spring plantings

Now that most of my spring tree and bush planting is finished, i was finally tabulating up what i had managed to get planted this year. I've been awfully busy trying to get everything in the ground as soon as it gets here, and things stayed dormant for a bit longer than normal due to the late ice-storm coming through. However, now i'm at least getting to see the budding and get confirmation that the plants are, in fact, still alive! A watched me plant the apple trees, and comment that she didn't think it was a tree - it just looked like a stick to her ;-) She's highly impressed now that there's actual leaves forming on it. And yes, as you can see, it's a shrimpy little twig, but at least it'll be easier to acclimate to my hillside, and won't go into quite as much shock as a large transplant would.


I've still got my strawberry bed growing, it's almost time to gut it and put in all new plants,... but i'm trying to eek one more year out of the current plants, which are runners from 2 years ago. AND,... i haven't had any problems with the kids picking the 'flowers' this year!! (they've got plenty of dandelions to spend that urge on!)


The biggest project this spring was tilling under the front area along the house and the sidewalk, and then planting blueberry bushes both there, and next to the retaining wall, and i even planted some ground-cover blueberry shrubs on the back hill. All total, i planted 16 blueberry bushes!! We'll see what kind of return we get though, with the wild-life we've got around here. My vegetable garden this spring has been getting decimated by the rabbits - it's almost incentive enough to get a dog!


I also got quite a few trees planted - 2 apple trees and 2 pear trees in the front side yard. And then 2 walnut trees and 2 hazelnut trees in the backyard. I don't know how the ones in the backyard will do with the clay soil we have, and also being in the midst of the area where the kids play, but they at least seem to be leafing out. Their leaves are an interesting thing to watch form and unfold. I love going back there to see the new growth.


The last planting project for this spring was for that strip of ground behind the garden. It was a royal PAIN to plant, as i had to dig and trace back the thorny bush/tree that kept coming up back there. It had a strong root system that just permeated the whole area - it took me hours to dig it out and trace it back through the ground. It'd been trying for the past 3 years to get rid of that thing: cutting it back everywhere it came up and then using stump and vine killer - but it just KEPT coming back! Hopefully i've taken care of it now - but it was a vicious battle. Anyway, once i got out the roots, i planted 9 cherry bushes back there - 5 Hansen's Bush Cherries, and 4 Sugar Sweet. They had buds and sprouts on them when i put them in the ground, however, we had a late freeze that shriveled them up, but they're coming back now. I'm very thankful for reisilient plants!! Now we'll just see if i can maintain my upkeep on everything. Maybe i'll start farming off some of the tasks to the kids - It'd be good to teach the kids where their food comes from!

A's family birthday

A started off her birthday celebration with a delivery from daddy. A just LOVES flowers, so he went and got her some 'REAL' flowers from the store, and we put them in a vase for her.







Then we headed into the cake festivities. I'd used the leftover cake batter from the party cupcakes to make a couple of heart- shaped cakes, and then used them to make a butterfly; A LOVED it, and enjoyed it even more when she figured out that i'd hid her age and name into the patterns. And,... YES, that food tray should look VERY familiar to the siblings - and NO, to all you non-siblings, i DIDN'T take it. (my PARENTS did! ;-)





We let D light the candles on the cake, which really made HIS day!

[sigh] My little budding pyromaniac ;->





A got 3 cards on the day of her birthday - one from the primary presidency (YEAH! - my counselors are AWESOME!), and one from each set of grandparents. All of the kids are ecstatic when they get a piece of mail addressed just to 'them,' so A was appropriately excited. Inside the envelope, Grandma Rose had included a necklace. A, of course, had to immediately put it on and ogle herself in the mirror. I'm glad Gram R had thought of that - i'm not much into 'pretty' jewelry, so sometimes i neglect that in my gift giving. A was pretty enthused about the necklace and had to wear it to school the next day (waking me up at 6:30am so i could help her put it on!)






We had to teach Grandpa Paul how to do the 'heavy, heavy hang,' although i must admit, A was quite un-inventive in her wish-giving. Paul got wished good health, but i think all the kids got 'grow up big and strong' :-)








Paul and Linda had gotten A the stuffed animal from the feature films for families -'Tiny Hero'; she snuggled right up with it the whole evening, and kept it in her arms throughout the night-time rituals and into bedtime.

