Story of My Life

There will never be any need to write a biography of my life.

Someone could simply copy the book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, and he’d be good to go.

I came downstairs to quickly reorganize a couple of things for 2 reasons:
1. My sister just moved out, meaning her storage stuff is no longer on our basement. I was going to put a few things away and
2. My friend Katie has started an awesome resource in her basement. She’s collecting clothes and shoes, infant-big kid, boy and girl, so that when foster families get placements, they’ll have somewhere to go for necessities for the kids they’re taking in. I knew I had a box of clothes I could give her, so I was getting that out.

Should’ve been simple. And yet, I turned it into this:

Not pictured are the 2 large boxes headed to Goodwill, the 2 trash bags, and the heap of recycling.

I’ll be glad I did this when it’s done, but this wasn’t really the plan for the morning…

PS if you have things you’d like to donate to Katie, leave me a comment and I’ll put you in touch with her!

A Recap

Event causing the most stress: Luke’s science fair project. And what’s crazy is, he’s doing most of it at school, and it’s a really simple concept, so it shouldn’t be stressful! However, I think just me not having a good grasp of how it’s going combined with his general lack of being organized (but working hard at this) is resulting in him being a bit more snippy and emotional when I ask questions about it. Can’t wait until this is done.

Most potential to be life-changing: I downloaded the My Fitness Pal app. I know several people who have used it with a lot of success, so I’m excited to be getting started with it! In a lot of ways it doesn’t feel like a diet…just tracking what I do so I know where to make changes, if that makes sense. It’s really easy to use, and eye-opening in regards to how few calories I need to be taking in to lose weight.

Thing that goes with My Fitness Pal: 4/5 of our small group is doing the Color Run on April 27th. This will be so fun! (Well, as fun as running will ever be for me. Remember when I did that 5K a few years ago? Yeah. I’m not a runner.)

Sweetest kid comment: I was at a store with Jack Henry, looking at necklaces. I said, “Do you see anything pretty?” and without missing a beat, he said, “Yes” and smiled sheepishly. I asked what it was, and he pointed to me, grinning. Seriously. This kid is smooth.

Number of kid pedometers I pulled out of the hamper, accidentally deposited in there with dirty clothes: 3. Yes, each child did that once this week.

Most fun grown-up evening: Trivia Night to benefit our boys’ baseball league. Oh my goodness, I LOVED IT. I’ve said for so many years that my head is full of useless knowledge, and I’m not saying I was a superstar by any stretch of the imagination, but it was fun when I knew something someone else at the table didn’t know! And, the parents on B’s team, who we sat with, are fun people.

Best change made to the house: the long-awaited light fixture change happened yesterday! I’ll save the new fixture in the playroom for a different post, but here are the other three before and afters:

before

after. my very favorite change!

before. (these are for sale if you’re interested, btw)

after. LOVE! only problem is that we bought bulbs that are burn-your-retinas bright, so we have to get new ones tomorrow to fix that issue.

only an after for here…just changed out a boring builder’s-grade-ish light fixture for something more interesting. this was matt’s choice, and it’s actually an outdoor fixture!

One of Our Best Purchases Ever: The Ikea Chairs Story

Let’s take a little trip back in time, to mid-2002. You should be hearing Nelly songs in your head right now, and picture me driving a white Chevy Malibu.

We looked like this (I’m a 6-months-pregnant bridesmaid, but that dress hid my belly pretty well):

About 5 weeks later, though, in the spirit of full disclosure, I looked like this before an Illini game:

Clearly, not a flattering angle for a pregnant lady, but still…that is a whole lotta belly.

Anyway. In our snug little home of a little over a year, I was several months pregnant and nesting. I LOVED this house – it’s probably still my favorite of the 3 we’ve owned – but the layout of the 50+-year-old ranch was a little strange. Right as you walked in the front door, you were in a good-sized, open room that was to function as both a living room and dining room (because there was no room in the kitchen for a table). The real living room was in the finished basement, so that entry room had only a dining room table in it for 2 reasons:
1. We didn’t already own any furniture that fit in the small space.
2. We were poor.

However, with a baby on the way, I just hated the idea that there was nowhere comfortable to sit in our entire main floor of our house. I pictured friends coming over to see the baby, and having to sit at the dining room table or on a barstool in the kitchen didn’t sound OK to me.

