10 on Thursday

Goodness, I've been bad about blogging lately. I wish I could say we've been off doing something fabulous, but we've just been busy with regular stuff. Which is pretty fabulous, really. :) Here's my update:

1. I joined a golf league with 3 friends, and I'm really enjoying playing again; I played fairly often in my "former life" but I hadn't even picked up a golf club since Caroline was born. It is nice to be outside, getting exercise, and enjoying some "girl" time - especially because my foursome is more interested in snacks, drinks, and socializing than golf scores. My kind of golfing. :) I'm also in a book club and taking a yoga class.

2. With the end of weaning in sight, I feel like an actual person with an actual life again. I'll be sad when William and I are all done with nursing (very soon), but I am really enjoying the freedom. :)

3. I booked my travel to Vegas with my Colorado girls in August. To say that I'm excited is a slight understatement.

4. I booked our trip home to Chicago in July. All of us can't wait to spend quality time with both sides of the family. While we are there, we'll be heading up to WI for a family wedding and a family reunion. Can't wait to see everybody!

5. I'm halfway through booking our trip to Steve's 10 year USAFA reunion in September. It will be our first trip away from the kids since William was born. And it includes some of my favorite people. Thanks, Mom, for taking my babies while we're gone!

6. I'm counting down the days until the Cobb/Shertzer/Clark family vacation in the Poconos!!!!! Can't wait to be with you guys, and I really can't wait to meet the newest member of the compound, Mr. Benjamin Richard Shertzer. I think we are doing way too much traveling in the next few months, but it is all so good, I couldn't pass up on any of it.

7. We are highly anticipating Caroline's first ballet recital next weekend. Grandma, Aunt Melisa, and Penny are flying in for the show. I can't wait to have my 4 best girls all in one place!

8. Steve started traveling again. :(

9. Since no blog post is complete without pictures and I've taking NONE for weeks, I rushed around and took a few shots of some of the gardening projects I've been working on. My monkeys decided they needed to be included in the pictures as well. Sorry the pictures aren't great!



The view from my kitchen door - it makes me so happy while I cook!

This sad little gardener was not happy to be left inside this morning:

This one actually begged me to take her picture! Maybe she'll stop giving me dead eyes this summer?

10. We've got 2 fun BBQs planned with great friends this weekend. I hope your weekend plans include lots of leisure time or exciting events. Happy Memorial Day, everyone!

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

Remember back in January when Caroline wrote a letter to Sasha and Malia Obama? We got a response!

Thank you, Mrs. Obama! Caroline was thrilled!

Catching Up

Whew - it has been a crazy 10 days around here with the Cobbs' visit, me starting a golf league, making dinner for 4 friends with new babies, and a trip to the circus. I feel like I've barely caught my breath in days! I've got a quiet house on this gorgeous Mother's Day morning as Caroline and Steve are at church practicing for the children's service today, and I'm waiting for William to wake up so we can join them. We've spent a quiet Mother's Day weekend doing chores, running errands, and getting lots of spring planting done. I was woken up this morning with Mother's Day cuddles from both of my babies, followed by a pancake breakfast. The rest of the day promises lots more lovely family moments. I am just so grateful to be a mom this Mother's Day, and to have two wonderful children and an amazing husband to share it with. I hope all of you mommies out there are enjoying a restful day as well! I love that Caroline is so into the idea of Mother's Day - she has been trying so hard to make it a special day for me, even "letting" me sit in her chair "for special" at breakfast. :) Three year olds do have their adorable moments.

