Wordless Weekend

A fun garden idea:

A Thought to the Future

I am so excited, I have come quickly to share with you.

My son is "graduating" from preschool this month. :) The idea of a 4 year old graduating from anything is a little silly, yes. But I appreciate that the teachers put thought and energy into making a sense of accomplishment and recognizing milestones in the kids' little lives. They really have learned a lot, not just about the ABCs and 123s, but about life and working together.

Today I bought him this book. It's one of my favorite Dr. Suess books, and almost always makes me cry! I know it's a little cliché to get this book as graduation gift. Everybody does that, right?

But the neat thing, the funnest thing... the most secret surprise and "Christmas-y" thing about this gift is that we're not giving it to him this year.

We're hoping to give it to him in 13 years at his high school graduation, after we've had all his teachers inscribe something to him on the inside. ^_^

 

I must confess, I got the idea from this guy.

Boy, did his story tug at my sentimental little heartstrings.

 

What is the best graduation gift or memory you have?

 

Easter Wheatgrass

I remember seeing in a magazine one time these Easter baskets with live grass in them. And I thought, "Oh that's cute and folksy and eco-friendly and old-fashioned. And I'd probably love to do that but who knows if I ever will." In other words, I filed it away in my mind. I don't even think I had kids then. And Easter has never really been a very "big" holiday in our family, so I had no need to use it right away.

A couple of years ago my mother-in-law gave my older son a basket with real grass and I told her how much I loved it. The mental file was brought to the front of my mind.

This year, we are going to be visiting some of my nieces and nephews for Easter. So my basket tally went from maybe 2 to a possible 6. Obviously I started thinking about what kinds of things I would want to include in these baskets, the first I have ever made, by the way: healthy treats and small books are a nice alternative to too much candy. Maybe a toy or two but I like to keep things simple in the baskets so that it doesn't distract too much from the meaning we find in the holiday. 

Then there was the grass! I finally had a reason to attempt it, but I wasn't sure where to begin. A quick call to my mother-in-law revealed that she had bought a whole bag (albeit the smallest one available) of actual lawn grass from the home improvement store. She figured she could always use the extra in their landscaping. Well... I would've been down for that. Except the smallest bag I could find was $15 and I knew I could figure something else out. Also, I wasn't in the market for leftover lawn grass at the moment.

I researched other grasses, and I finally decided on wheatgrass. If you are interested in doing something like this, you can easily buy wheatgrass at your health food store already grown and just pop it in. Easy peasy! But it was gonna cost me about $5 a pop so maybe $30 for all. Plus, you know I like doing things the hard way. Haha. So anyway, I decided I could probably grow my own. I walked around the corner to the next aisle over in the health food store and found hard wheat berries or wheatgrass berries in their bulk food section. Grabbed a few scoops full, up the the register and bam - 65 cents! That's more like it...

I found several versions of how to grow wheatgrass, but I went with the instructions I found here.

Here's how we did it:

Soak berries overnight. I read to make sure you don't soak longer than 24 hours as they may go rancid after that.

Line a basket. You can use an old plastic grocery bag or saran wrap. Or anything else that's water proof. If your basket is somewhat loosley woven, you can lay some fabric down first to hide the plastic. Add a layer of soil to about 1/3 the height of the basket. You don't want too much dirt, because it will make the basket heavy.

Spread seeds (or "berries") in a single layer across the top of the basket. I found a handsome helper to assist me with this step.

Then we soaked the seeds with a water bottle and left them in a sunny spot with a little saran lid to keep the moisture in. I'm told the trick the first few days is to keep the seeds moist.


Boy, you know what? If anyone ever feels like they have a black thumb or gets discouraged in their gardening endeavors, growing something quick like wheatgrass sure is encouraging. :)

We were very excited to see this is what we had on day 3:

And only one week from when we planted the seeds:

Ten days old here:

 

Wow, that grew faster than I thought! At this rate, my problem is too much grass! I will have to trim it before Easter and I hope it will still keep growing in green and lush and not turn yellow on me or something! That would figure. If I do it again next year, I will wait a bit later, like 2 weeks before Easter instead of 4 weeks.

But, that also means that you still have plenty of time to try this out if you want to. ;)

Starting the New Year off with a (delayed) bang

Well hello again!

 

It’s been many months since I visited you all here at the blog. Mostly, I’ve been busy with our second son, whose birth we celebrated at the end of October. :) He is healthy and beautiful and we are slowly working our way, day by day, through the hard first months of no sleep and constant feedings.