So I begged and pleaded with Matt, and after doing some shopping, we settled on the super-cheapest furniture we could find and actually liked the look of: 2 Ikea Poang chairs (at $49.99 each, I think) and a Lack side table (the table was $9.99 10 years ago, too, but back then it was made of real wood, not plastic and fiberboard). In addition to being in our tight budget, it also fit in the small space we had to fill.

We joked about how inexpensive they were, and had the mindset that we’d just keep them as long as we had that house, and then if there was a place for them in the next house, fine, and if not, we’d just sell them at a garage sale. I did love having them there, especially that first Christmas with our newborn Luke, when I’d sit in one of those chairs and feed him by the light of the Christmas tree in the middle of the night.

Well, at the next house, they fit perfectly in front of the window in the office. And they stayed there for 6+ years. Despite being off-white, and having 3 baby boys, 2 who spit up profusely, they still looked pretty good. We only washed the slipcovers once at that house (due to marker on a cushion) which was enough – getting the covers back ON those chairs is a 2-person, involves-some-cussing-type task.

When we moved to this house almost 3 years ago, the Poangs and Lack came with us again, though a bit begrudgingly by now. Matt and I were both kind of sick of looking at them, but again, they fit in the corner of the office just fine. Plans and budget to buy other furniture for that spot were not in place, so it just seemed best to keep using them for a while.

So here we are 3 years later. No plans to replace those chairs right now, so when I took down the Christmas tree and put the room back together, I noticed how hideously dirty the covers were. Several marker marks, a really dirty spot from a shoe, and an pencil mark mysteriously in the shape of an x; I decided to wash them. I reminded Matt how horrible it was to get the covers back on, and I told him I’d likely need some help when they were clean and dry.

It took him doing most of the work to wrestle those covers back on, and then we decided to tighten up the screws on the chairs, which hadn’t been done in 10 years, so they were a little wobbly.

After all of that, I’m thinking they aren’t going anywhere for a few more years. In fact, I joked about sending them off to college with Luke when he has his first apartment. Which will probably actually happen, since we’ve kept them this long already…

15 Minutes

This morning, I got one of those “whoa, times have certainly changed” wake-up calls.

I had a meeting to be at 8:45 this morning, so I was going to need to leave the house, completely ready to go, earlier than I usually do. Luckily, the boys all woke up a few minutes earlier than they usually do, and when I got out of the shower, I found them already downstairs.

I informed them of my morning agenda, and said, “I could really use your help getting everything done this morning. You know, dishwasher, lunches, breakfast…”

They agreed without complaining (whaaattt?) and I told them I’d be back downstairs in 15 minutes, after I’d gotten myself ready.

15 minutes later, I could not believe my eyes when I got down to the kitchen.

Cereal, milk, bowls, spoons and cups were sitting on the bar, ready for breakfast.

A snack of pretzels was in a small container for each boy, along with a full water bottle.

Luke was sitting on a barstool in front of the microwave, having just finished completely preparing his and Bennett’s lunches, which consisted of a heated-up cheese tortilla wrap (put in their thermoses to stay warm until lunch), a container of applesauce, and a serving (slightly larger than I’d put in there, but HELLO, WHO CARES??) of Tostitos.

Oh, and the dishwasher was almost completely unloaded.

Most mornings, the boys are really helpful, doing parts of all of the things listed above. However, I had no idea they’d kill it like this when given the opportunity!

I mean, just 5 or 6 years ago, leaving the 2 of them alone for 15 minutes could have been disastrous. How far we’ve come

Pantry Makeover + DIY Shelf Liners for Wire Shelves

My to-do list, which I started making at the beginning of August with the boys prepping to go back to school, is l-o-o-o-n-g. It’s hard for me to prioritize because I want to work on them all, but I finally decided to start with a couple of smaller projects, so I can feel some sense of accomplishment, and move on to the bigger projects later.

Last week, Matt took the pantry doors off for me so that I could finally get the pantry looking like I want. When we moved in, we had a few rooms professionally painted, and one was the kitchen. However, the painters were on a pretty tight schedule (and we were/are on a budget!), and we opted not to have them do the inside of the pantry.

here’s the before…

In my mind, it didn’t matter much…the doors would be closed all the time anyway, right? I can practically hear your laughter now, and I realize my thinking was errant. At our old house, the doors to our pantry swung open into the kitchen, so there was no leaving them open; you literally couldn’t walk through that area with the doors open. Here, the doors are like a closet, on sliders. And one door is open 99% of the time.

