warm day in the yard

While Jack was at school this morning, Evie and I spent some time in the garden!  It's a nice, 50+ degree morning here so I was digging up irises and day lilies to divide and share with others.  Evie was finding plenty to do on her first real garden excursion since she's gotten her legs under her!

I found a Thing!

I know where this goes....

Okay, I want it back now!

Coming to get more Things.

Found a good one!  Now I just need to pick it up....

Snagged it!

Aaaand tripped as soon as she stood up.  :P

Now where did I drop that Thing?

Even after she got her sweater soaked by playing in a water-filled pot, she didn't want to go inside.  "How about some football instead, mom?"  :)

Oh yes, and I managed to dig up a good clump of overgrown yellow irises and day lilies.  Hooray!

Oh, Christmas Tree!

Alison and I decided that we need to go to cut down our own Christmas trees this year.  It's something neither of us has ever done, though the idea is treated as no big deal around here!  We went this afternoon and though it was freezing cold and windy, it was really great fun.  We brought our own saw and went hunting!

"Mom.  This one.  This tree.  It's perfect!  PERFECT."  (Also what, 10 feet tall?)

That one was a Douglas Fir -- very pretty, but the needles and small branches all drooped fluffily to the floor.  This made us think these trees wouldn't be great at holding ornaments.  (Especially when kids are helping to hang them!)

Jack fell asleep in the car but Alex basically dragged him out by his ear, at my insistence. 

He did NOT approve.

The Webbers thought they found the perfect tree!  But was it tall enough?  And just the right shape?  You can't be sure until you look at at least a hundred more.  ;)

Meanwhile, Alex found a tree for us that was quite nice.  After I browsed around a bit myself, I conceded that he really did find a great tree.  ....Timber!

As usual, Jack thinks his daddy is awesome.

He can carry a Whole Tree!  I think Jack was torn between the desire to help move the tree and the desire not to get smushed flat underneath it because Daddy was moving too quickly!

Meanwhile, the Webbers shopped on....  :)

Okay, no, SERIOUSLY.  This one is PERFECT.

Alison sawed down her own tree! (With a hefty dose of heckling from Alex....)

She even helped to carry the tree back to the car.  It was REALLY heavy.

Jack decided that maybe this whole tree farm thing wasn't such a horrible idea.

We even got a smile out of him after all.  :)

Our tree.  :)

And where was Evie this whole time?

Where do you think?  :D

Fall is Here

I have a few videos from the leaf raking today. Some of you might not know that here in McMinnville, you can simply rake your leaves into the street and the street cleaners will take care of them for you. :)

The videos are now linked from YouTube so that you can view them in full 720p resolution (for those of you that know and care what that means). :)

Jack started out raking them out of the tree:

Then after a little bit of a lesson was doing this:

Finally, the master makes his own piles and jumps in them:

Evie helped by playing with a plastic softball:

(Duck fans, please excuse the Stanford hoodie - Evie's grandma is an Alumna.)

seasons

It's worth mentioning that the last few months have encompassed one of those rare spans of time when nature and the weather agree exactly with my idea of what should be happening. Hot when we're ready for it, cool and breezy when we need a break. Cloudy only when the sun threatens to become monotonous. And the rare splashes of rain have happened (I kid you not) on every night that I've forgotten to water the garden.

Tonight I was planting some perennial bulbs in the front yard (more on that excitement later, with photos, of course) and reflecting on how tomorrow is the first day of September and really fall is just around the corner. I'm ready for falling leaves and pumpkin patches. Today Jack and I were remembering last year when we got a hay ride in a big wagon pulled by a farmer's green tractor. He's ready to do that again, please, but takes my word that we have to wait *just* a bit longer before those are available.

Well, back to tonight. I was outside at 10:00 p.m., planting the last of about 50 bulbs. It was cold and my nose was just a little runny. The wind suddenly gusted and the night air smelled like wood smoke and slightly damp soil, and everything felt just... like fall. And I tell you what -- I have never been happier than when I get the first signs of summer's end, and this year was done particularly stylishly!

