It’s been awhile since I’ve done a “Love,” and usually it is Friday Love, but I’m feeling particularly amorous today. So here is what I’m lovin’ this fine Wednesday.

Rainy Days. Mondays might get me down, but rainy days NEVER do. I think it is one of my favorite ways to wake up. After the initial panic of thinking there is running water somewhere in the house, and once I realize it is rain, RAIN(!) on our Spanish-tiled roof, then I snuggle down under the covers to listen to it for just a few more minutes and it always makes me smile. Even better is when I wake up early and realize it is raining AND I still have a few hours left to sleep, and then I can fall back to sleep listening to the rain.

It is still so bizarre to hear native Californians complain about the weather. “One day it is 80, the next day it is 60 degrees and SO cold! And then it rains!” Grumble, grumble, grumble.

Um, yes. That is kinda the best weather you are going to find anywhere…should not be spending time fretting over it. But I guess people have to have something to talk/complain about. Anyhow, I enjoy the break, and we always really need the rain.

Gardens Planted. Addie and I worked all Easter afternoon on the gardens. I’ll have to catch some photos of it to show you our handiwork. We have a very good start and now the plants are all enjoying our rainy day, too!

New Wipers. Okay, this might be a little bit odd, but bear with me. I just ran out to take the recycling in and I sort of absent-mindedly flicked on my windshield wipers as it started to rain. You cannot imagine my immense joy at wipers that actually work – and work well! “Aaaaaahhhh!” I think I actually heard angels sing as a golden beam shone through my windshield!  I have had my Volvo for 5-years – in fact as a “yeah! we paid you off” gift to the car, I took it in last week for the 30K mile checkup. I was very good in the beginning about taking it to the dealer for oil changes (um, they were free in the beginning!) but when I had to start paying for them, I quickly found cheaper alternatives.

Apparently Volvo has really weird wipers that are expensive – and need a special “Volvo tool” to put on. Over the years, I’ve “tried changing them myself” several times to no avail and at every oil change I ask them to try, but nobody has been able to do it for me.  You can imagine how crummy my wipers were starting to be after 5-years of baking in the California sun. When it DID rain, I would just not use them because the wipers were making it worse! So last week, ‘lo and behold, when I took it to a Volvo service center they were finally able to switch them out. They were expensive, but with no car payment now and the happiness I felt this morning….it was oh, so worth it!

Fruits & Vegs. Every other Wednesday we get a CSA box from a local farm with fresh, organic fruits and vegetables. Each time I open the box it feels a little like opening a special surprise gift. You never know what you are going to get, but we are always hoping for the carrots! We got some in today’s box and I so LOVE me some of these carrots. I am normally not a huge carrot fan, but these? I call them “carrot candy” they are so sweet and delicious – you almost forget you are eating something that is good for you. Maybe it is because we are used to eating the little baby carrots that are packaged up and not nearly as fresh, or maybe they sprinkle a little crack on these ones – I am not sure, but at any rate they are fantastic and a definite reason to love farm box Wednesdays.

Good Doctors. Everything has checked out a-ok with our little Addikins. I am grateful that we have a great doctor that jumped on the ship the minute she saw us last week. Addie had four, back-to-back, major nosebleeds within twelve hours last Tuesday. Accompanied by headaches (which really freaked me out) and an upset tummy (hers, not mine although mine was in knots a little bit, too.) and lots and lots of blood. Our doctor rushed us into a pediatric ENT who quickly cauterized her right nostril. He was awesome and she such a trooper. And Mommy did ok through all of it, too.

Our doctor then ordered blood work as well to make sure that there was nothing else lying underneath the nosebleeds. Ugh. That was not nearly as smooth a visit. And Mommy did not do nearly as ok on that one either. Let me tell you, it is torture to have to hold your practically bucking child (who is seriously strong) down and listen to her cry, “Please Mama, don’t let them do it.” She was crying, I was crying. It was a little bit of a mess. But blood work came back fine and (knock on wood) we haven’t had any more nosebleeds either! Love to Dr. P. for making us go through (what seemed at the time) endless appointments and tests so we all have some peace of mind and less blood in our life.

Coffee. Oh, come on! You don’t really know me at all if you think I would not include my elixir of choice here! Coffee on a rainy day is the ultimate treat. Ok, coffee on any day is a perfect treat. This here coffee will give me the quick energy I need to go tackle that playroom that I’ve been putting off for weeks now.

Happy Wednesday!

From our bunnies to yours – wishing you a blessed and happy Easter!

Just a few things that I have learned this week. Thought I’d pass along…

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
As in, just because you have a free drink coupon at Starbucks, don’t let your frugal side get all greedy and agree to a triple-shot (it’s free after all!) of espresso in your drink. I’m sure the Starbucks barista was just being helpful, and I was just thinking of getting the biggest bang for my (free!) buck…but a triple shot of espresso is enough to send anyone right over the jittery edge. And the crash is so not worth it, especially when you have very little sleep for the next two nights in a row. (See below)

Just because your kids are out of the “baby-no-sleep-stage,” doesn’t mean you are going to have long, sleep-filled nights.
And even worse than one very-little-sleep night is two back-to-back sleepless nights. Addison has been having ridiculous, gushing, half-hour long nosebleeds and we have been doing the round of doctors, blood work, and have an appointment with a pediatric ENT specialist tomorrow trying to get to the bottom of them. It wouldn’t be so worrisome, since she has had them occasionally in the past, but the amount of blood she has lost (OMG! the blood!!), the frequency (three in one day!) of the bleeds, and the fact that they are all accompanied by headaches that is all very troublesome. So needless to say, even when she does get back to sleep, I’m still lying awake filled with worry and angst.