Anyway, reflections on Sarah and Erin's visit last week: it was an amazing visit. I don't know if you've been following her blog posts this week, but I know I've been anxiously awaiting her updates every day. It has been like re-living a perfect visit. On our previous three visits to each other's houses, we've been two exhausted, usually pregnant mommies trying to keep kids fed/napped/content. We've been grateful if we even get 20 minutes to drink a cup of tea and chat while the kids are sleeping or occupied. This visit was completely different - maybe because the girls are older, maybe because we had Steve around a lot to offer an extra set of hands, or maybe because we're just more used to the chaos of lots of kids at our feet. I couldn't believe how much we did in one short weekend; we trekked into Boston, we ate yummy Indian food, Erin and I had a fun girls' afternoon shopping the boutiques, and I even introduced Erin to many of my Boston friends (which is good, because they hear about her all.the.time). I know I've said it a million times, but it really was a lovely visit. It meant a lot to me, particularly, because it was such a huge contrast to Erin's visit last March. At the time, I was literally days away from delivering William - huge, uncomfortable, and anxious. Steve had started traveling, I was in potty-training hell, and I was very, very lonely. With two toddlers, a small baby (Ephraim), and a mom struggling with sciatica (me), we barely left the house. It was just so different this time. It really made me appreciate how good I feel, both physically and emotionally, how lucky I am to have two healthy, happy kids, and how much this place feels like "home." I'm so glad I got to share that with Erin.

For those of you who know us well, the story of my friendship with Erin is old news. Our husbands were next-door-neighbors in college. We met literally weeks after my wedding and subsequent move to Ohio. We were both new brides, newly graduated from college, starting careers as elementary school teachers and lives as air force wives. Steve and I and Erin and Brent became almost instant best friends, and spent three amazing years together in Ohio. We followed each other out to Colorado Springs and bought houses less than half a mile away from each other. Within a year, we were expecting daughters 4 days a part. Two years later, we had sons 4 months a part. Watching our girls play together this weekend, and spending lots and lots of time with my dearest friend in the world talking about everything, truly reminded me how lucky I am to have the Cobbs in my life. I think it is safe to say that God had a plan for our families. I love you, Erin, Brent, Sarah, and Ephraim. I can't imagine the last 8 years of my life without you.

Sweet Sarah, who is way more cooperative having her picture taken than her best friend:


My BFF, being not so cooperative as I was practicing working on aperture:

Cuteness

UPDATED!

Wanna see some gorgeous pictures of my sweet boy? Click here.

And be sure to check out Erin's blog all week for details about our visit! I'm going to blog about it as soon as I have time to process it. It was an absolutely perfect visit with my best girls.

Science Friday

The daddy has had a few days off of work lately, so Caroline and I have been busy catching up on some of the science experiments we've had on the back burner for awhile. I figure I only have a couple years to pack in the science experiments before she's on to me...

It pretty much all started with the bird feeder we put up a few weeks ago outside our kitchen window. We initially filled it with mixed seed and waited for the one "smart bird" to visit our "bird restaurant" and spread the word to all her featherd friends. Caroline even made a sign to advertise our new establishment. Unfortunately, there weren't no smart birds. So, we decided to change our menu to the more expensive black-oiled sunflower seeds and, of course, our feeder was filled with all kinds of snooty birds within about 15 minutes. Picky, picky, picky...



One of the fun parts of the feeder, though, has been watching for all the different types of birds. We even made a bird chart to keep track and Caroline quickly figured out the Chickadees, Cardinals, Nuthatches, and Blue Jays. Unfortunately, we still haven't had any turkeys visit.



In addition to the birdfeeder we've also been busy with all our spring flowers. The warm weather we had last week finally gave the tulips and daffodils the incentive they needed to pop. We now (finally!) have a yard full of color (hmm... can you guess who picked all pink and purple tulips last fall?). I also think Caroline has checked every last tulip to see if there are any Twillerbabies inside.





Besides the tulips, we've also been trying to grow some Calla Lillies in our hydroponics incubator (okay, it's a 2-liter pop bottle) at our kitchen table. Supposedly, Amarylis bulbs and Paper White Lillies are ideal for these indoor planters because the bulbs don't need to be chilled to trigger their growth like tulips; but, since you can only apparently buy these from Home Depot around Christmas-time, we thought we'd experiement with a spring bulb--like the Calla Lilly--and see if it would work. So far they are definitely on their way. We'll have to see if they actually flower, though.