So the scuffed, light yellow, poorly-painted walls have been irritating me for a long while now.

But the much, much bigger problem was the shelving. I’d love to have a chat with the guy (yes, I’m sure it was a man) who decided wire shelving in a pantry is a good idea. Here’s why it’s not:

1. Hard to clean.
2. NOTHING STANDS UP ON IT.
3. If something spills up high, every shelf below it gets hit. Like those 2 times the honey fell over (complaint #2) and dripped below. I found honey on things for weeks. Maddening.

I’d priced out some options, the simplest of which would be getting plexiglass cut to fit the shelves. Um, yeah. That was about $140 for 5 9″x58″ shelves. No flipping way. Option 2, also pricey and likely to never get done, was to replace them with wood.

So that left me with Option 3, officially titled, “Get Creative and Work This Out for $20 or Less.”

And I did. 10 pieces of white posterboard from the dollar store + 2 rolls of contact paper at Target = grand total of $18.09, with tons of contact paper leftover, because I had to buy a second roll for $5.99 and didn’t need that much. If you have wire shelving of your own and want a cheap and effective solution, here’s how I did it:

1. I cut the 28″ posterboard into (2) 8.5″ strips, and then added the additional 2″ from the leftover posterboard to the middle of the 2 longer pieces. I taped them together with packing tape.

step 1: create the posterboard layers.

2. Make a SECOND layer of posterboard the same length, except line them up short-long-long instead of long-short-long like the first one. Put a couple of pieces of packing tape around the edges to hold the 2 layers of posterboard together. It’s ok if this isn’t perfect…just do your best to cut straight lines.

3. Here’s where you’re going to want someone around to help you. Cut your contact paper to fit all the way around all sides of your shelf liner (because you can see the underside through the wires). Peel off the paper, and lay the layered posterboard on the end. Carefully stick one side down, smoothing as you go, and then do the other. Then, flip it over and try to work bubbles out of the front.

one strip on!

4. Remember to flip the liner back over, so that your seams can all go on the bottom of the liners. Repeat with additional pieces of contact paper until your entire liner is covered.

TIP: do not choose striped contact paper. Lining all of that up would drive you crazy.

I decided on dark grey for the inside of the pantry. Not only will it hide scuffs well, but it’s also a nice segue into the adjacent playroom/boys’ workroom, where the section below the {hated} chair rail will be getting the same color in the coming weeks or months.

i hadn’t seen clips for wire shelving like these before, where the wall anchor is built into the actual clip, therefore making them not exactly removable for painting. this was annoying, to say the least.

this was tricky…9′ ceilings but only 10″ of depth inside the pantry to get me and a ladder in to paint the higher parts…i only did what i absolutely had to, because this was not fun. also, blog world, meet my painting clothes. they’re pretty.

picture taken this morning, but this is what it looked like by 11:30pm, after many, many breaks and distractions. finished!

ta-da! of course, we have to put the doors back on, but my work here is finished. also, everything expired was thrown out, thus giving us more room.

these bottles used to have to be leaned up against something else so that they wouldn’t fall over. not anymore!

I’m so happy with the outcome, and even happier that I got it all done in one day with the help of my sister!

On Organization

It’s no secret that I love for things to be organized. Now, there are areas of our home that are not, and that’s primarily because I haven’t invested the time or money to get them that way, not because I don’t truly want them to be organized. Yes, it’s a tad OCD, but I have it under control, no worries.

—–

For whatever reason, God has blessed with me with a son who does not share my love for things being organized. Maybe it’s to teach me a lesson, I don’t know. Or maybe he was switched at birth (unlikely, since he had a large hematoma on his head from delivery, and I checked as we left the hospital that I had the kid with the giant red bruise on his head).

But it’s kind of driving me crazy.

Take this morning, for instance.

(Names will be changed to protect the not-so-innocent. We’ll call this kid John.)

John forgot last night to do his daily reading homework. On the 6th day of school, but who’s counting…we’re definitely still in getting-back-into-the-swing-of-things mode, so it was no big deal. He asked me to wake him a little early to get it done this morning.

I woke him at 6:10 (ouch), and he suddenly couldn’t find his book. That he’d brought home from the library 2 days prior. Areyoukiddingme? We searched all of the usual spots and couldn’t find it. Exasperated, I told him that a) if the book didn’t turn up, he’d be buying a new one for the library and b) to plan on spending a good deal of time this afternoon looking for it, since I knew for certain it was in this house. I reminded him that we’d specifically created a spot for bookbags, library books and the like near the door, and that was where everything was supposed to be.