 

Needless to say, the list of things I “should” do, and even would like to do, seems to grow longer every day, as taking care of the boys is always my number one priority. For every one thing I cross off the list, it seems two more things get put on. And blogging is definitely not one of my more pressing concerns. But new adventures have called me back to the blog spot. We are gearing up for a new year of improvements around the house and my first attempt at a veggie garden. So here now, while the baby is finally finally asleep and I “should” be taking a nap myself, instead I have stolen away to share my plans with you.

Where to begin. My mind is reeling. Well, these are the plans we have for the garden this year:

I think for the sake of time and attention, I'll try to be brief. :)

 

• First of all, raised beds are in the works for our garden. Right now they are mostly in our imaginations, but as each day goes by I get more and more anxious that they should be built by now. We went very quickly from me thinking I’d make them for free out of used pallets, to Joel thinking he’d make better ones out of cedar or redwood, to finally deciding that cinder blocks would last longer for our dollars and were quite versatile: since we won’t be mortaring them together, we can rearrange, add onto, or resell them at any time. The onlyreason why it's not already done is having to borrow a truck to pick up the cinder blocks as well as a load of compost from the city.
• Side note: I find it hilarious that I get charged to have my green waste collected and then the city tries to sell my green waste back to me after composting. Something is wrong here, isn’t it? I know I could compost my own, but I think I will have to hold off on that for now…

• Next: Gardening by the moon! Have you heard of this? I came across it online somewhere and thought it sounded almost superstitious more than anything. But after a little research, I realized it's been practiced for hundreds of years by renowned gardeners, so I think maybe there is some science behind it. I wonder if it has to do with the moon's gravitational pull and if it effects moisture in the soil the same way it effects tides?! I polled my friends on Facebook: half had never heard of it before and the other half swear by it. Basically the idea is that certain days of the moon's cycle are best for planting certain veggies. And other days are less favorable. There are even some calendars that go so far as to occasionally say something like "anything planted on this day will rot," which I think is kinda presumptuous. But who knows! Then I found out that not only does the good old trusted Farmer’s Almanac have a moon-planting calendar, but that it is probably the most popular one by far. I decided I should pick an Almanac anyway, since I need all the help I can get! So I got one from my local bookstore. Saved money on shipping. ;)

You can find more info on moon gardening here.

• AWESOME FIND: Seed Swapping. Another new idea to me. A local CSA here that also has gardening classes hosted a seed swap last weekend. The idea is that no one really needs all the seeds they get in a packet in any given year, so everyone brings in their open seed packets and everyone shares with everyone else! I got loads of seeds for totally free! This swap was super casual, so they didn’t even require that you bring seeds of your own, which is cool because I didn’t have any. Haha.

Here is my loot:

            
 

So at first I thought – this is great, why don’t more places arrange this kind of thing?

 

And then I thought - you know what, ANYBODY could arrange a seed swap! In fact my neighbor and I are swapping after the big swap. And a friend of mine who is gardening in Santa Rosa agreed to swap with me by mail! Amazing fun! And if you wanted to go bigger than just a friend or neighbor, you can plan a place and time, put out some flyers and make it happen! So simple.

 

 

• I couldn’t find artichoke seeds anywhere locally so when I saw an artichoke starter plant at Home Depot today, I picked it up.

• Got a starter of strawberries too :)

• Still want to get: blueberries, blackberries, raspberries. Then we can read the book Jamberry and have a jam jamboree. :0)  
• Here are some other seeds I got this weekend. Spent good money on these ones:

• Then my neighbor just came over this afternoon and brought over a box FULL of organic seeds and told me I could have first pick of the year! This is her version of "seed swapping" although I have very little to offer her in return, and probably nothing she doesn't already have :} What a blessing she is!
 
• Joel’s grandma recently gave us this lily. I like how lilies look. I hate how they smell and shed pollen. She said we should plant it in the yard. I’ve never heard of anybody planting a lily before, I wonder if it would work. Anyway, it’s NOT staying in the house, so I guess I might as well try!

 
 
• I have a gorgeous flower garden in my mind for the side of the house. It’s a shady spot, so I found a bed plan for a “shady garden” that I think will work out nicely.
   
• I planted some other bulbs: mostly Angelique tulips and iris and some daffys in the front of the house. But I know I planted then way too late (like in January/February) so it will be interesting to see if they even bloom this year. If not – oh well, I will call it a big head start on NEXT year! Wow, yeah, that feels a lot better. Now I’m way ahead of the game. Haha.
 
