Keeping 'em Busy

There are several activities to keep one's self busy at a track meet. However, if you are a spectator, you basically just sit. Therefore it takes a certain amount of patience between watching events. If you are almost 2-years-old or just turned 3-years-old, the wait can be pretty miserable. My two kids have found a variety of ways to keep occupied during track meets and last weekend at the state CIF meet was no exception.

They had a tent to play in, snacks to eat, cups to fill with whatever little treasures they found, fellow spectators to entertain (under mom's supervision of course), a wagon to play in, a nearby tree from which to pull off the bark (hey, I'll take what I can get) and although I don't condone tying up your kids to keep them under control, if they bungee cord THEMSELVES to a fence, well then, that's another story altogether...

Twirling Sticks

After making my princess some petticoats (see previous craft post) I had lots of ribbon scraps and several fake flower stems left over. Basically it's a stiff wire with green plastic coating over it. I wasn't sure what to do with them but figured they had to be good for something. Here's what I did:
Trim the plastic off of one end of the fake flower stem. Take about a yard or so of ribbon and tie it to the exposed wire end of the stem. Fold the wire over the ribbon knot and then wind it around the top of the stem to hold the ribbon securely. That's it! For a couple of them I added extra different colors & sizes of ribbon for more flare. Simple, sure, but I'll tell you that both of my kids play with them constantly. Of course, she dances with them and he pretends it's a whip (don't worry, they're too soft to hurt) or a fishing pole, but play is play, right?

PS-I suppose this would also make a great cat chase toy but we don't own cats so you'll have to test that out on your own.

Backyard Camping

Have you heard of the Southern California Wildfires? Well, they put a real damper on our ability to make a bonfire or even have a fire pit in our back yard. So they burned down to our neighbor's house across the street a few years back, so what? It's a real bummer that someone can tell you what you can and cannot do on your own property, that's all I'm sayin'. As a result, our backyard camping would be a lot less fun. So our resolution to this problem is to go to the campground that is about 10 miles away where they let complete randoms build fires in their fire pits anonymously unsupervised (like that's SO much safer).
The nice thing about the national campground being so close is that we can go after my honey gets off work and still have a full evening to enjoy the camping experience. So we went Tuesday night and had a great time. We were all set up in time to let the kids ride their tricycles around a bit (yay for level pavement!) and go for a hike.
After all that physical activity we were ready for dinner so Daddy built a campfire to cook our hotdogs.
There was just enough time after dinner for a few rounds of hide-&-seek (see Daddy behind the tree?)
Once it began to get dark, the kids took their places on our laps and we made some ooey-gooey smores over the campfire. Since the campground may as well be in our backyard, we just made our way home after we were all pooped and got to sleep in our own beds. All in all, a very nice night of camping without the rocks in your back as you slept.

They look innocent enough

But as I sat there I thought "they're being too quiet"...

As it turns out, she had her right arm buried elbow deep in dirt and he had picked 1/2 the flower petals off of one of the plants...never trust the silence.

Mail order tests my faith

We ordered eight hydrangeas via mail-order catalog recently and when they arrived they looked like this:
I was frustrated but planted them immediately and the next day they looked like this:
That wasn't very promising but a week later it was even worse:
I figured I would give the poor guys a break though and keep some faith. Soon after, they were nothing but sticks poking their little brown stubs out of the dirt. I have been watering them diligently and though virtually everyone told me that they were goners, five of the eight now look like this:
So 5/8 isn't too bad of a ratio (there's a guarantee on them just in case) but really, after all of that, how could I give up on the other three yet? For now I'm keeping the faith.

B-B-B-Bad...

Years from now, when trying to impress chicks, he'll look back on this picture and say "From the day I was born, the nurses all gathered 'round and they gazed in wild wonder at the joy they had found. The head nurse spoke up, said 'leave this one alone' she could tell right away that I was bad to the bone..."Of course, he'll leave out the part that his Great-Grandparents bought it for him and that he would have to wrestle his big sister for his turn...

Blog updates

You may have noticed that I've changed a few things on this blog:
1) to the left, you can now see what I'm spending most of my time blogging about
2) if you missed a day or two, you can now click on the time span in a list format

And best of all:
3) I have permanently added a quote by Roosevelt at the bottom of my blog that I heard a long time ago and was said even longer ago but still holds true today (especially here in Southern California). This is a good reminder that to be an American one must have unilateral loyalty. Period. I am 50% Danish but you wouldn't see me going around telling people I'm "Danish-American" nor would I ever hang any flag other than Old Glory on my home (which I proudly do).

There's only one flag worth waving. Those who don't believe that do a disservice to this country and all loyal Americans.

Mary Quite Contrary...

How does my garden grow? Very well, thanks for asking!
Here's some sugar snap peas that have sprouted...
And some strawberries that are beginning to show fruit...
I even have some raspberries springing up in my vinca! Watching all of this happen makes you really appreciate the magic of sunshine & water.