EVERYBODY needs a stuffed animal!

my first MAJOR birthday party!

So, i've thrown together family get- togethers, organized quarterly primary activities, and hosted play group at my house. But this has been the first BIG party that i've thrown for one of my kids. A's birthday isn't until next week, but this weekend worked out best for us to have a party. I was honestly amazed at how stressed i was getting about having this party!! How can i have done so many other things similar, and yet still be so stressed out and filled with angst over it.

It took me a while, but i think i finally figured out why it was so worrisome for me. Kind of a combination of factors: Growing up, we rarely had a birthday party,... and if we did, it was VERY sparsely attended (stress # 1 - is April going to be disappointed/unhappy at her OWN party?!) Although i wasn't concerned about decorating, I was a little concerned about leading the activities with C and E hanging off my legs, and D pestering me in front of everyone (stress #2 - my OTHER kids!) I also had vague worries about the kids not enjoying the activities, and somebody getting hurt, or kids fighting, or something going wrong - GEEZ!! I got to the point that i felt i just didn't NEED this kind of stress; so to pre-empt any of this stress later on,... i told D that we'd give the money to him for his birthday (that we would have used for a party) if he chose NOT to have a party! ;-)

Well, all that stress was for nothing, it turned out WONDERFULLY. To avoid any concerns about sparse attendance, A invited both church and school friends. We had 4 come from church with 2 younger siblings in tow, and we had 6 come from school with 2 younger sibling tag-alongs. So, all total, we had 14 kids. Several had to come late or leave early, but that worked out well. Now, luckily (avoiding my 2nd stress), I was able to farm off the two younger siblings to one of my church friends, and then she offered to take along D too as she had an older boy to play with him - I was in HEAVEN! I LOVE that lady!! I got to concentrate on the party and on A without any of that extra stress. We did have one of my container carriers of cupcakes overturn - but that was O.K. because we'd had some people not able to stay the whole time, so 12 cupcakes was just perfect! And we also had one little girl go into a chocking fit, but My dear hubby and some people from church helped out. I ended up having a couple of parents offer to help with all those extras: taking pictures, passing out plates, germ-X-ing hands, etc. I was SO impressed with the help everyone gave me! In hind-sight, I should have delegated some of the activities and help out prior to the party (which is what makes primary activities so much easier - you've got the whole presidency helping - not just ONE person!) I learned a lot about delagating through this party!!

So,... the run-down of the party - which I went into prepared to the GILLS! (helping me to cope with the stress and worry ;-) We had some gathering activities first - a "guess how many candies" jar, and a decorate your own 'bugs' (butterflies, dragonflies, and bumblebees) activity, and then we used our bugs to play a 'pin the bug on the flower' game. I laminated the flower so that I could use it again in primary; getting the most use out of my excessive prep. Next we had pizza - which I actually HAD delegated off for M to pick up (a big THANK YOU!! to my loving hubby!) We went straight from that into our treasure hunt, which went MUCH faster than I expected!! A and D had helped me decide where to put things, and it took a LOT longer to set-up than for them to finish it! We had 11 different clues, the last one leading to the disguised pinata, which we then hung up and had a blast allowing them to knock down. It was a flower pinata that I had made it myself (although with the amount of time I put in making it - I should have just bought the $20 one from the store! ;-), and I chose to have them slug at it with a baseball bat and NO blindfold! (we make our pinatas WELL) It was a good call, as even with allowing them to hit it straight on, it still took about 20 hits to open up!

After the pinata, I added to their 'goody' bag by adding in bubbles and telling them to go play. Some of them had fun with the bubbles, and some chose to go play on the playground - but they all seemed to have a good time. A and I had chatted previously about her 'hostess' duties and making sure nobody was left out and that everyone had a good time; she did an awesome job at it! I was finally able to catch my breath and chat with the other parents, figure out who had won the candy jar, and take pics of the kids. It was at about this point that A came up to me and said that this was the BEST party she'd gone to EVER, and that she was the HAPPIEST girl in the WORLD! Ahhhh,..... the things that make it all worth it!

