summer catch up, or ketchup

well ketchup really has nothing to do with it... though we do like the french fries around here...

so, i was looking through some pictures from the last month and realized how remiss i have been in my posting. so, here's a quick review of our photoed summer activities thus far:


we spend a lot of time on our front porch and lawn- it's just more accessible than the back yard and the kids love riding their "bikes" back and forth on the sidewalk.


of course, the back yard does look a bit unruly this year... this picture was right before john spent a couple of days mowing it down. it's better now.


when it's sunny... which has been rare, we love to hit the parks and beaches in the area. here's jetty at lake meridian. we're actually headed there again today after jett wakes up from his nap.


and on the other 5 to 6 days of the week, when it's not sunny, we find other ways to entertain ourselves. apryl and ella were here about a month ago and we headed down to point defiance zoo and aquarium for the day. lucy and ella had a great time making faces at the animals and the camera... sorry, apryl, i think lucy may have taught ella the habit...


here's lucy making me lunch. yummy, pickles and watermelon! so, when is it that little girls learn that tilting their heads to the side for photos is cute... is it innate? all of a sudden she's picked it up. i'll take it over the "silly" face she's been using constantly lately.


and, here's a lunch i made for her. i think she might have some high expectations with sandwhich possibilities. lately i have been asking her what kind of sandwich she wants and then it's my challenge to create it... butterflies, robots, and hearts are one thing, but the monkey she asked for the other day was a bit sketchy.

yard sale serenade

it was a lovely saturday last weekend, so we cleaned out the garage and set up a yard sale in our front lawn. john's parents, who are down sizing, brought bundles... and bundles of garage sale goodness as well. (we politely expressed surprise at finding evidence of past gifts from one another among our piles of discard. heehee.) by the end of the day we were all exhausted, and though somewhat profitable a turn out, i don't think this adventure will be repeated anytime soon...

i will say that the best part of the day was spending time with family; lindsy and kurt helped immensely with set up and playing with the kids as we attempted organization, and larissa and abby showed later in the day to lucy's especial delight. i also scored some great finds from gisela's stash: a bunch of spools of thread, a stack of vintage disney record covers that i'm going to frame for the kid's room, and a hand painted russian wooden figurine with red hair and blue eyes (like lucy goosey) were my favorites.

3 year old bloggers! oh my!

lucy's been taking a lot of pictures lately, and they're surprisingly interesting. well, i don't know why i'm surprised, a 3 year old's perspective on things should be fascinating. anyway, i decided to give her her own blog as a sort of journal/portfolio/archive of her creative adventures... we'll see where it goes, but for now you can see what she's been up to at:

www.2blueeyes.blogspot.com

abloom with lovelies

the previous owners of our house, true masterminds, decided that they didn't want to worry about upkeep of landscaping, or perhaps they just got a hold of a chainsaw and could find nothing better to lay waste to.... whatever the reasoning (i'm assuming actually that reasoning had little to do with it), they completely mowed down every growing thing besides grass on the property. (they then decided to park their cars on the front lawn to save them those five extra feet to the street- but that's another story)- the before and after shots of the interior of our house are one thing, but our landscaping has finally matured enough that come spring/summer we're abloom with lovelies. you've missed the daffodils, camellias, bluebells, hyacinth, lilacs, flowering cherry and plum trees, and possibly the peony (they may have come and gone while i was in arkansas.... i'm no gardening expert, i just like looking at and painting flowers)- but right now there are some real beauties...

the clematis over the door smells amazing, and i love the tumble of flowers.
we keep trying to prop it up... right now it looks great, but come fall it's a spider haven- yikes!

the irises have made a good showing this year... i think their tubers really need separating, but i'm scared to do it on my own... anyone want to help?

i'm not really sure what this one is, could be a weed, but it's really pretty.

mexican orange, can't remember it's official name, we planted this one.
the whole yard is a mix of things we've planted and the random branches and clumps that survived the hacking. probably actually did some of them good.

the snowball tree! my favorite- i especially love flowers that manifest themselves in giant balls for some reason... and this one goes from a fantastic lime green to these beautiful stark white masses.

rhodies are incredible out here. there's a rhododendron garden in federal way which i visit a couple times a year (at weyerhauser for the locals) which is truly beautiful. we have three thriving rhodies in our yard, i love the color of this one.

i'm pretty sure this one is a weed... but again lovely.
at least there are some flowers around that are ok for lucy to pick!

part of the reason we painted our house gray was because i love the contrast of green plants to this shade. these red barked flowering dogwood look particularly nice against it i think.

i'm sure eddie agrees. meow!

and last, and probably least, we have dandelions in full force. i actually still think they're amazing looking, the whole flower ball thing.
lucy can pick these to her hearts content... and she does.