• Several other experiments in the works on my first year of gardening:
• I saved seeds from two store bought bell peppers. One is organic and one isn’t. I wonder which will grow better and/or produce more peppers. Although I must admit to being biased – no matter how they grow, I’d prefer the organic one anyway!
• I will be purposefully planting a few seeds against the moon cycle to see if it really makes a difference.

***Awfully AMBITIOUS aren’t I? Yeah, I know. It scares me, too***

My plan is to utterly fail completely, that way any success will be a sweet surprise. One of the failures I foresee is based on the number of bugs and birds there seems to be in my yard. I’m bracing myself for all-out war with them! We shall see how the battle may rage and who will claim victory there. Until then – off I go to start me some seeds before the moon begins to wane. ;)

Reusable Snack Bag

In honor of my son's first week at preschool,

I just finished these reusable bags for him to take to school!

 

(Pattern can be found here).

 

He picked out the fabics himself. :) He loves dogs. And yes, he loves ladybugs! Although just to be funny, we call them "man-beetles" around here. And Winnie of course. I might make him some Lightening McQueen ones later if I can find that fabric in my stash. ;)

 

The inside is ripstop nylon. My first time working with it, and it was kinda fun. It is not waterproof, so these bags can't hold like... a cup of sliced peaches or anything without leaking a little probably. But the nylon does wipe up nicely and can handle all the dry snacks like little crackers, nuts or dried fruit. I have some BPA free little tupper-type things for wet stuff.

 

If you are interested, you can research different fabrics to line with. Some people used organic cotton. Some people used something called PUL, which I am not familiar with. But I am told that once you get into waterproof fabrics like PUL, you are using essentially plastic-lined fabrics. So I would look to be sure that the lining is BPA free or specifically states that it's food safe. The ripstop I used is 100% nylon, not waterproof, and seemed benign enough to use with food.

 

 

Hope everyone is enjoying the back-to-school season. Can you believe it's gonna be September in a couple of days?!

Baby Update

This was taken about 2 weeks ago. Everything checked out OK. Saw the heart beating and baby kicking. And we found out we're having another boy! :)

And here is a 'bump' photo,  for those who are interested. :P

I was 20 weeks along here (about a week ago).

Can't believe we're already half way there!

Some photos from Easter

Here are some photos I've been meaning to share from our little guy's first Easter Egg Hunt!

It might have been mine too. ;)

 

And here are some of the eggs we painted this year...

The heart and flower are drawn in white crayon before they are dipped in the dye.

In a similar fashion, we put little dot stickers on the green one before we dyed it, and then removed them to reveal the white eggshell still underneath.

What a wonderful season to celebrate new life in Christ. 

"But Mary was standing outside the tomb weeping; and so, as she wept, she stooped and looked into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had been lying. And they said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him.” When she had said thi...s, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, and did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Supposing Him to be the gardener, she said to Him, “Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have laid Him, and I will take Him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to Him in Hebrew, “Rabboni!”
John 20:11-16

 

Hope you had a wonderful Easter!

C

 

Ox-Cart Man

All the inspiration I've been getting lately to want to be more homegrown has reminded me of a book I used to read as a little girl. It was one of my favorites.

Ox-Cart Man follows an early American farmer through the calender year, as he and his family use the resources around them to create their livelihood and income. It's a very easy read - for younger kids really, but I think it's very charming. And it has wonderful illustrations. It shows some aspects of early American life and homesteading, speaks to the idea of being sustainable and not being wasteful, and challenges me to be creative with what I have.

Because I am a sentimental fool (and hang on to things) I was able to dig out of the closet today the same copy I read as a girl, and I read it to my son for the first time. :) He liked it too.

Anyway, thought I would share it with you. Have you read it before? What are some of your favorite books from when you were young?

Birthday Part Deux - Hummingbirds!

So the train table was mostly daddy's idea and mostly daddy's work. "Mommy's gift" is a little more... unconventional. And a lot smaller. :)

We were at the store a few weeks ago, walking through the garden department, when my son suddenly became fascinated by the bird feeders and asked to take one home. I told him I'd think about it. And I did. And then I thought I'd just get one for him for his birthday. (This was way before the whole table thing came up, otherwise I would've skipped it).