I called them back in for cupcakes (when i totally FORGOT to use the candles I brought, and totally neglected having them sing Happy Birthday to A *doh!*) And then we opened up presents - she got a HAUL! I'm going to have to get her a container just for 'HER' toys!! We finished off with a kite activity I found on the internet. 20 kites for 20 kids, in 20 minutes. They use a standard sheet of typing paper, a small bamboo skewer, plastic flagging tape, and kite string. It was a little hectic to begin with (note to self - delegate more!!) But some of the parents pitched in, and it turned out fine. The kids all made their kites and then ran their energy out for the rest of the party until they headed home. All in all, it was a GREAT party, and i really shouldn't have worried so much about it. I really need to remember: 'it will all pan out in the end. Dont' worry - be happy!'

New night-time rituals...

With My dear hubby's dad in town for a visit, i've moved all of the kids into one room to free up a 'spare' room for him. It works out o.k. where the kids are all still pretty young - they just view it as a perpetual sleep-over party. However, this does make for some rather entertaining bed-time issues. I still put the kids to bed @ 8PM, and then i'll sing songs with them (review the primary songs for the year, etc.), but then i can't LEAVE the room, or things will get WAY out of hand. So, i've taken to setting up my little piano light in there, and practicing the guitar until they finally drift off. The kids think it's pretty fun, and i do have my own cheering section (literally!) The negative comes in that the boys fall asleep within a half hour, but the girls will hang on as much as 2 hours later!! It's taking a toll on my poor little fingers; I'm sure it'll be great in a couple of weeks when i've built up some calouses, but until that happens, i think i might start reading my own scriptures in their room after i do a half hour of practice. It's either that, or invest in some finger-tip bandaids ;-)

Easter Sunday

A had so much fun dressing up for Easter Sunday this year. One of the families I teach piano lessons to loaned her a dress for Sunday, and A just felt like a princess! We bought new shoes the week before, dressed her up, curled her hair, and had a marvelous time letting her primp ;-) Church went wonderfully, and she got many compliments, so she was bouncing off the walls with happiness.

After church, we headed home for Easter dinner (venison roast and veggies - ya gotta love KY!) We let D and A help hide the little ones' easter baskets, and they had almost as much fun doing that as they did finding their own baskets. D was the one who had the roughest time finding his basket (i LOVE being sneaky to the mischievous kids!)

Then we had the rip into the baskets fest, and the aftermath, which was somewhat like Christmas: Wrappings, toys, and candy all OVER the house! The favorite toy for this holiday was the 'ball launchers' that i'd picked up for each of them at walmart; even my dear hubby got into that one!

I was pressed a little for time in prepping for this easter, so i cheated and used a pre-prepared basket as the 'base' for each of the kids, and then added things to it to individualize them more. One of the things i LOVED about the baskets were the cute hats that came with each one. I'm a sucker for hats on little kids! C, in particular, enjoys wearing hers around,... she woke up this morning SO upset because she couldn't find it!!


Of course we had to have the requisite easter egg coloring. I took TONS of pictures of all 4 of the kids together, and this is the only one that even turned out halfway decent. It's MUCH easier to take individuals; speaking of which,... we haven't had a family picture since before C was walking; we're going to have to get on the BALL!

Spring Break!

Monday - we went to Kid's Place up in Lexington! We picked up a friend, which made me as the only adult, with 5 kids under the age of 8 to keep track of. We set up our buddy system, and had a marvelous time!

D found a friend his age, and had an awesome time playing tag and chasing through the various obstacle courses. He's much more gregarious and social than I EVER was as a kid.



C's favorite area was the ball pit! she spent 3 quarters of the whole time in there. I was able to convince her to come build 'houses' with me out of the large blocks.



A was a HUGE help to me! She 'buddied' with the hardest kids, and helped me keep track of and entertain everybody, and distract them to another activity in case of imminent melt-down. My munchkins did allright, but our extra tag along (E's age) wasn't used to being THAT active for such an extended period of time; she was WAY ready for a nap by the time we finished up.

E enjoyed everything, and was much more active and outgoing than the last time we went. He finally overcame his fear of the fire-man's pole, and did multiple rounds on every area. However, his love for the evening was playing the games with his tokens. His absolute favorite was playing toddler air-hockey with our tag along friend, and running a close second was the candy crane-game, where he could direct the crane to pick up and drop off candy for him.

A's class at school has been incubating eggs, and some of them just started hatching yesterday (April fool's day) She was SO excited when she came home! She had to draw a picture of the chicks (named, of course), and herself to commemorate the occasion. It fascinates me how she drew corner picture frames also; she does love her art!!