I couldn’t get that stupid missing book off my mind, so I looked and I looked. I took a break and did some food prep (I like to do that in the morning if I can), and still couldn’t stop thinking about it, and looked some more. And then for some reason, I thought to check the upstairs bathroom stepstool, still in place for Jack Henry, because it has a hiding spot in it.

And wouldn’t you know it? The book was in there. Likely being read when John headed into the bathroom the morning before to get ready for school.

I gave him the good news when I picked him up today, and he was relieved but literally had no recollection of putting it there.

Sigh.

So I’m definitely aware that organization isn’t one of John’s strengths, and we’ve talked about this, and how I will definitely help him continue to work on this. However, personal responsibility is a big theme this year here and at school, and I want him to improve in this area. Just to paint a complete picture since I said I’ll help him: I’m not one of those moms that feels bad if he leaves an assignment at home or something like that and brings it up to him at school unless it’s completely my fault somehow…it’s his responsibility, and it will help him learn a lesson if there are consequences.

Have any of you dear readers been through (or are currently going through) raising a kid who’s a bit scattered on things like this? I’d love your tips and insight.

Or just your commiseration if you’re like me.

12 in ’12: Date 7

Phew. This date did not quite go as planned. But it was still fun, and it gave us an idea of another date (or, potentially, family outing), that we’d like to do soon!

The original plan was to go to a Cardinals game and then to Three Sixty, the downtown rooftop bar (I love rooftop bars/restaurants. A lot.). However, Matt had just gone to a game a couple of weeks ago, and we didn’t have tickets yet, so we just came up with another idea together, and that was that we’d go spend some time in Forest Park.

Specifically, we decided to go to 2 places we’d never been before: The St. Louis Art Museum (I know, it’s shameful that we’ve lived here 13 years and never been) and then The Boathouse for dinner (again, I know). We had a bit of a time limit, as we could only head down to the park around 2:15pm, and SLAM closes at 5, but since we’d never been, any time there was better than none.

80 degree day + Saturday in Forest Park = atrocious traffic and parking situations, but we worked it out, and walked about a 1/4-mile to the art museum, excited to explore something new when we arrived there around 3:15.

We spent 45 minutes walking through, admiring lots of cool (and let’s face it, some really freaking weird – see pictures later) art, impressed that for the first time in my life, I was standing feet away from Picassos and Monets and Manets and Seurats.

And then, it happened. Matt’s phone rang, and it was a local number, but not one that we recognized. He let it ring a time or two, and we decided he should answer it. Thank goodness we did…it was the dispatch service for our burglar alarm system, which was currently going off. And the police were headed to our house.

You know that feeling when your stomach falls and adrenaline starts rushing through your body? That.

We headed very quickly back to our car. I called my sister, who had the boys at a nearby park, and asked her to drive home immediately to meet the police, since she was easily 30 minutes closer to our house than we were. In the meantime, our neighbor, who I was just getting ready to call, called me to ask if I knew what was going on, and to tell me that my house had police all around it (dear neighbors, glad we could provide some entertainment on an otherwise-quiet Saturday afternoon in the ‘hood.).

Long story short, there appears to be no evidence that someone tried to break in…we think we had a faulty sensor on a window, which we’ll get checked out by our alarm company. Thankfully, this all got ironed out before we left Forest Park, and when it was evident that we didn’t need to meet with the police, we stayed where we were. Obviously, we’re super-relieved that it appears to have been a glitch and not a real issue, and thankful for our neighbors, the police, and my sister, who all jumped into action when it was needed.

So, it was too late to walk back to the museum at this point, and we were already hungry, so we headed for an early dinner at The Boathouse. Great atmosphere, very fair prices, great service and food that’s good enough…let’s face it; people are primarily going there for the location and the ambiance, not the food. Good servers make it good enough that we’d go back.

We ended the date by heading over to the Loop for a drink at the Moonrise Hotel’s rooftop bar, where the people watching was excellent. Loved that we could end our night out in totally relaxed fashion.

yay! we’re here!

heading into the museum…

there’s beautiful art like this, hundreds of years old and so detailed that it looks almost like a photograph…

and then there’s creepy stuff like this one, called, “Peace,” and described by the artist as being 2 children in an embrace. um, this looks like 2 kids making out. gross.

picasso!

max beckmann’s titanic piece…took this picture for luke, our titanic enthusiast.

