"Father"- Son Campout

Last year, when Tony was traveling around, doing rotations all over the country....and mostly not here, Jon had to miss out on the Cub Scout Father-Son campout. Sad. (It turns out, the boys dodged some unseasonably cold weather.) Still, they were sad to miss it.

This year rolled around.

Tony is here.

...but working some more intense hours, with only occasional weekends off. Naturally, the weekend of the campout wasn't one when he would be available. Big brother to the rescue! Anthony stepped in as his "Dad". (If there is something Anthony has been pretty willing to do, it's camp.) I bought them a 4-man tent (our other tent is ginormous), since they were going to be hiking in a bit.

That's the cool part of this particutlar campout....

The took the MARC to  Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, hiked to their campsite, went to a Waffle House for breakfast, and then took the Amtrak home. My kind of camping...minus the sleeping on the ground part. In my defense, now that I'm eight months pregnant, I can barely sleep in a bed. 

So, I'm not really out looking for adventure.  I'll leave that to the boys for now. :)

Shamrocks and Other St. Patty's Nonsense

To "celebrate" our last snowy day, I made a snowflake cake.

I used the recipe that came with the pan - an almond cake - and it turned out beautifully.

We put some sugar "snow" on it and ate it. Time for Spring.

Of course, it did defy us and snow this last Sunday...but not the cancel school kind of snow, just the annoying, make Annalia's daffodils look sad for a few days kind of snow.

My flowers have all recovered. :) ...and now it's Spring...for reals.

My St. Patty's Day banner from last year was coming apart.

Cozy helped me fix it. She was so serious about clipping each shamrock on "just so". I'm not quite happy with the result...but happy enough not to redo it.

Since my the end of Irish Dancing at our house (for now...Cozy might be more enthusiastic...and less crippled), our St. Patty's Day celebrations mostly involve wearing a little green (if you remembered...or claiming that you have on green undies if you didn't) and eating an amazing meal of corned beef, cabbage, mashed potatoes, etc. 

This year, Tony and I got to double the celebratory eating, since a friend hosted an 

Irish-themed dinner that week. So, take everything that we ate with the kids and add on bangers and mash, an amazing beef stew, and multiple desserts. I'm hungry just thinking about it. Dang it was good.

Maybe next year I can find us a parade or something?

We've also had some spring visitors to our bird feeder...

...a family of deer.

If you count legs, you can see that there's a doe and three fawns/yearlings.

I thought the squirrels went through a lot of bird seed. They can't even compete with deer.

Jonny thinks we should put up a salt lick too.

Happy Fun Time

A lot of fun stuff going on this weekend.

I got exciting new 8oz jars for my yogurt/oatmeal/fruit breakfast stuff. AND plastic lids! 

I know, serving size containers are super exciting.

It's also fun to be able to reach into the fridge for your ready-made breakfast.

Annika had her last basketball game this weekend. I'm so proud of her for participating in the Young Women's basketball team this year. The hubby and I both hate basketball, so we are very impressed that one of our children is choosing to play it...and not under duress.

Go Team!

Since we have a week between dance classes (for Cozy) and Tony went to Annika's game, I got to spend some time sewing a scrappy heart quilt. I finished 7 whole hearts....so I should be done in another twenty uneventful Saturdays. Those happen so often too!

Well, now that I've begun, maybe I can hurry it along by sneaking in a few hearts here and there on weekdays?

Since I'm getting antsy for Spring, I went to Lowes and traded all of my spending money for plants and dirt.

I got a flat of little violas and some hens and chicks (to replaced the ones that died this las summer).

I also found some amazing clearance plants. Two purple anemones and some evergreen candytuft.

I actually had a $6 pot of candytuft in my cart when I came upon the rack of less-bloomy $1 pots! Yay! Three times as many plants for half the price. (I only regret not buying more.)

Most of the violas went around our tree in the front.

It was looking sad, sad. There are plenty of live plants there. Yarrow, day lillies, and irises. They've just barely started to grow again, so I thought the violas could tide them over.

I also moved my only two successful lavender starts from last year into that bed.

As disappointing as it was to only get two plants from the dozen I tried to grow, they are super-healthy, pretty lavenders. They're in way better shape than the six I bought from a nursery.

