UP!

It's up! The new swingset is UP! I can NOT believe it! Friday morning I was really losing hope that it was going to happen this weekend. But at 6:30 tonight, the girls were given free reign of the new swingset. Mommy and daddy took a turn or two as well.









To say the girls are excited would be the biggest understatement of all time. I'm worried about tomorrow, though. I think it is supposed to storm. :( At least they got to play on it tonight!

My hubby is the man of the hour! He had a cold and/or allergies yesterday and today. Yet he STILL managed to get the swingset dismantled and then put back together. Special thanks to Collin and Dustin, who helped dismantle and re-mantle and to TJ for loaning us the trailer we used to transport it. We could not have done it without these 3 guys!

So who wants to come swing on it now? As shown in the last picture, it's strong enough for an adult! Party, anyone?

What a day!

We have had one heckuva day around here! I will begin at the beginning. With pictures!

The girls and I planted flowers last night and this morning. If you click on this one, and look at the tiny, one-bud flowers, those are the ones we planted. The other are dianthus that were planted last year. I always thought dianthus were annuals, but they are really perennials! So they came back! The first section we planted were more dianthus, but the last section is verbena. (which I think is an annual)

Here is a close-up of my year-old dianthus. Aren't they beautiful? I love these flowers!






Here is a close-up of a new flower I bought called candy tuft. It is also a perennial that blooms white in the summer. I hope these make it. The plants I put in this spot last year died horrible deaths....




This is our garden in the back yard. Last year we planted one strawberry plant. It gave us maybe 3 tiny strawberries. It's amazing the difference a year makes! Look at it now! It has taken over the garden, and I did nothing to it all winter. No mulch, no straw, no nothing. I hope we have a bumper crop!



Our first strawberry!!!!!! Yes, the plant does appear to be producing fruit. However, there is one problem. This fruit is on a runner that has gone OUT of the garden! I was going to let the plant have the garden, but not the whole back yard! Does anyone know how to keep the strawberries where you WANT them to be?



Today was the day! As my secret post showed yesterday, we are getting the girls a new swingset! It's a funny story how it all came about. I'll have to blog about it in another post.





So Alpha, all on her own, decided to use their new sidewalk chalk to write daddy a message that says "Thank you for getting us a new swingset!"







And here it is! Beautiful, isn't it? haha! Jim, Collin, and Dustin dismantled it this afternoon and got it moved over here. Jim and Dustin will hopefully get it all put up tomorrow. Maybe. With God's help....




We would like to say a BIG HUGE SCREAMIN' THANK YOU to Uncle Collin for the use of his truck and his brawn! We couldn't have done it without him!

Shhh....It's a secret.

Back to Reality

Well, my 4 day mini-vacation is over. I am rested, relaxed, renewed....NOT! I soooo did not want to go back to work. Even though work today was very calm, very quiet, and a lot less stressful. I still wasn't ready. I think I could take 2 weeks off and still not quite be ready.... Tax season takes a lot out of you.

So this afternoon I started looking at my to-do list that I have put off for 10 weeks now. Hmmmm. This is making me want to go back to work. Here is a list of all the things I have to do during the month of May.

Alpha's birthday
Beta's dance recital
Beta's preschool graduation
Dorsey family reunion
Mother's Day
Possible wedding to attend (or, um, a wedding to possibly attend....the wedding is definitely happening) :)
Teacher Appreciation week - PTO duties
CPE course to attend
CPE courses to complete on my own

Doesn't that all sound like fun???? Joy. Oh well. It'll all be good. At least it doesn't involve more tax returns...Plust these events are all family things, so that will make them enjoyable. (at least the ones I don't have to plan!)

Tax Day

I'M DONE!!!!!
I'M DONE!!!!!
I'M DONE!!!!!
I'M DONE!!!!!
I'M DONE!!!!!
I'M DONE!!!!!
I'M DONE!!!!!
I'M DONE!!!!!
I'M DONE!!!!!

He Is Risen!

Happy Easter, everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful Easter morning filled with hymns, praises, scripture, and maybe a chocolate bunny or two....

Our Easter morning went as smoothly as could be expected. I got up at 6:15 and noticed it was.....raining. Yes. Rain on Easter. I silently thanked God for sending the rain, knowing that it would help green up the grass and produce some beautiful flowers in the coming weeks. I also silently was glad we weren't headed to a sunrise service this morning.....We would have had to be there about that time (6:15) and it was storming and cold!

Because I love a good sunrise service, though, we had decided to attend the 8:30 service at church this morning. Partly, the entire 11:00 congregation had been asked to "prayerfully consider" attending at 8:30 so as to free up space at the 11:00 service. But also, I thought it would be as close to a sunrise service as we can get until the girls get a little older.

So as we drove to church in the pouring rain, it was hard to be exceedingly happy with the weather. I knew the rain was needed and was a gift from God. But come on.....on EASTER????? Day of all days! New shoes! Spring-time dresses! All to have water splashed on them??? It was even more annoying because yesterday had been perfect weather.....

But as we ran in to church (at 8:25......choir hadn't started singing yet so we were good), it was like an oasis of warmth! The church was very brightly lit. The place was packed! Candles, choir, orchestra....It was such a welcome change from the outside. It reminded me of what church should always be.

The service was wonderful! We got to hear some nice organ music as we entered. We sang a rousing chorus of "Christ the Lord is Risen Today" (ah ah ah ah ahhhh layyy luuuu uuuu yaaaa) to start. Then the choir sang "Joy in the Morning" as their anthem and the "Hallelujah Chorus" at the end. Perfect!

We then went to teach Sunday school. We had 12 kids! 4 girls and 8 boys...They were all very well behaved. To sum up the day, I'll relay what our co-teacher's son said to her this morning. As they were headed out to church, she remarked what a yucky day it was. Her son, who's 5, said, "No, mom. The weather's yucky, but it's a GREAT day!"

Here are some of our Easter pics, for those of you who have read all this!! lol!

One of our new Easter decorations.







Another new Easter decoration I got at Hobby Lobby. The letters are all attached to each other.





I'm not a big fan of knick-knacky things, but I loved this little sculpture of two rabbits decorating an egg.






Our Easter display! I love my holiday display area I created. One table and a small nail, and you can arrange things in a myriad of ways.





The annual family Easter picture! For about the third year in a row, the picture has been inside because the outside was either too cold or too rainy.

The annual egg dye.

Here are some pictures from our annual dying of the Easter eggs. The girls are finally old enough to understand some basic don't-make-a-mess rules, and I'm finally old enough to relax a little while they're doing it! We had fun!


(This is one of my favorite mom-tips for dying eggs. I use my tube cake pan to put the cups of dye in. This way, they don't get tipped over. Or if they do, it all goes in the pan! Neat, eh? Saves my nerves, believe me.)