Here's the thing though. He wanted the kind you use with birdseed. When I imagined this contraption on our porch, all I saw were big obnoxious scrub jays with their loud screeches, defecating all over my patio and terrorizing my child. This was not a pleasant picture.

Right next to the birdseed feeders were the hummingbird feeders. This idea seemed much more agreeable, so I went with that. We hid it in the closet for a couple of weeks and then he opened it on his birthday. He helped me make syrup for it (super easy to do) and then we hung it outside the next day.

I'll be honest. For awhile, I was worried that my bird feeding experience would somehow rival my patio gardening experience and that we would be left waiting for days on end with no signs of life. I knew hummingbirds lived in our area, but I thought maybe they wouldn't find it or - worse yet - they would think our feeder was somehow inferior to the others in the neighborhood. Haha. I was gladly proven wrong. Within 24 hours, a sweet little family of hummingbirds had found the feeder. And they now visit us at least four times a day to refuel. :) There is a male and a female. They have come together a couple of times, but it's usually one or the other.

This is my first experience with hummingbirds on a regular basis. And I have to say I like them much better than scrub jays. They are very quite. They have a tiny little chirp they make sometimes. The loudest part about them is actually the sound of their wings flapping. (Hence the hum of the hummingbird) They are so small, you'd almost think it was just a big bug through the corner of your eye. And they are SO fast and skittish, that they never hang out for very long. In fact, it's been a challenge to try to catch a glimpse of them before they're done feeding or without scaring them away.

Here are a few photos I snapped yesterday with my ninja photography skills.
You can click on them to enlarge, if you like:

The color in these photos isn't great because of the back lighting, so it's kind of hard to tell what this one is. But the male in the family was kind enough to recently hover in the sunlight for a few seconds. And I was able to see what I think was a copper-colored throat. So I think he is probably a Rufous. Oh! Maybe an Allen's!

It's been fun having them visit and I look forward to enjoying them for a couple more months before winter sets in. I like that our son is excited about it too. The other day he was playing on the patio and probably scared them off when he yelled "MOMMY! I SAW A HUMMINGBIRD!"

Hahaha. We had a little discussion about talking quietly if you want to enjoy the wildlife. ;)

 

Homemade Birthday Present: Train Table

For the last week and a half this has been referred to as "Daddy's Project," rather secretively. As in - "Don't go out there, daddy is working on his project." Or "What is this for? Well... it's for Daddy's Project."

What our son didn't know was that the reason we were being so secretive is because Daddy's Project was actually his Birthday Present. And we were trying so hard to keep him from figuring it out, even though we were building it right under his nose.

Here is a photo of the Birthday Boy "helping" daddy, which he was very excited about. It's funny, isn't it, how much our children can utterly trust us sometimes? He was so diligent in helping and yet, when he would ask us what it was going to be or when it would be finished, all we could give him were very diplomatic answers.... like "we'll have to wait and see!"

Please note the teeny tiny 10'x6' space in which my husband did all this work!

It all began about two weeks ago. We were out as a family doing lazy Saturday afternoon things. One of the Birthday Boy's favorite places to go is the bookstore. Purely because they have a Thomas the Train table there with all kinds of track and trains and cool looking buildings... he could easily play there for hours. On this afternoon, while watching our son play, it occurred to Joel that he could probably make a train table for a lot less than the cost of buying one and since the boy's birthday was coming up, why not do it for him as a birthday gift?

I left all the drawing and planning and measuring and woodcutting and routing and sanding to Joel (of course). Haha.

When it came to painting the thing though, I agreed that Joel could paint the body "Thomas blue," but I wanted to paint the table top. I decided to take inspiration from the store-bought versions by painting grasslands and trees and lakes and all that.

So, tonight we finally did the "big reveal," so to speak. We had him hide in his room while we put the pieces together, and then brought him out and showed him what Daddy's Project had really been about all this time. It finally came together in his brain, and he was so excited. After a little giggling and a little hopping and a little playing with it here and there, he proclaimed that this was "...the best birthday ever." So that made it all worth it, of course.

Oh look, he's wearing his train shirt. How apropos.

We got one small set of track to go with it. But our son already had several trains that felt right at home on the table.

Joel did great work. Good job, honey!

Now we just gotta figure out how to fit it into the boy's room! :-)

She's so granola

The other day I made my first berry salad, inspired by my son.

We were at the store a couple weeks ago in the sandwich bag aisle. He was looking around and suddenly pointed to one of the boxes of zip bags. "Can we bring this one home?" I stood there for a few seconds trying to figure out what my 3 year old thought was so appealing about a box of zip bags.

