Flower bed overhaul

As Parker says "ta-daaaaaaa!"
We have finally finished redoing one of our existing flower beds. It's been driving us crazy and an embarrassment since we moved in. It was full of overgrown weeds, brush, tree stumps, poison ivy, fire ants and existing plants that didn't belong. After several weekends of hard work (mainly Bob's hard work, although I did help more than usual) we are finally done! Now it just needs to grow.

There was an existing cedar/cyprus (?) tree that was odd and out of place. Bob used his brute strength and iron will and dug it out....along with many other large thick-trunked 'weeds' that had grown into small trees. We replaced it with an Autumn Blaze Maple. The other plants in the bed are purple verbena, Compact Pomegranite, Goldmound Spiraea, Blue Star Juniper, multi-color Sage, Frost-Proof Gardenia, Crimson(?) Barberry, and Dwarf Burford Holly...which will eventually grow in a bit to provide some screening of the house behind us.

Here's the before.....it's taken from behind the bed...it was the only before I could find.

During.....Bob v. Tree

All the stuff that was dug up.....and Parker (for scale)

And the finished product. It will look really great in 3 more growing seasons....but I'm happy with the results already.

Parker was great every weekend at amusing herself - a miracle. She'd play on her swingset and trampoline or with toys we brought out while we were digging, and endured several trips to the plant store. It was definitely a family project!

pretty in pink

This is an outfit that Parker picked out for school one day this week.....but she's taken off the polka-dot headband that went with it. She was feeling super cute in it I guess, and wanted me to pretend to be a photographer and take her picture...and handed me her toy phone. Sign of the times I guess - she's used to seeing us take pictures with our phones.

She found her purple recorder/clarinet thing under the couch, much to my displeasure, and has been toot toot tooting on it every time I need to make a phone call or hear myself think.
In the next week or so we are starting renovation on her playroom, so if her instrument doesn't 'disappear' before then, eventually she'll have a place to practice without my disruptive pleas for quiet.

Grumpy girl

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. We've had some busy weeks and we've been spending a lot of time outdoor enjoying the great weather we've been having. Parker has had a grumpy week for some reason. Grumpy and grouchy and throwing lots of fits. Maybe she's growing and isn't getting enough rest, or maybe she's getting sick or getting over being sick or maybe she's bored, or maybe it's a combo of everything. I'm ready for cheerful Parker to return.

Last weekend we had some friends over and enjoyed a nice evening outside. This is the perfect time of year....the weather is nice and mild and the plants are beginning to bloom, and it's not hot or buggy yet. The grownups had a nice time visiting, and the kids had a great time playing. Here's Parker getting ready. She requested 2 ponytails/pigtails, and Bob is the master of those. She also picked out a *tank top* and glitter sandals for the occasion.

The kid's table - they all played really well together and were all exhausted at the end of the evening.

Soccer, writing and swinging alone

I should probably split all these up and save them until a dry spell, but hopefully we'll continue to have fun and interesting things to photograph and post as spring continues.

Parker had her last soccer game this weekend. It was a big deal because she played willingly (no whining, crying or bribing) and she actually kicked the ball a couple times! Bob has it on video, or I wouldn't have believed it. They handed out trophies to all the teams and she's very proud of hers. The coach said she was 'most improved' which we are choosing to view as a compliment. I wouldn't let her take the trophie to school, so I did a picture and printed it out for her. She put on her pagent-ready smile and pose for the photo.

She'd also like you to notice that she's wearing a tank top. All weekend she's been fixated on tank tops, and wearing a tank top and did anyone notice that she's wearing a tank top?

This is what I'm saving as Parker's first written name. Her K's a little strange, and her E has too many bars, but you get the idea. She writes it on her papers at school now instead of her teaching doing it for her.

And yet another milestone.....swinging by herself! This is HUGE! Bob gave her a push to get started, and then she pumped her legs and swang and swang for as long as she wanted. I don't know if I captured it, but she had such a proud look on her face. Yes, those are pajamas.

So big and grown up

Parker has been 'growing' so much this week. Usually, when we put her to bed, she just lays there until she goes to sleep....and if she needs something, she'll call us upstairs. We've been lucky that, until now, she didn't realize she had any other options. 3 night ago, Bob heard her get up and adjust the volume on her music (louder), and 2 nights ago, she was very determined to look at books for a while, and then turn out her own light and tuck herself in.
Usually, in the morning, she'll holler when she wakes up for me to come get her. But this saturday, Bob heard her calling (I was gone running), but her voice wasn't coming through the monitor. He looked around upstairs and then found her sitting at her spot at the breakfast table, with a very proud look on her face. And she did it again this morning too. It doesn't really sound like a big deal, but for her, it's huge.

