Four!

For those who were confused by the title of a similar post last year--I am NOT pregnant. Shannon just turned 4! Here she is with her Sailor Moon cake (a stupid, slightly obscure Japanese cartoon that she adores).I tried my hardest, and though I don't really think it looks much like Sailor Moon, Shannon was excited and knew exactly who it was.Here she is opening one of her presents:

Here she is with her "pinoculars." The pajamas are hand-me-downs. Don't worry, she has never seen "High School Musical" and won't ever see it if I have anything to do about it. And here is a short video of her opening her Ariel Barbie. She had a great birthday!

Flora and Fauna

Here is one of my little friends. We have more mourning doves in our neighborhood than I have ever seen anywhere else. In the evening there are usually 4 or 5 on our front lawn.I love how many birds we have here! Ok, so I could do without the starlings, but whatever. They like to line up on our fence like this.This is called a circumhorizon arc. I have seen them before, of course, but this one was very bright and pretty. The birdfeeder in the picture usually has at least 4 birds on it. They clean out all of the seeds in about 3 days.We had a fabulous thunderstorm come through when Shannon was in bed one night. She came running out of her room yelling, "Mom! There's a rainbow outside my window!" I took her out on the porch so that she could see it better and we watched the lightening for a while. You would have thought it was the 4th of July!My miniature wax plant recently bloomed like crazy. There was a cluster of flowers on almost every single vine. Here is a close-up of the flowers. They look like porcelain and glass and they have a very light perfume. Fun!Here is the bane of my gardening experience so far this year. Looks harmless, right? And it even makes pretty little yellow flowers.Now take a closer look. This is called a puncture vine. It makes all of these little burrs (they are the seeds) that dry up and become as hard and sharp as tacks. I spent several days going very carefully over my yard removing these, and I pulled enough to fill half of a black garbage bag. Crazy! Here is what my leg looked like after a wheelbarrow full of sod tipped over on it. The bruise actually got even darker a few days later. It was pretty cool.

Here's a video just for fun. The girls were making each other laugh and I wanted to catch it on camera. I especially love the last few seconds when Shannon tackles Leah.

Bumblebee

When Matt tickles the kids he waves his finger in the air and says, "Bumblebee, tickle me," then tickles them. Yesterday Shannon was doing it to Leah and I heard Leah start saying it, then tickling herself. It's just about the cutest thing she has ever done. I cought it on video today (you can kind of understand her "bumblebee"), as well as her singing a song for me. She sings whenever I ask her to. It's pretty stinking cute!

Tulip Festival!

As some of you saw on Jeny's blog, she went with me and my girls to Thanskgiving Point on Saturday to see the Tulip Festival. We had plans for a whole group to go, but the weather was not the greatest, so we were the only ones to brave it. There are tons of pictures, because it was too pretty! Here is the view from the entrance:Here is a great-horned owl nesting her two babies. She made a nest in the man-made waterfall area.

I have been to the gardens here before, but I had never seen the Children's Discovery Garden before. The girls loved it! There was this sandbox, a xylophone, blocks to play with, man-made caves with bronze animals (that scared Shannon to death), and even a stream to race little wooden boats.

This is at the top of the children's garden area. I thought it was one of the prettiest spots in the whole garden. You can kind of see the fake alligator on the little island across the pond.

Here is the waterfall where that owl was nesting. There was also a Canadian Goose sitting on her 4 eggs. Shannon had her ears covered the whole time we were around this because the water was so loud.

Just a few of the 250,000 tulips we saw. Notice that Shannon is holding a dandelion. She was allowed to pick those, so she thought that was fun.

Here are some of my favorites. I really like flowers with lots of petals like this.

Anytime we came upon a hill Shannon had to run down it. She had so much fun.

All of the gardens are themed. This one is one of my favorites. It's the Italian Garden. Jeny thought it looked like a bunch of bathtubs stacked up. You can barely see the statue at the top.

These are probably my favorite. They look like they're painted!

This was the scent garden. There are raised beds with lots of herbs and smelly flowers. Chocolate mint is, of course, my favorite.

This is the creek garden. Very pretty!

More tulips.

Different colored beds. Jeny loved the orange and red one that's in the back. I love the bright white and pink one and the purple one. Oh, who am I kidding? I love them all!

Shannon is just funny. She gets so excited about everything. I love her enthusiasm!

Here is what the girls looked like on the ride home:

Lastly, here are some videos. This is the xylophone that the girls would probably have played with all day had we let them. It was really neat.

Jeny taught Shannon how to roll down the hill. She eventually rolled down this entire hill and then beyond. If you look at the very first picture you can see the entire hill. It's the same one.

Alice in Wonderland

This is the first book I ever received. I can't tell you how many times I read it and how much I loved it. I spent a great deal of my childhood in Wonderland and I cherish those memories. When my family took a vacation to Disneyland when I was 7 everyone wanted to ride the Matterhorn, but I was too scared. My mom took me to the Alice in Wonderland ride instead, and I still remember it.
Last night Matt and I went to see the Tim Burton movie, "Alice in Wonderland," and I have to tell you, I absolutely loved it. I was very skeptical going into it because I have never before enjoyed a Tim Burton film, but his weirdness and Lewis Carroll's weirdness fit together perfectly! The characters were just as I remember them and the story (a kind of sequel to the well-known story) was very entertaining. Rarely do I rave about a movie, but this one has to be one of my new favorites. It took me right back to my childhood and wrapped me up in good memories.

Yet More Before and Afters

This is the project I have been dreading since we moved in. This toilet was put on a tile that was cut very poorly, leaving a gap that looked gross and had wax and other stuff coming out of it. The wax ring on this toilet was also shot, so I knew we would have to take up the toilet and do some tile repair. Of course it ended up being a bigger problem than I had thought it would be. When I lifted up the broken tile the backerboard came with it, revealing lots of mold. Obviously this wax ring needed to be replaced a while ago! I had to lift up all of the tiles up to the wall and the baseboard to get all of the mold out that I could see. Then I cleaned the floor down to the linoleum underneath and put down some new backerboard and tile.I took an extra tile to Lowe's with all of my measurements drawn on it and they cut it for me. It was a perfect fit! I cemented the tile, waited a day, grouted, waited a day, then put on a few new wax rings (since the flange is now even with the floor) and Matt put the toilet back on.It isn't perfect, of course, because even with the new backerboard the floor was still pretty uneven, but it's as good as I could get it, and I am very pleased with it. No more gross toilet!

Another Room Finished!

I finally finished the den! Here is what it looked like before:And after: This room was a lot of trouble because the walls and ceiling had been repaired so many times they looked like a patchwork quilt. That means that after we painted, the edge looked like someone drunk had painted it. I thought a good solution would be to put up a crown moulding. Well, I cheated. I actually bought baseboard because it was much cheaper. I just turned it upside down. I coped the corner joints and after mudding, caulking, and painting, here is the result:

It looks SO much better. I think we have doors for this closet in the garage, but Matt doesn't want them put on right now. There is a TV in the closet that will eventually get put on some kind of stand, but I think that's all we need and this room will be completely finished. Here is what we did: Removed 6 shelf brackets and a TV wall mount bracket, spackled lots of holes, painted walls and trim, replaced carpet, replaced window, added new blinds, and put up moulding.