No matter how you try to schedule it, every important thing will always fall within the same week.
And of course, that will be the week your baby falls sick, too. It is Murphy’s Law, right?

Sorry all – we have no Crafty Tuesday around these parts again this week. Just me feeling completely overwhelmed in our over-committed week. So nothing to see here…move along.

(But please leave a note if you have been crafty. I might not get to see it til later this week, but I’ll be by!)

Choirsters in the Palm Sunday procession this morning. My favorite shot of the week.
Did you have one this week?

All in one piece and without the aid of any sort of flotation devices. We can definitely vouch for the ship – she is “ship-shape!” I am downloading hundreds, seriously HUNDREDS of photos right now and will have some to share very soon, along with our review of the Disney Fantasy – I’ll give you a sneak preview…it is amazing!

We were incredibly grateful for the past two days (including a very rare rainy Sunday) to get caught up. Of course it was a little busy with unpacking, laundry, a horse-filled birthday party for Addie –

And a first volleyball game for our newest Striker –

The chaos pretty much picked right back up where we left it, but it feels good to be back.

Well, I’m feeling better – thanks for all the good wishes, that is the good news. The bad news is clearly nothing crafty and fantastic was completed since we last discussed crafty goodness. The weekend was spent in science project (Em) and habitat diorama (Ad) finishing mode. We were successful and it was a huge relief for all of us, I think.

I did help Mrs. K. put together a pj party for Dr. Seuss’s birthday last week too. I saw this milk and cookies party somewhere and for the life of me I cannot find it amongst all of the blogs I read. I’ll find it sooner or later so I can attribute this cute idea to her – but for now, I scrounged the recycle bins and sterilized a LOT of frappucino bottles so we could have little milk jugs with our cookies.

And, more good news…I have 30+ of these cute bottles if you need to borrow them for a milk & cookies party of your own!

Now…just a little warning, there will be little or no (more than likely – NO) posting for next week. In fact I’m thinking my laptop might not make the trip with me. But I’ll be thinking of all of you and will have much to discuss when we return – especially since we are going full force on the kitchen and house fun when we return! Until then…happy crafting and we’ll see you soon! xo

I was a bit of a tyrant today.

I’d like to blame it on the fact that I cannot even think clearly because my head feels like it going to explode. But that really isn’t a good enough reason to snap at the girls every two minutes simply because they couldn’t stop the continual shrieks of laughter.

Needless to say they were in bed before 7:30pm tonight. But before they were shuffled off, there were two conversations that still have me smiling and I just have to make sure to document.

Addie was sitting on the sofa, looked to her left and then to her right as she said, “Did you know that the red-eyed tree frog could look at our TV with one eye and he could see the bookshelf over there (in the back of our living room.) with his other eye! At the same time! Ha…that would be cool wouldn’t it?” And then she sat and did this funny little thing with her head and eyes and tried to see both directions.

Then at dinner Em was eating her tomato soup and she said, “Soup is weird. It is like a liquid, but it is kind of like a solid, too.” Addie pipes up with, “Yeah! It is a ‘lilid!”  And Emma, laughing so hard she could barely get her sentence out, comes back with “No, no! Addie it is a ‘soquid.’  Soup is a soquid!” Which sent them off into fresh new peals of laughter.

Silly, silly monkeys. Makes me so very happy to have a fresh start tomorrow. Head cold or no, I need to make darn sure I don’t end up disappointed in how I treated them at the end of the day again.

And I don’t even want to think how much $$ I owe the Lenten jar today. I think my whole week’s allowance goes straight to the jar.

Look what we have waiting in our driveway all ready to be happily transplanted into a new garden! I won these lovelies and a gift certificate to Armstrong Nursery last night at SEF-apalooza (fundraiser for our educational fund). I wish I had a photo of Addie’s face when she saw them waiting for her this morning.

Unfortunately I’ve been kinda sofa-bound most of today with an insane head cold that was only made worse by NyQuil last night. I’m hoping to feel better and find some spots to get these planted before we leave on Thursday. Just reminding myself to breathe. It will all get done.

Well, as I promised last week, we actually completed some crafts over the past week. First of all, while we were out scouring for ideas to steal, er…I mean while we were shopping…we found these cute eggs at Pottery Barn. Now, while they are cute and all – they are still $20 and I just didn’t like them that much.

However, I did like these cute (even cuter because they are colored!) eggs from Hobby Lobby to the tune of $4 on sale.

Add a little Eva magic (and a font I like even better than the PB one!) and we have our own Easter egg set.

I am now trying to figure out how to display them. I cut apart the egg carton they came in, but it is a little too wobbly. Still working out that one.

And, Birdie #2 and I finally got to try the Boy-ville wooden toys. They are pretty stinkin’ cute. This was Jamie’s first attempt at painting a set of the boys.

I’m telling you…it is complete therapy to sit and paint for an hour. It is my painting zen time.

I had to add a Harry Potter and a Luke Skywalker for a few of the little boys on my list…oops, Luke must’ve walked away, he didn’t make it into this shot.

And of course, the parade of girls waiting to be boxed up. We also added a Tinkerbelle into the lineup. I’m working on some sort of tulle-like wings for her back.

Up next…after the vacation of course, is planning a Harry Potter party for Em. She has decided that is what she really wants for her NINTH birthday. Aye. She also wants to invite some of her friends, who are boys.

We’ll see what Daddy has to say about that one…