She's also been toying with the idea of not sucking her fingers anymore. Her friend Ava sucks her thumb, and Ava's mom and I had a ( purposely) loud conversation the other day about how we should have a contest to see who could stop sucking their fingers/thumb first, Ava or Parker. They overheard us of course, and Parker's competitive nature has latched on to the idea. Every couple of days she'll tell me "I think I want to try that contest." But then a few hours later....usually at bedtime she'll back out. The other night she made it all the way through story, but then called me up there after she was tucked in and said "I've changed my mind, I'm not doing the contest today. Maybe at school on monday for nap." I just think it's so funny that she's so conscientious about starting and stopping 'the contest'.

Bird nest - please advise

And I'm not talking about Parker's hair. Mrs. Cardinal is building a nest in the Japanese maple right outside the kitchen window....which is also right outside the patio door - our main thoroughfare to the back yard. I'm wondering if I should try to do something to discourage this (like remove what she's done so far) so I don't have to deal with baby birds and a PO'd mama bird every time I walk outside. If anyone has advice to offer, please share.

And here's a picture of Parker and her friends at the zoo. They always have fun climbing on stuff.

Just rain, no damage

We had big storms roll through last night, but we just had rain, no damage or trees down. Just thought I'd update in case anyone was wondering about us. It was a pretty crazy storm though....Bob went up and got Parker and brought her downstairs to sleep in our bed. We've never done that before, and she was thrilled of course. Hopefully she won't want to do that everytime there's storm. Usually she sleeps right through them anyway.
Here's a picture of her 'pillow fighting' me. I assumed certain readers would be annoyed if all I posted was a weather report and not a Parker pic.

Right handed writing

There was a comment from my mother about the previous writing picture, asking about Parker holding her pencil left-handed. I looked back at the outtakes, and of 6 pictures, 3 were right handed, and 3 were left handed. Yesterday at school she did a drawing and put arms on it, and the teacher said she drew the right arm with her right hand, and then switched hands to do the left. I've seen her do this before, especially when eating, but not recently. She is primarily right handed though.

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Spanish confusion:

"Is b'asagna (lasagna) Spanish for spaghetti?"

"Is coupon Spanish for credit card?"

Hopefully that last one isn't some sort of racial slur. I'd hate for her to ruin her chances for public office because she was misquoted on a blog at age 3.

Enjoying outdoors

Here's Parker sitting outside and working on her writing/drawing. We have beautiful weather this weekend, following the dime-sized hail we got Thursday night. In this picture, she's not shocked or surprised, she's talking.

She had a soccer game this weekend, and actually played for about 25 minutes. And for her efforts, she earned 25 M&M's....which she later chose to trade for a certain cup at the grocery store that she's been bugging me for . "Played" soccer is a bit of an exaggeration, since she really just ran up and down the field, and tried to stay away from the other players, especially the ones kicking the ball. It's a start though.

I is for "I know my letters"

Here's Parker making the letter "i" out of pencils. She's big into letters these days, especially making the letter shapes with objects or her limbs. She makes an X with her arms and stands like a stork and makes the letter P. She's also had a big letter writing breakthrough and can write H, E, F, P, V, W, M, and the number 9. And she can draw a sun. She went to a dress-up party on sunday and had her nails painted. She chose blue. Hopefully they discounted her manicure since she skips the nail polish on the fingers that she sucks on.



I had a parent/teacher conference last week....they do them with all the parents this time of year at this age. Her teacher reported that she's right where she should be academically and that she's really enjoying school. She's doing well socially, but we are supposed to work with her on making her own decisions, and how to express that (instead of just freezing or crying). That was a little surprising, since she has no trouble telling us just what she will and won't do.

Another fun thing this week has been carpooling to school with our neighbor a few times. Here they are on the way in one rainy morning.

Big Girl Furniture

This past weekend we finally got Parker some big girl furniture to fill her big girl room. We got this 4 poster bed, which looks a little less grand in real life...the camera angle is weird. It is pretty tall though, she needs a step stool to get into it. To get down, she jumps off the end like usual. She has a full bed instead of a twin so that it can serve as a guest bed if needed. She also got 2 night stands and a matching dresser and a bookcase. The bookcase doesn't match exactly, but it was on clearance and it will hold a lot of stuff, hopefully.

More artwork

Here's more artwork. This is a picture of Bob (notice there's no hair. She draws me and herself with curly hair). There's also a border of dots "to keep it safe". The dots are made from big stamp markers....she didn't color the precise circles. She draws a safety border around everything these days.

artwork from school

Here's some of Parker's artwork from school. This is an "ice painting"....where they dip ice cubes in paint and use them to paint the picture.

New Garden! New plants! New spring look!

