Riley and Avery

I'm not a failure afterall! Who knew? All the bean plants came up (four) and I had to pull two (the tap roots were like 8 inches long!). The radishes are still growing strong. I'll plant another crop shortly before leaving for MD so that whoever watches our house can have some. The carrots just came up, they look like little blades of grass. I have no idea how I'll thin them. Guess I'll wait a while for them to get bigger so my clumsy fingers don't pull them all out by accident. I'm not confident that many carrots will come up since the squirrels dug around in there pretty well. We'll take what we can get! One cantaloupe plant is just peeking through. I had to look very closely to see it. All four cucumber plants are in, and I am supposed to pull two, but am waiting to see which ones are strongest. They're fine for now.

I think we're the only people in the neighborhood growing stuff. The garden is of great interest to the neighborhood children. In fact, we had an incident a few days ago. Riley was playing in our house with Matthew and I noticed that something dug in our garden again. Matthew said that when he was in the toy room, he looked out the window and saw a boy in a green sweater digging in the garden. Like an idiot, I believe the little liar (Matthew lies ALL THE TIME!) and get myself all worked up. He and Riley go around the neighborhood on their bikes looking for the offending green-sweater-clad boy. Later that night I'm putting he girls to bed and the first thing I notice when entering the toy room is that the blinds are closed (as they usually are since the sun rises through that window and I like to steal as many extra minutes in the morning as possible). Then I realized that it is impossible for a child of Matthew's height to see down into the garden from that window. And, afterall, why wouldn't he have said something as soon as he "saw" a kid digging in our garden? Why did he wait until later to say something? Ugh, lying children drive me crazy. But at the end of the day, I still feel sorry for him. In a family with 5 children 6 and under, I'm sure lying is his way of getting much-needed attention.

I made homemade granola this morning. I WILL get the girls to eat healthier if it kills me (and it might!)! Plus, Rudi saw the cardiologist last week and was told that he should weigh a maximum of 170 pounds, so he needs to lose 43 pounds. I have visions of my children eating fresh berries layered with yogurt with granola on top. Yeah, we'll see. It was fun and easy to make and smelled fabulous while baking. Yum. It was a rather strange recipe. I never realized all the stuff that goes into granola (oats, wheat germ, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, coconut, dried fruit, almonds, honey). I actually went to Whole Foods for the ingredients because, believe it or not, buying from the bulk section of Whole Foods is much cheaper than buying from a grocery store. MUCH cheaper. And blackberries were on sale there for 99 cents (where is the cents symbol on modern keyboards? I miss it!)

Update: Riley is eating my "vision" right now and loves it! Score! We'll see what Rudi thinks when he wakes up.

I've been sewing like a madwoman lately. I've made, I think, two skirts for each of the girls, and some for Abby and Veronica too. I'm working on ones for Riley and Abby now. It's fun. Although I think I'm addicted. I especially spend way too much time on eQuilter.com looking at fabrics and adding to my wish list. I'm silly. Perhaps I'll get a few after the 1st of the month. I'll have to pare down the list, of course!

So, what's up with the rain? We are in COLORADO for heaven's sake!! It has been thundering and raining everyday for a while and will continue to do so everyday until June 2nd according to the weather channel. Yippee. The girls take every opportunity to play outside, rain or no rain. I shouldn't complain, though, since it's amazing how much better the garden grows after natural rainfall. And we do need the moisture. But, seriously, every day? Sheesh.

Riley's last day of school is on Wednesday, and then we have a potluck picnic on Thursday. It's scheduled to rain. That'll be a barrel of fun. I'm doing the calligraphy for the Kindergartner's diplomas again this year.

Well, I'm done. I'll try to take and upload pictures of the skirts later.