January Flash-back

Eleonora is my little helper. Here she is sharpening the pencils. 

She reminds me of Grandmother - always taking care of people. I've caught her finding the boys' clothes and shoes and bringing them to them before school, blowing Anna Kate's nose, trying to clean up a big after-bath time puddle on the bathroom floor with a teeny square of toilet paper. She is too much fun!

He is Risen

 I led a great Easter craft for my Sunday School class and a camp retreat.

First I cut this fun egg/cross shape out of the construction paper.

I used the Cricut to cut out the 'He is Risen' letters for each child.

Then they glued tissue paper to waxed paper for the 'stained glass' effect and glued on the letters.

Voila!

Mommy & Me

Eleonora and I had our last regular meeting of Moms4Moms last week and seeing as how we were ready a bit early and a little more dolled up than usual, we decided to do a little photo shoot.

 Eleonora is not like her brothers were at this age.

She loves the camera.

 

She is sitting on my lap as I type this saying, "CHEESE!" 

and pressing our heads together wishing for another picture.

 She is such a good time.

She had the boys playing 'Ring Around the Rosie' with her last night at bedtime.

They played over and over and were cracking up. 

 Self-timer.

Fancy. 

Ha.

 Here we are at the last time we took 'selfies' together with my big camera that I can remember.

We were headed to one of Eleonora's first Sundays of church.

We love Eleonora!

Planting Seeds

Happy Monday!

I am finally feeling fit as a fiddle this morning after being mostly puny since Thursday,

but the boys and I snuck in a little seed-planting this weekend anyways.

 Remember all the seeds I planted at Craft Night on Eleonora's birthday?

Those 80 happy seedlings perished when I accidentally left them out in the cold one freezing night.

Oops!

Major bummer.

So the boys and I planted four things this weekend - 

Two sorts of beans, cilantro and...

 see if you can decipher it...

 Pumpkins!

Our strawberries are coming along nicely.  

Probably time to get out the net so the birds don't peck them all.  

How do real live strawberry farmers do it?

Happy Tuesday

I didn't do a birthday interview with Eleonora in February.

She was not super verbal at that time.

So I thought I'd have the boys tell us a little about two-year old Eleonora today.

Who is Eleonora's best friend?

J - Kipper, Maya, Buzzbee (cartoon characters)

C - Eleonora, Momma, Dad, Josiah, and Lydia, and Bean's bunny, Thumper, and Buzz

E - Bunny!  Bunny!  Me!  Me!  Me!  Ha!  Me!

C - Oh, I forgot!  Caleb, too!

 What is Eleonora's favorite pastime?

C - Play with her Lil'Woodzeez, playing Starfall.

E - Poppa, Poppa, Poppa.

C - Eating apples.

E - Apple, apple, apple, Momma.

 What will she do when she grows up?

J - I think she might be a teacher.  Teacher, or Poptropica Island designer.

C - Buy a house and decorate it.  I'll visit her sometimes and eat her apples.

What does Eleonora love to eat?

C - Apples.

E - Apple, apple.

J - She used to love Puffs.

C - Candy!

E - Candy.  Candy.  Candy.

J - Eggs.

E - Egg, egg, egg.  Mom, Mom, Mom, eggs!  Go!  Go, Momma.  Egg!  Go!

Well, I think that maybe it's almost time to make supper.

Maybe breakfast for supper!

Our Weekend

We were scheduled to go on a lovely biking adventure on Saturday, but our friends got sick. So we decided to build a roof on our treehouse. But first Chris decided to investigate a mysterious puddle. Which led to the uncovering of a very large sewage trouble. Which led to a very sad and stinky weekend for our dauntless resident handyman. He is looking cheerful in the picture above, because after, I dunno, 15 hours or so of working in the muck, he thinks he has found the source of the troubles. More work lies ahead. 

In other news, Eleonora, Sunday School teacher in training, continues to entertain and delight. 

And her hair is getting long. She loves sitting here and letting me do her hair each morning.  Now the boys are another story. We sort of chase them about the kitchen with a squirt bottle of water to get their hair looking respectable each day. 

Have a wonderful week!

Spring is Bursting Out All Over

 Eleonora and I go on a garden tour most mornings.

Here's what we saw this week.

The boys' apple trees are blossoming!

There were just a few flowers on them for the first time last year, but no apples.

We are hoping for apples this time!

 I think these might be forget-me-nots.

I started them from seeds last spring and they are just bloomnig for the first time.

 The strawberries are covered in blossoms.

 And a few more Easter pictures for good measure.

Eleonora loves real bubbles and dandelion "bubbles."

 And this is how excited she gets about 'bunny'!