Outside, we also got our 2nd annual vegetable garden underway. We are going to wait until Mother's Day to plant the tomatoes, peppers, squash, and pickles but we thought we would get started with the early spring vegetables--lettuce, spinach, broccoli, and peas. Hopefully we will have another good year!



You might be wondering what the big gray barrel is in the picture. Well, last year I ran a drip hose from the house and watered the garden using the hose and an automatic timer set for 15 min every other day. This year we thought we'd get fancy (and a little more eco friendly) and use a rain barrel. I was going to make one, but after looking around for a suitable barrell, decided it was just easier to buy one ready made. Turns out there is a local company that imports olives from all over the world in big 50-gal, food-safe barrels. They then re-use the containers by making them into rain barrels. Fortunately we have a down-spout right in the garden area so I cut the spout off, put the rain barrel underneath, and hooked up the drip hose and timer to the spigot at the bottom of the barrel. I'm not quite sure how well the whole system is going to work or whether it is sized right, but I thought it would be worth a try.





In addition to the rain barrel, we also started a compost bin last fall and it has been cooking away ever since. We've been putting in leaves, grass, and vegetable/fruit scraps from the kitchen and I have to say it works pretty well. We even found a nice compost pail for the kitchen that makes it easy to keep scraps and keep any smell away. Hopefully between the rain barrel and composting we'll have great eats this summer!

To round out the Science Friday update with a little Chemistry, the kids and I also had a great time making pretzels during the recent "Mommy-day-Off." We were making play-doh pretzels in the morning and thought it would be fun to figure out how to make the real thing. So, we all got to learn a little bit about yeast that day and had fun watching the bread rise in the sun. The most fun part, though, (besides eating them warm out of the oven!) was rolling the super long "snakes"--this was Boo's specialty!

The Great Swing Set Debacle of 2009

We have a new swing set in our backyard! I won't bore you with the details, but getting the correct swing set was such a disaster that the normally calm member of our family was writing nasty letters and our dearly-loved neighbors are walking away from it with a brand-new awesome swing set of their own. :) Regardless of the process, we're psyched to have it.

Here are the kids waiting for the swing set to come off the truck:


What, your kid doesn't go to preschool in a tutu and puddle boots?

Steve and Caroline reading the directions.

Steve had lots of good "help." I mainly refreshed drinks and provided snacks.

After a day and half of hard work on Steve's part, the swing set was ready for play!

I think this may be my new favorite picture:

I have the feeling our backyard is going to look like this most nights after dinner this spring:

PS - I think my husband is pretty awesome, not only for his mad swing-set-assembling skills, but also for spending his whole weekend building this for his kids. We love you, Steve.

Samantha's Day Off

Back in the days of teaching kindergarten and first grade, snow days were a beautiful thing. I got the whole day to sleep in, watch daytime tv, and just be lazy. I liked to celebrate those days by calling my mom and sister and reminding them, repeatedly, that I had the DAY OFF and that if they needed me I wouldn't be at work because I was AT HOME on a DAY OFF. They found these calls charming. :)

Well today and I just wanted to let you, my faithful blog readers, know that I have THE DAY OFF. Steve's got the kids all day, so if you need me, I'M NOT HOME. I'm not serving snacks, folding laundry, or doing the preschool drop-off. I won't be changing any diapers or putting anybody down for a nap. 'Cause I'm on a DAY OFF.

Can you tell I'm pretty excited??? This will be the first day in more than a year that I'll be away from the kiddos for more than 3 hours. The freedom is almost overwhelming. Now if you will excuse me, I'm off to take a long walk, go to Starbucks and read trashy magazines, and then meet a friend for lunch and shopping. You all have fun at your jobs!!!