...Then I realized that there was a photo on the box of the zip bags being used to hold a bunch of berries. Ha! Apparently my child was under the impression that the berries came with the zip lock bags and were in the box, waiting for us to bring them home and eat them. I gave him a diluted lesson in marketing, and explained that, unfortunately, sometimes the photo of what you get doesn't always match what you really get....

But I agreed that the berries looked good and made him a promise that on the next grocery trip we would pick up what we needed to make a berry salad. Together, we studied to zip lock box to determine the ingredients: blueberries, blackberries, raspberries. We decided strawberries might be a nice addition.

Here is what we came up with later that week:

Yummmmm...

I've made lots of fruit salads before, of course. But never just berries. It's actually perfect for my little one, because every time I make a fruit salad, he ends up eating around the melons anyway. :) I sliced up some melon and I just mix it in with the berries for me and daddy.

Another fun recipe I just got around to last night was homemade granola. It was my second attempt at the recipe from my friend Christina found here. It is a very versatile recipe and customizable. The first time I made it, I used agave sweetener and added craisins. I liked it, but knew I could do better. I forgot until after I made it that I don't really care for dried fruit in my cereal. heehee. So anyway, I decided this time to use honey and to add sliced almonds. It was de.li.cious. You can go to Christina's site to find the original recipe (hers is Gluten Free!) and more detailed instructions. Here is how I made my version this time:

2 1/2 cups rolled oats

1 cup sliced almonds

1/2 cup sweetened coconut

1/4 cup honey (added a little extra, actually)

1 Tbsp oil

sprinkle cinnamon

Basically, I just mix it up, throw it on a cookie sheet (you can use a baking dish, but I like mine pretty toasty, so I like to spread it out more), put it in the oven - 325 degrees for 30 minutes until golden brown. Every 10 minutes, check and toss to toast evenly.

She suggests it over yogurt, which I agree is really good! I just had some with vanilla yogurt for breakfast this morning. Might go nicely with some of that berry salad. :)

Enjoy

Charity

9/6/11: I think it might need a little more honey, actually. I tried it with milk this morning and it wasn't as good as yesterday with the yogurt. A bit too bland.

I also forogot that the first time I made it, I added a splash of pure vanilla extract, and that was good. I'll try it with the vanilla and a little more honey next time. :)

The value of money earned

Joel and I have talked in the past about whether or not we plan on giving our kids an allowance. I like the idea of kids learning how to deal with money, or having some kind of income. I would want to give them the benefit of working, saving, putting thought and effort into acquiring that which they desire and therefore find the value in their work as well as their possessions. But I don't like the idea of just giving them money for no particular reason except that it's That Day of the Week. Then there is the question of whether or not their chores should have anything to do with their allowance - whether or not to pay them to clean their room and so forth. I wonder then how will they would learn responsibly - that there are duties we have in life that must be done, whether there is reward or not, whether we feel like it or not. As an adult, I don't get rewarded or paid to make my bed, cook my dinner, wash my bathroom. But I do these anyway, because it's the responsible thing.

I've also been thinking about something I read in a pretty good book once. The author was talking about the difference between a child who gets whatever he wants given to him freely and a child who is told 'no' occasionally or gets a more reasonable number of gifts. At Christmas time, for example, the child who gets whatever he wants, a hundred presents wrapped round the tree, is less likely to really see the value in any of those gifts, tossing them aside at once for the next. But the child who only gets a few gifts, is more likely to take care of each of them, and appreciate both the gift and the giver more. I suspect that it's true of a child who puts his own time and effort into aquiring something as well - he values it more.

With all these things in mind, Joel and I have come to a compromise with which I am quite satisfied. My son is still only 2 years old, so all this talk about allowances and money is mostly just a plan for the future. But the gist of it is this: their chores will be an unpaid lesson in responsibility (making bed, putting away toys, etc). but they can earn money by doing any extra chores that are normally done by mom and dad (yard work, vaccuming, etc) Now they know there are some things that they will have to just do for the sake of getting it done, but that they can earn money by working for someone else.

