Pictures, you ask?

For those readers who have been with us regularly, you really deserve some pictures of the fam, so, here they are! Enjoy!

We'll start with Easter Sunday and a lovely shot of my amazing bride with the kids in front of our home.


Next up is a picture of Andrew and Elizabeth enjoying the wildlife at the Montgomery Zoo. We became members this year, so we'll visit often!

And here is Hannah Joy! And what a joy she is! She really has enjoyed being in this little bouncy seat/rocker.

Andrew and I are "Flip"ping out at our favorite family restaurant, "Flip's".


Elizabeth took to kite-flying at the Blount Cultural Park like a fish to water! Here she is controlling a "Blue Angels" entry-level stunt kite with two control lines with ease (for a moment anyway).

Houston, we have liftoff!

Today was a red-letter day for our family. Just hours ago, our firstborn - Andrew - rode a two-wheeler all by himself for the first time! It was really a nice feeling as a father and I started realizing how quickly things happen and how much is going to start flying past me if I don't slow down and focus on my kids when I get the rare opportunities to do so.

I guess what's more important is to make those opportunities less and less rare. We also spent time playing soccer in the backyard and Rachel's teaching him to read. Man - I don't know if the best years are ahead or behind, but I know that I'm really enjoying the here and now!

God bless you all today!
David

I've finally caught a glimpse of my calling!

Last night I realized after watching August Rush what I want to be when I grow up: A child prodigy. I mean, how cool would that be? I could do all the fun stuff that kids do like leave messes everywhere and not eat my cabbage while earning oodles of cash putting on sold-out shows as the next famous freak of nature!

Though the movie was fictitious, it really was a terrific film. I recommend it to those who are looking for a slightly fairy-talish heartwarming vendetta filled with great music and charm. What can I say, I'm a sucker for feel-good flicks and cool riffs.

God bless and have a great night!
David

Turtles, Spiders and Garage Sales

Well, here are some things on my mind:
First of all, last Saturday I witnessed something so terrible and brutal, yet funny and exactly how God designed things to work. Of course, I want to share it with you!

So, we're at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Art having a picnic and looking at all the turtles and fish swimming in the pond. We were with some dear friends who were in town visiting us. The kids were throwing their goldfish into the water to attract more turtles and watch them try to eat the goldfish (this is completely acceptable, by the way. People come to the MMFA just to throw bread and crackers to the ducks, geese, fish and turtles, not to look at the art.). Well, while we were watching the water, the tiniest, most adorable turtle I've ever seen swam up to the surface. I don't think it was even the size of a silver dollar. It was precious. While I was oogling over this tiny turtle, the unthinkable happened. A huge carp came up from below and swallowed him up in his big, fat, carp mouth, and he was no more. I screamed in shock and disbelief and what I had just witnessed. I wanted to cry and laugh at the irony all at the same time. Thankfully, none of the kids saw what David and I and our friend had seen. It was a lot to handle for me, watching a cute innocent creature get eaten alive! It could have really been one of those life moments for Andrew and Elizabeth!

What else is on my mind? Well, Andrew's third soccer game in a row is probably going to be rained out tomorrow. Ok, yes, that would mean that all of his games have been rained out so far! They make them up on Monday evenings, which is good, and then practice is on Tuesday evenings.

Garage sales. I love shopping garage sales! My friend asked me yesterday where my kids had gotten their cute summer clothes...garage sales in our neighborhood, I told her! I also got a wonderful double jogging stroller for $45 and a new bike for Andrew for $5! He is fairly close to being able to ride it (no training wheels), which means we're pretty close to being able to walk (someday RUN) the two-mile loop of our neighborhood with the girls in the stroller, while Andrew rides his bike.

Tomorrow I'm not going to shop garage sales. I'm going to go to real stores to buy new shoes and new shirts with the money I budgeted for shopping this month! I get to go with my dear friend Bonnie. I will even leave Hannah at home with David with very clear, written instructions! I am praying she will get better at drinking from the bottle!!!

....now, SPIDERS! Oh, they're just so creepy!!! I respect them tremendously. I'd probably even like them if they weren't so creepy and scary. But, alas, all that said, they still had to die. A couple weeks ago I noticed several webs in the windows right outside our back patio door. There were very large orb spiders dwelling in them. One of them had an egg sack. Then, a day or two later, I noticed more spiders, webs and egg sacks. Six spiders in all and seven egg sacks! And one dead spider, eaten by another, I'm assuming. Well, I had just about had enough and was not looking forward to thousands of baby spiders running all over my patio and getting into my home and scaring me and my children. I couldn't figure out exactly how to kill them though. Spraying them wasn't working, so I started thinking about what I could squish them with and if I had the guts to do it. Well then, my dear friend Bonnie, once again, suggested sucking them up and then dumping the container they were sucked into out into a bowl of a hot water and bleach solution. So that's what we did, after I refilled the bucket since my daughter dumped the first one out. I just know the spiders lived somehow and are going to get back at me somehow for trying to kill them so brutally when all they wanted to do was catch mosquito hawks and have a family on my patio.

So, there's my first post! Kind of long and wordy and, oh, so random! I'm sure I will get better though! Please don't compare me to my brilliant husband, David. He's such a good writer and has been doing this for so long, his writing and his blog is really impressive and fun to read. Thank you for at least humoring me, reading mine!

Revenge of the Weeds Part II

The thunder rolled and I could hear the wind howling over the chimney stack. A quick inspection out the patio door answered my question - yes, it was raining, hard. It's just past midnight and I'm comforted again by the ominous forecast from wunderground.com earlier in the day calling for evening thunderstorms and rain through the night. For, it was that forecast which confirmed my mission for the evening - mow the front yard. I chose to accept it, and after a quick dinner I bid adieu to my family to join the rank and file of the grass corps for the next hour.

Could lawn care be any more dramatic? Really? Well, I've made a lot of changes based on my successes (none) and failures (many) of last year. I've learned that my bermuda grass is much happier at a shorter height. The 2-2.5 inches last summer just didn't do what I was hoping, whereas the .5-1 inch turf is already a vast improvement to the yard. It's been very tough getting the lawn work done the last two weeks, between work, family, church and weather I've had few opportunities to take on the many battles of this war - but phase II is complete.

The back yard was the hardest, by far. It took 2.5 hours to mow. The grass catcher would be full after a single swath of 30 feet. I was fighting the night as the final passes were made. When all was said and done, I hauled 14 full 39-gallon lawn and leaf bags to the street for curbside grass clipping pickup. Two days later I was able to put down the weed preventer and get it watered just before leaving for a friend's house to eat pizza and jam.

I should add that a few tools have been extremely helpful this summer. For instance, my in-laws blessed me with a Ryobi gas weedeater with an interchangable shaft. I've already bought the blower attachment and I have my eye on the hedgetrimmer attachment for a May acquisition. I've also gotten some good use out of a cast iron tractor sprinkler that follows the path of the hose until it shuts itself off at the owner-positioned "Stop" marker.

But, once again, if everything goes well - I will have Kirk to thank. Next step, Scotts Turf Builder fertilizer. Kirk swears by it and he and I will both be treating our lawns come May 1. Until then, my children will enjoy running barefoot in the backyard and I'll be keeping a watchful eye on my sworn enemy - the front yard crabgrass.

God bless us all!
David