228 pictures

fphew! 228 pictures! i got back from visiting my parents in arkansas a week and a half ago, and that's how many pictures i keep staring at trying to figure out how to make a post out of them.

we had a great time. arkansas in april/may is really beautiful. the green-ness is lush. i love the trees. they are huge and heavy with massive tumbles of bright green leaves, which are balanced out by the thickness and brightness of grass and other growth on the ground. i'm not trying to be poetic, i just can't think of how to describe the color of it. i love it. i remember when i first visited seattle, and subsequently decided to stay, seeing that same encompassing, embracing green-ness and having that comforting, being home feeling.

needless to say, i didn't visit arkansas for the trees... ,or to visit the "famous" toad suck daze, or for the half price cherry lime-aids at sonic between 2 and 4 every day. though i enjoyed all of these things, the best part of the trip was spending time with my family. i love laying on the sofa with my head in my mother's lap talking until 3 am while she picks through my hair. and i love sharing my children with the places and people i love, and sharing these places and people with them.
lucy and jett have no idea, however, that this trip wasn't just for them. they ran around all over the yard, played at parks, went to the zoo, and were cuddled and coddled by everyone within reach. (well... besides the time at the zoo, when jett was being hailed as an "abandoned child" by a worried teenager who found him unattended in his stroller in front of an exhibit... she may have overreacted a bit, we were only feet away)-

speaking of the zoo, it was in memphis, where we drove for a quick trip to see my brother craig and his family. cheri, his wife, is having their fourth kidlet in 2 days! go cheri! they are such an awesome family, and the little time i get to spend with them here and there is always so much fun. lucy and jett were thrilled to be able to play with their older cousins bryce and jared. then there's alana, she and lucy ran around like two peas in a pod... lucy can get up to some pretty good mischief and alana was only too willing to go along.

and, back to the zoo...

the memphis zoo has a wonderful carousel, all the animals are different endangered species- and they are beautifully carved and colored. jared showed off with some great trick riding! grandmother's sweet ride was an equal hit though.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

john joined us about halfway through our trip- it was great to have him there. lucy especially had missed her daddy, and i know john was glad to have a little vacation, even if arkansas has a bit too much humidity and a few too many bugs for his taste. we celebrated john's 34th birthday and jetty's 1st that week! i so much love both my boys. and, just slightly less, i love the all-american chocolate cake from costco. yummmm.

sandy and family also joined us from texas. lucy was so excited about them coming. all week before they got there she'd ask, "can we go to texas now to play with ava and penelope?". actually she's still saying that. i only wish we could. i love my sister and i don't get to see her nearly often enough. we always watch closely to see if lucy and ava will have an innate bond because of the closeness that sandy and i share... we'll see.., but they do have a great time together.

(so much for a picture of the four of us!)

jetty and penelope had fun too... they bonded over their interests of watching their older sisters, eating, and chewing on various things.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

and then there was toad suck daze.

i'm not even going to try to explain, but if you're curious, go here. the weather was warm, the people fascinating, and the food wonderfully fried and delicious. john believes in making the most of fair food, so we like to try a little of as much as we can stomach. we had fried cheesecake, a corn dog, fried chicken on a stick, fried pickles (my favorite, and worth a trip to arkansas on their own), a fried twinkie (surprisingly tasty), and a rootbeer float. we passed up on quite a few other delectable fares and for a full run down of the fried goodness check out sandy's blog.


lucy and john even tried their hand at toad racing- their toad may not have been the champ they hoped, because certainly their skill couldn't have been lacking.

waiting for the race to start. "three! two! one! TOAD!"

i love this picture of john diving after "two-pac", the name lucy chose, he had his own agenda.
(john would have to repeat this move after the race when two-pac dives for cover under the toad master's golf cart- heehee!)

back on the track, the race is over...
only 2 feet from the starting line, two-pac is now refusing to move...

well, it was good times anyway!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

of course, eventually we had to come home. so we packed up our sunburns and the fancy new sandles my mom bought me (thanks again mom!) and headed to the airport. it's always hard for me to say good bye to my parents. seattle is just too far away, and as my family gets bigger it's getting harder to travel to see them. thank goodness for free in-network calls on our cell phones. seriously, i often include gratitude for this in my prayers.

lucy decked out in her travel outfit, she insisted on the hat.