All of this is just leading up to a sweet moment that happened this afternoon. I pulled out my little swiffy mop, to wipe up the kitchen floor of some sticky spots after lunch and saw my son playing quietly in the living room. And just on a whim, I decided to give him his first lesson in wages... even if he's a little young to grasp it completely just yet. "Hey, kiddo - do you want to help mama mop the kitchen?" His eyes lit up for something new to do, "Yeah!" and he ran over to help. I showed him how to wipe it back and forth and then let him at it. He proceeded to mop back and forth around the kitchen, with much more detail and interest than I expected. He even got in all the corners and under the table! I was planning to pay him 25 cents for about 2 minutes of work. But he did such a good job, I ended up giving him 50 cents for a job very well done, and I made sure he knew that.

He took his 50 cents and proceeded to play "spinnies" with them on the kitchen table. Hahaha. So much for learning the value of money at this age... Maybe I'll wait til he's older before I offer again. I think it also might click better in his mind if we went through the process of purchasing something with his money together and talking about it then too. But this was a good start. :)

Do you give your kids an allowance? Did you get one as a kid?

I apologize for the absence.

A few days after my last post, I found out that my father, whom I hadn't heard from in 15 years, passed away in Little Rock, AR. Needless to say, it's been a tumultuous few weeks for me. And whenever I thought about blogging, I didn't feel like it, or didn't know what to say... And in the long run, I was cutting myself alot of slack and being OK with letting things slide. You have to really baby yourself through times like these, ya know? It's the only way to get through.

I will say that God is so good. Through the whole thing, He carried me emotionally. It seems to me that He wove together this wonderful blanket - a patchwork quilt of loving people, miracles, favor, provision, and an amazing sense of peace, and wrapped me up in this comforter of love... or maybe I just think in sewing terms. :) He orchestrated things perfectly, so that, with only about 48 hour notice, we were still able to take a 2000 mile journey to Little Rock to be able to attend my dad's funeral. Joel and I were the only family that were able to make it, and I am so glad we did. That is a whole story in itself, which I won't get into right now...

But, it's been over a month now, and I'm starting to get back to my old rhythms. Starting to cook again, and sew again. I actually have a few different posts I've been thinking about over these last few days, so I hope you'll bear with me as I catch up a little.

Life goes on... and in that spirit I leave you with a photo of my baby I took yesterday. He's usually a stickler for his routine, but this day, he fell asleep waiting for his lunch to be made. He slept there peacefully for his usually nap duration - about two hours. Tucked under his arm is his stuffed tiger - a current favorite of his.

What an angel ♥

"Let's go [try to] fly a kite..."

The weather has been so nice lately. Not too hot... It's fun to finally get outside every once in awhile. On Saturday, while our little family was walking downtown, Joel asked me if I had seen the new kites they had for sale at one of our favorite stores. We decided today was a good day to go for a little adventure, so we went to the store, picked out this gorgeous thing and checked out with high hopes.

Later that afternoon...
Here is the baby in back seat, indicating that he likes adventures and we should do this more often.

Here he is at the park, waiting for daddy to set up the kite.

Doesn't he look cute in his little sunglasses?

Here's dad, getting down to business.

We had alot of trouble getting the kite in the air. We figured out it needed a tail and didn't really know where to get or make one... But then I remembered I had a bag of thrift donation in the car and my purse (which lately I've been referring to as my Mommy Bag because it has everything from chapstick and wet wipes to sunscreen and a small army knife) I can be quite resourceful if I put my mind to it. ;)

I pulled some yarn and old ribbon from the thrift donation, grabbed the little knife from my Mommy Bag and got to work McGyvering a tail. As I was measuring and cutting ribbon, Joel commented that I was a regular Girl Scout. Yeah - "Be prepared." 

In the meantime, baby was bored and starting throwing the ball of yarn around. He got a real kick out of that - especially when it bonked mommy in the head! 

 ♥

Joel was the one who got the tail on and we took turns trying to run with it. But it just wasn't working for us. I can't believe we didn't get any shots of us running... that would have been almost funny. At one point I got the kite to a pretty decent height - to the piont where it really should have stayed up. But it didn't, it fell right back down to the ground as soon as I stopped running. I think the kite must have been kind of a cheapy one... or maybe the makers were more interested in making the kite look pretty, and they forgot to make sure it worked. It was a pretty frustrating to feel so close and have to walk away unsuccessful... But we had some fun trying, anyway.

"That's it - that's our hero shot."

On the way home, I mentioned to Joel that I don't think I've ever owned a good kite. Like one that actually worked. He didn't think he had either... I wonder if we might be better kite-flyers than we know. We'll have to find a really ugly kite, then maybe it will fly better. ;-)