1 of monet’s water lilies…you know, the one you had a poster of in college, right next to your anne geddes poster. don’t act like you didn’t.

finishing up the evening at the moonrise. i like him.

We got home early enough to be able to watch The Hunger Games, out on DVD yesterday! Seemed appropriate to watch it on another 12 in ’12 date (date 2 also involved watching this movie!), and it was fun to have my sister watch it with us, since she hadn’t seen the movie or read the book yet.

We’ll definitely be back to the art museum soon, as we didn’t get to see very much of it. Plus, it’s free!

Happy dating, friends

Resilient.

I love to hear stories of people overcoming odds to make a success of their lives somehow. These past two weeks of Olympics have been, of course, filled with stories of athletes overcoming poverty, abuse, injury, etc. to become elite athletes who make their countries proud.

Sidenote: Speaking of which, America? Embrace this guy. Who runs 200m with a completely broken fibula? Manteo Mitchell, that’s who. He felt a snap in his leg halfway through his leg of the 4×400, and didn’t even slow down. I hope he heals completely and returns to the Olympic stage in 2016.

OK, back to my point: resilience is an admirable quality. And we got our own little reminder about blooming where you’re planted, literally, these past few weeks.

As most of the country knows, we’re in a drought. It’s been bad here in St. Louis, with 3 or 4 total rainstorms that I can remember since late spring. I’ve watered this one area of our landscaping like crazy, where I planted tons of zinnias, some dahlias (seriously the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever grown), a raspberry bush, some onions (random, I know, but they grew well), and some sunflowers.

In early July, we had a huge storm one evening, and the morning after, I went out to the garden area to find tons of my plants knocked over. The 2 tallest sunflowers were, at the time, in the vicinity of 3 feet tall. They weren’t broken at the base, so I left them in hopes that they might upright themselves after a couple of days of sun. Didn’t happen.

But the coolest thing did start happening.

Though laying down, they started growing upwards again.

sorry for the weird cropping, but this little cutie wanted in the picture, and i didn’t realize i’d photographed our street sign, so i cropped it out.

And this week, they bloomed. This largest one that I took pictures of actually has 8 blooms on it, with 3 open now. Isn’t that cool?

doesn’t make for the prettiest garden, but i’ll take it, anyway!

So there you have it…my cheesy, kumbaya reminder to do what you’re born to do. Bounce back from adversity stronger than you were before.

He Can Never Leave Again.

Last weekend, Matt and 4 friends of his went to the Lake of the Ozarks. It was the group of guys from our small group, and we wives were happy that they finally planned something and actually did it, since we annually make a fall trip to Chicago and have no qualms about leaving them home for the weekend with the kids.

Friday night was great…4 of the 5 of us girls (one couldn’t find a sitter – boo) who were left behind got sitters/family members to watch our kids, and we went for pedicures and then dinner. Lovely start to a weekend alone with the kids.

And then that night, there was a huge, loud thunderstorm. Normally, I love storms if they’re not accompanied by a tornado, but I have to admit that I love them less when Matt’s not here*. As of last spring, the boys were champs at sleeping through storms, but since we’ve not had any for so long, two of them woke up and came into my room to sleep. So from about 4:15 on, no one slept great. Oh well…not a big deal.

We spent the morning around the house, with me working on laundry and etsy stuff and getting the boys’ fall clothes out to see what we had. Around 10:30 I opened the blinds to discover this:

Someone had vandalized our landscape lighting. Tore all of the posts out (they even stuck one out in the middle of the yard), and ripped all the wiring from underground as well. I was so angry I was shaking. I just don’t understand why…why is it fun to destroy someone’s property? While theft is a horrible thing to be a victim of, at least I understand the mentality that someone wants what I have, so they take it from me. But destruction simply for the sake of destruction? I don’t get it. And from my discussion with a police officer and my neighbors, I found out that this has been going on in various forms in our neighborhood a lot lately…paint in people’s fountains, paintballing cars and sidewalks, busting out car mirrors, etc. Not cool.

We’re hoping to be able to reuse the light fixtures, and the wiring was at least not ripped from the wall, so the electricity should still work throughout. Sigh.

Saturday’s stress gave me a lovely fever blister that I’m still fighting.