So I do have to commend Mother Nature on her timing and attention to detail. Well done, madame! I hope to see you continue this trend right on through the new year. ;)

Wheatland Ferry and State Park

Jack recently saw a kids' show involving a little boy who gets to ride on a ferry boat. Naturally, we were inspired to head out to a nearby ferry that connects to a state park! This was adventurous for many reasons. :)

Mommy's favorite part of a state park visit...

(I'll give you two guesses.)

...proved to be difficult. While I was trying to coax not-quite-crunchy leaves to burn and wishing I had brought more pre-kindling, Jack was wandering around explaining the many reasons that the situation was not okay with him.

The smoke was going to Get him. The (two, in the entire park) bees were going to "stung" him. He needed to wash his hands. He couldn't eat his apple because it was dirty. Evie was going to take his piece of cheese. And the smoke was really going to GET him, Mommy.

As soon as I got it burning he changed his tune and was very excited to have fire-roasted hot dogs. Then we had a new problem: If you want to have a hot dog, you have to help Mommy find some sticks for the fire! Well, after some coaxing and instruction on where to look, here he is excitedly displaying the world's tiniest stick. :)

"Wook, Mommy! I found one stick!!"

Yay, hot dogs for everyone!

"Seriously, do you have any idea how delicious these are? Mommy, we're going to need yours too."

Here's Evie trying to figure out how to make the magic plate produce more bites for her....

And I was able to get one picture before we boarded the ferry for the drive home. Jack has officially declared that this is the Best Ferry In The World. I'd call the trip a success. :)

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Here we had just reached the field where we were going to clip lavender. Jack had not yet realized that there were bees on the plants (which distressed him, though it didn't exactly *scare* him), or that the sun was getting hotter as it approached noon. He was ready to pick some flowers!

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Evie got to sit between the lavender bushes and nibble on a few stalks of flowers. She liked it at first, but quickly wondered what the point of it all was! Here you can see her beginning to get suspicious.

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I really liked this one. Evie was with Julie while I got Jack settled at the car, so he and I had a minute to ourselves. Sometimes I get caught up in the "mommy-ness" of making sure we get from point A to point B with a minimum of injuries or lost time, everybody gets fed, etc., etc., and I forget that he and I really do have a great, friendly camaraderie. For me, this picture really captures how much fun we were having together.

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Hallelujah, we have a double stroller! We walked about a half mile for that muffin Jack is munching on. We will now be able to go to the library, pool, and the million fun places around 3rd street, all without having to get in the car OR walk at Jack's (short-legged two-year-old) pace! I'm rather excited about this. :)

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Evie really, really likes the black raspberries from the yard! They're one of her favorite treats, and just the right size that she can eat them without help. Actually, that's probably the best feature!

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Well, that was a very satisfactory snack. Thanks for the raspberries, mom!

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Think she needs a bath? ;)

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Sometimes Jack notices that I'm taking pictures of Evie and starts to really ham it up for me. :)

Sent from my Nokia phone

Tulip Festival

On April 27, I took the kids to a fairly local (one hour away) tulip festival. It was a gorgeous experience, despite the freezing wind. Evie spent all day snuggled up close, so I don't have any pictures of her. Here's what I do have:

15/365: Snow!

We had snow recently! Jack was really excited to go exploring. He has seen snow before, of course, being a New Hampshire baby, but he doesn't remember it. This was essentially his first snow.

We made it about halfway down the stairs before he started to reconsider. "Mommy, I cold!!"

We made it down the stairs (after much coaxing) to taste the snow!

"Tastes like ice!"

Then we tried crunching on the snow "with Elmo boots!"

A bunch of fat robins were eating some kind of goodie (seeds, I think) that had been knocked off the trees.

Wiping snow off the cars was fun until he realized how cold it made his hands....

This was another moment where the dazzling appeal was wearing off for a moment.... He was trying to convince me we needed to get in the car and drive somewhere warm.

...or we could crunch in the frozen grass. :)

The best part of the morning was when we found our fix-it man, Clive, spreading sand on the walkways. This was downright AMAZING.

Jack literally chased him around the entire apartment complex, just marveling at the sand-throwing machine. (It was pretty cool! Clive says we will use 150 lbs of sand per snow/ice storm just to cover our sidewalks.)