- I have a sunburn, a sore body and bruised hands.  It is exhilarating!  I love to have a garden and thank God every day for it.  I love working in it and the feeling of accomplishment.  This year we are growing Sugar Snap Peas, Peas, Kentucky Blue Pole Green Beans, Carrots, Sweet Corn and of course, Mammoth Sunflowers.  Now that the garden is ready, we can get back to our preschool schedule. 

In the Fall, the kids helped me throw our leftover pumpkins into the garden.  We left them in the place that they landed and we now have pumpkin plants growing.  We are experimenting this year by leaving them there and letting them do what they choose to do.   

 My morning routine now includes a walk around the yards to see what the gardens are doing.  I love when a cat joins me.  Baby Zuko is a great companion.

The poppies are blooming!! 

The Allium are rounding out!

♥♥♥Happy Wednesday!♥♥♥

Votive Holders

We created Mother's Day candle holders as gifts.

They used a mixture of water and Elmer's glue to paint each piece of tissue onto the jar.

Each child chose a stripe to add.

Add twine, and the results were beautiful!

Into a bag they went.

The bags then went into another bag, complete with a note about what each child loves about his or her mom.  Priceless!

The apple tree FINALLY got pruned yesterday!  The kids kept saying it was going to get a "haircut".  Pretty much sums it up!  Above is the before photo.

Here is the after photo!  It looks like an apple tree should.  

(Or at least as well as could be expected for this ancient beauty.)

Even better--- the rhododendron that I wish would die was chainsawed again.  To the ground, this time.  Amen-- I can't express that enough!!  When we bought this house, the Rhody was touching the roof.  It was also surrounded by ugly trees, one that had 4 inch spikes coming out of it.  The Rhody is the last of the evil things that grew here.  I have tried to grow a garden in the area around it with no luck.  Even my rhubarb died!  I'm picking up some stump killer this weekend at the hardware store.   I've been very busy digging in the gardens, it's been amazing!

My son Ethan made this for me for Mother's Day!  I had to share because it's so great.  It now has a permanent place in the dining room. 

♥♥♥Happy Tuesday!♥♥♥

Taking An Internet Break

I'm taking an internet break.  It's starting to suck up my time, and I'm not ok with that.  The blog will be on hold, and I won't be responding on Facebook unless it's an emergency or something.  It's good to detox every once in a while.  The photo above is in Grantsville, Utah.  Look how quiet it is.  It's neat when you can see the silence in a photo.  I can hear the sprinklers shooting irrigation rain over the field.  I spent much of my childhood in that town.  It still holds a place in my heart.  At Henle House we are working on a special project for Mother's Day, so I'm not posting anything about that because it's a surprise.   A Mother's job is never finished, and I want to wish all of you a very happy Mother's Day! 

I'll leave you with this saga.  Smudge wanted Chippy to play with him this morning.   See how he is rolling upside down?  That's the way he invites play.

"Wanna play?"

"Will there be nuts?"  Chippy is doing that thing with her little arms when she wants more nuts.

"Come on!  Let's play!"

"Come baaaack!"

♥♥♥Happy Thursday!♥♥♥

I'll return after a while, with lot's of photos.

In The Garden

Spring is a great time to paint a garden!

We used a couple of plastic forks to create some tulips.

It was nice to use something with a long handle.  I didn't have to wash anyone's hands after we were finished.  It was a very simple project that turned out beautiful.

Fork flowers!

The Wisteria survived the torrential downpours over the last couple of days.

The Lily Of The Valley has bloomed, and even grew out into the walkway under the garden arbor.  

I'll let it stay.

I'm pleased to find so many Columbine in the back garden this year.  A couple of years ago I sprinkled some seeds from the plant in the front yard and just waited.  These blooms are at least 2 feet tall.

This is my little snail collector.  Here she had discovered my "snail cemetery".  Oops!

The Lilacs are in full bloom!  I didn't plan it, but all of my garden favorites just happen to be purple.

Remember when I told you about the Allium I planted?  It's working on blooming now.

I love them!

In the front garden, these giant Oriental Poppies are gearing up for record blooms!  These are bright beautiful orange.  They have outgrown their space, and I don't have to heart to move them until they die down again for winter.  I don't want to do anything to jeopardize the blooms. 

I thank God each day for the opportunity to have some gardens to watch and tend to.

There is no better therapy!

♥♥♥Happy Wednesday!♥♥♥