I decided to change the blog masthead to look more spring-like. I wish I could say that I did it myself, but I had it done by a local digital scrapbook designer...with my detailed requests of course. I think she did a great job! Check out her digital artwork, and buy things! She has free stuff here: http://seebeesfreebies.blogspot.com/

And she sells things at Digitals too.

Now that it's spring, we are spending lots of time in the yard. Our first big project was to build me a garden. Yay!!! No more container gardening! Bob whipped up this raised planter, out of cedar I think, and I filled it with a carload (literally) of dirt and I've planted 2 tomatoes and a jalapeño so far. I'm going to add a cucumber or zucchini soon. Sort of a lot of effort just for 4 plants, but if it's successful, next year I'll do another one.

Parker found a worm to torment when I was planting herbs in another bed. I convinced her he'd like living in my garden, so she shortly set him free in there.

The finished product. We have it located in the back of the house by the trampoline. It's probably going to be too much sun, but hopefully we'll add another tree back there soon to give it a break part of the day.

Our winter plants are looking great, like they always do in the spring. Maybe their know their days are numbered. I'm so glad we planted the kale/cabbage stuff this year. It looks so pretty as it grows....plus it takes up a lot more room than pansies.

We got 3 new hydrangeas...the one in the picture is an Oak Leaf hydrangea, I've wanted one forever. Even if it doesn't bloom, it has such pretty leaves, and grows a little bit taller than the normal kind I think. The hosta is old. We also got 2 'pink lady' hydrangeas, (not pictured) that have reddish stems and back of the leaves. We put it out by the dogwood in the little circular bed.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter everyone! We've had a nice family weekend. Bob took Friday off, so we've all done lots of family stuff and home projects.
Yesterday, Parker dyed her eggs. She's so confused by the term "dying" when talking about coloring eggs though. She'll say "die the eggs?!". Instead of dip dying them like usual, we dripped food coloring onto them and then rinsed it off for a tie-dye effect. I think they look great.

The Easter bunny was pretty generous when filling up her basket this year. Here she is unpacking her loot. She got a stuffed kitty cat, just what she's been wishing for aloud for weeks, and various other stuff and lots of candy of course. She has a candy bag in the cabinet, and knows she can have one piece a day, and she's pretty compliant.

When it warmed up a little bit, we went outside and hunted our eggs. Parker is really good at hiding them!

Tomorrow, school starts again after being off for a week for Spring Break. She's going to be so excited to see all her friends!

Spanish song

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

Parker's absolute favorite thing at school is Spanish. The teacher is a genius at teaching preschoolers....she brings puppets and teaches them songs. In case you can't see the video or understand her, here's the transcript:

"Gato, cat,
Perro, dog,
Pajaro is a bii-irrr-rrd.
Oso is a bear,
Vaca is a cow,
(whispering) lots of animals
(screaming) OH WOW! "

Most of the time, this song is looped over and over in my head. It works though, Parker and her friends incorporate their Spanish vocabulary into what they're talking about....although it's not often they talk about shirts, pants, shoes, socks, eyes, mouth, teeth or animals.

This is Parker's Spring Break from school, and all her friends are out of town. We were planning on having visitors, but there was insane rainfall today, causing all flights to be canceled, so we've got a looooong week ahead of us with nothing to do and no one to play with.

Playing with toys

Now that Parker is feeling better, she's been having fun rediscovering her toys. She's big into grouping things and lining them up. For some reason, she and her friends like to fill her Rose Petal Cottage with shoes:

And an animal parade around the bathtub. If you look closely you'll see that she's grouped all the animals into families....all the pics together, all the sheep together, etc. The 'leader' is a penguin, followed by 2 frogs and a lion.

As I'm typing this, she's eating her dinner. I think she just put 2 and 2 together and realized that her fish sticks were once actual fish.

"Is there fish in my fishsticks?"
me: "yes"
"Real fish, like strips?"
me: "yes"
"But no eyes, right?"
me: "right"
(under her breath) "good"

It's fine if she wants to go vegetarian on me, she just better learn to like vegetables or she's going to have a very limited diet. Her side dish with her fishsticks was strawberries, that she dipped in ketchup.

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Some Public service announcements:

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This is a really neat website for editing photos, cropping, color correcting, adding text, borders, etc. Unlike most photo software, you don't have to download anything, you upload your pictures instead. And it's free.
http://www.picnik.com

And in office supply news......here's a link to a Sharpie coupon at Office Max, and a link to their newest product, a retractable fine point pen!!!

Office Max retractable Sharpie coupon

FINE POINT retractable pen

(There are about 4 blog readers that are jumping up and down with excitement right now. )

Absence of snow pictures

No snow for us, really. We got a lot, but it was mixed with rain and didn't really stick. Just in case it did stick, we were ready this time with a new hat. The red thing on her arm is a stamp from school.