Just as I was ready to settle in for a quiet night of watching the Olympics and working on etsy stuff, I realized that the storm that I’d seen on the radar earlier was not going to pass south of us, but rather, it was coming straight through. Luckily, it lost a bit of steam as it made it to our area, but it was still a huge storm. Super thankful for the rain…not thankful for that one bolt of lightning that hit my DVR, thus wiping out all recorded TV shows/movies. Tomorrow, I get to wait for the Charter repairman. Yay.

So. Clearly, this happened because Matt was gone.

All of this is behind us now, and I’m looking forward to the week ahead…our last before school starts!

*I was going to write a whole separate post about this, but let’s be honest, I stink at blogging lately, and it might not happen. My sister WAS here both nights with me, which I’m so thankful for! Hayley’s living with us for a couple of months as she transitions out of her old job and into school and a new job. Later this fall she’ll be moving into her own place again, but in the meantime, we are LOVING having her live with us! This completes the Pals sibling trifecta of all 3 of them living with us at some point.

My Greener Thumb.

Not green thumb just yet, but greener. Things other than kids are growing and thriving around here!

Here’s how the landscaping looked late last summer, right after planting:

sorry it's so dark...this was taken early in the morning.

After it was all planted last fall, we had to spend a serious amount of time watering everything…every plant, at the base, watered 4 times a week. It took a sweet forever every time I watered for the 2 months before fall came, but it was worth it. Only 1 plant didn’t come back up, and 1 more is struggling but may make it. I also had to dig out 2 catmint that should never have been planted where they were; they got GIANT by early April and would have eventually taken over everything (plus, CATMINT? Yuck. The last thing I want is something attracting cats to my yard.). I sold them on Craigslist and replaced them with calla lilies that are struggling a bit…we’ll see if they make it.

tulips in march…they were so pretty! totally worth the effort last fall.

sad tulips, planted too close to the basketball hoop. all 3 ended up like this :)

the japanese snowbell that i was afraid wasn’t going to make it last year! it’ll get pruned this fall so it’s not such a weird shape. i didn’t want to put any stress on it last fall by cutting it…it was a bit fragile.

japanese snowbell up close

knockout roses! i’ll have to keep cutting these back to keep them a reasonable size.

pretty coral bells

lavender! and lots of it! i’m going to cut and dry some to have inside.

experimental gardening corner

hopefully this results in some good eats!

tall trees!

Also, that coral bells? That’s its 4th home in 2 years at my house, and it’s still thriving! I hope it makes it here, because I really like it.

Next: back corner. Perfect little area for planting, right? We had a too-large-for-the-space tree removed from here after we moved in, and did nothing last year except plant that raspberry bush in the fall. This year, I removed the rock (er, shoveled a lot of it under the fireplace area), added soil, and planted a bunch of stuff: sunflowers and zinnias, all just coming up from seeds now*; 2 strawberry plants; lots of onions; and some spring-and-summer-blooming bulbs that I can’t remember. Odd mix for this, I realize, but I wanted to see what kinds of stuff did ok in here, and what gets eaten by wildlife.

(Not pictured) On the side of the garage, there was nothing when we moved in. I planted 2 clearance Rose-of-Sharon plants here 2 autumns ago, and they’re doing ok. But what I’ve always wanted was a big row of hydrangeas, and now I’ve got them started (though, I must admit, they aren’t looking that great so far). I told Matt that for Mother’s Day this year, I wanted hydrangeas. He sent me to the store to get them, and I planted them last week (he would have helped; I was impatient). I can’t wait to see these fully bloomed and 4 feet tall!

Last area: the container garden! Not much started here made it to planting outside: only the jalapenos and 1 green pepper plant and 1 basil. The rest I bought at the greenhouse. Also, the boys’ trees. Mercy, I do NOT want another tree throwing helicopters into my yard. Who wants them when it’s planting time? (Zach – I vote for you, for the very back part of your yard. Or Dad, maybe we could take them out to the ground and plant them there!)

*well, they were all coming up. My sweethearts “weeded” the garden yesterday, and plucked probably 50 zinnias that were 2″ tall out of the ground. Per Jack Henry: “Luke said, ‘I’m going to be so mad at myself if these are flowers.’” However, no one came to check with me. UGH. I just threw down all of the remaining seeds, hoping they’ll sprout, too. It should be beautiful mess come July.