...and, to top off our Saturday, Cozette made us make pound cake. Her preschool teachers gave their class poundcake and strawberries for a snack on Friday....and she'd been obsessing about it ever since.

So we finally made poundcake, along with whipped cream and strawberries....

....so that Cozy could be happy again. ;)

Lovely Saturday.

How was yours?

And, in case you were wondering, yes, it is snowing again.

Bloomin' Snow

I felt bad about cleaning out my flower beds right before another snow (....as if some leaves and last year's dead plants were offering my Spring bulbs much protection).

But they seem to have made it through ok.

Today my crocuses even had bees on them.

...and I may have daffodils blooming this week! Yay - Spring!

...and why is everything so much work?

Some things just seem to take forever.

Right around Christmas, we needed to add one more bedroom to our home...for a friend who would be staying with us for several months. Since I'm pregnant...and my office/sewing room would need to be a nursery someday anyhow...we decided to move all of my sewing things into the basement and Sofia into a temporary bedroom/someday nursery.

Bleh.

There's my sewing table in it's new home.

Totally the easy part.

Then everything got piled in the middle of the office, so that the room could get a much-needed repainting.

(My office always looks something like that anyhow. Post-tornado. It's a valid style, right?)

Choosing paint colors for the baby - without knowing the gender of said baby.

I wanted something light and bright (...but not painfully bright).

Slowly painting the room.

The room with Sofia all moved in:

Then, of course, we realized it would be better to have Cozette and the baby downstairs and that Sofia would be a better roommate for Annika - upstairs. (I'm just consoling them with the fact that it's temporary!)

And - YAY! - we had one (hopefully) last snow day, where both of the strong men in our family were home and available/willing to move furniture!

Cozette's downstairs room. I think there is plenty of space for a crib too.

I do have a few more things left to do in there. I need to clear off the bottom 2 shelves of the bookcase....

....and fill it with all of these homeless children's books.

I also have to pick out colors for the baby's quilt...and a new one for Cozette (less pink, more coral/orange).

- so that I can repaint frames and hang stuff up!

Until then, at least the room is livable and play-able. I call that a victory.

A Lil' Heart Quilt

I have been so proud of myself lately. I've actually been making some of the billion things that I pin on Pinterest boards. Yea for me! 

I finally tried the "One-Pan Enchillada Pasta" recipe...which the children were all afraid of. It turned out like a much higher quality hamburger helper dish. Everyone liked it except for James...who threw up when he tried to eat it. That's not so much a comment on the dish, as it is on his sensitive gag reflex. James generally eats peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner, regardless of what the rest of us are eating.

When it was time for the cub scout dessert auction, I let Jon look through my "Yum" board for ideas.

I tried to steer him toward highly tasty desserts instead of highly decorative ones (which do actually sell better.) He chose Salted Caramel Cheesecake Bars (that I won in the auction!...and yes, they were amazing) and a Grasshopper Pie.(I doubled that recipe, so we're having it for dessert tonight.)

My "Quilt Ideas" board is also getting some use.

Cozy went to a friend's birthday party last weekend, and I managed to eek out enough time to make a gift.

Her friend said her favorite colors are red and orange, so I made her this little doll quilt with some scraps left over from Hannah's quilt and a little fabric from my stash.

Yes, I think I'm still in a valentines mood.

Besides, I wanted a pattern that made the fabrics girly enough for a 5-year-old girl.

I'm dying to make twenty more of these....or just one big quilt with lots of hearts.

We'll see what comes of that impulse.

Anyhow, this lil' darling was inspired by "Emily's Heart Quilt".

All tied up and ready to go.

...and there ya' go...Pinterest is no longer just a waste of my time. ;)

Who's adorable?

When I went to Ikea to get Tony's desk...the kids talked me into four or five stuffed animals (for the baby, of course) and this charming mushroom hat. I only wish I'd bought 2 of them. So cute and Mario-ish!

Speaking of cute, I'm a little concerned that Cozy has been the youngest child for too long already. Five years of being told how adorable she is have left their mark.

The other day I heard her talking to the cat.

She was saying, "Who is adorable? Who is adorable? You and me are! Yes we are!"

Silly cutie. I'm sure the baby will be getting plenty of this type of Cozy compliments.