Annika's First Soccer Game

Annika had her first-ever soccer game on June 7th.

Her U-7 (which means Under 7) soccer team has only had four practice days so we weren't sure how this game would go and what Annika would think of it.

No worries....

She loved it!

Annika is Number 10 in the maroon shirt and green and white polka dotted shorts.


Here's to many more soccer games to come. Annika, may you always enjoy them and have fun playing soccer!

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Happy Father's Day!

Happy, happy Father's Day to all the wonderful fathers out there!  

Especially to our most favorite father of all.....

Daddy!

Love,
Your Three Adorable Girls!

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Ava's Last Tumble Tots Class {sniff, sniff}

Can it really be?

It seems like only yesterday (last September) when Ava was in tears about having to go to her first Tumble Tots class at our YMCA. I knew she'd love it...and I was right. She was hooked after the first class! She knew that every Thursday was her special class and that she'd get to see her friends and her great teacher, Miss Karen.

And now we're doing summer break and she starts Preschool next year which means no more Tumble Tots class....Ava, please stop growing up! (just kidding)

Every class started with some warm-up stretches and the kids' favorite....

BLAST OFF! (jumping up as high as you can)

Making a bridge with the help of her teacher.
Her flip-overs have definitely improved over this last year.
Making an L by herself. Just think of the abs workout she's getting! Yikes! I don't think I could do that!
Fun flips on the bars.
Holding herself up on the high bar.

New thing for this session: doing handstands. Ava was able to do hers without help from her teacher.Last activity...Jumping on the trampoline to "Four Little Monkeys jumping on the bed..." The kids have to help with the counting. I think the kids will agree....the best is saved for last.
I wonder what next school year will bring. I'm sure new challenges and activities. However, I'm going to miss the days where Ava and I got to hang out together while Annika was in school. I think the transition will be tougher on me than on her!

Any words of advice from moms/parents who've been there & done that?

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Garden Update:: June 12

My small flower garden....changes on a nearly daily basis. The window box plantings are definitely growing and getting bigger every day. Still wondering if I should paint my shutters black....

Mark's dad (aka Grandpa) came for a brief but ultra (don't you just love that word?) productive weekend. He helped me get my veggie garden planted....I'm so grateful for his help! Now I've got all my tomatoes- only 10 varieties this year (down from 20 or so in the past)- planted in two beds (with bee balm, borage and basil). The peppers (two varieties), ground cherries occupy another bed. I've also got onions nestled with shallots, carrots and beets in an another bed. Cucumbers (one variety) under planted with spinach in another bed. Then there's the lettuce, spinach (nearly done) and zucchini (two kinds) in yet another bed. Strawberries occupy the seventh bed. Beans for drying and rhubarb occupy bed number eight AND zucchini, scallop squash and onions occupy bed nine. The smaller square beds are filled with giant kale, Swiss chard, pole beans, marigolds, calendula, borage, sage and nasturium. 

WHEW! I'm sure I'm missing something....

Of course....what I actually get will depend on whether or not I can keep deer, rabbit, raccoon munching to a minimum!

Lovely blue borage flowers. I do love blue flowers! The bees go nuts for them too!

View of the freshly planted veggie garden. There are pole beans planted around each of the poles. I can't wait to see what a yard-long beans actually look like! I've also got some beans specifically for drying (called Jacob's Cattle) in the bed at the front of the photo.

My pumpkin/winter squash/melon/watermelon/cutting garden bed. *New this year!*  It's still not big enough but it's about ten times larger than in previous years. I finally have a small cutting garden! I love having cut flowers in my house but I hate cutting them from my small flower garden. I've got gladiolus and dahlias planted. Here's hoping to lots of flowers! I've got a seeper hose on a timer installed.

Tomato beds... cleared of the vast numbers of borage seedlings (I left one borage plant per bed). We installed the cattle panels as a tomato anchoring/staking system. Usually I wait until after the tomato plants are in desperate need of staking before putting up the stakes. I'm actually ahead of schedule this year! WOW! This year I also stuck to tomato varieties that claim lots of disease resistance. I've had some issues in the past growing heirloom varieties. Last year I hardly got any tomatoes (probably due to cool weather but still).

Veggie garden.... with watering system and timers all set up. I can't say enough good things about having a watering system installed. It was a pain in the patootie to install the first time around but it's been a real blessing to have.

Annabelle Hydrangea fully clothed in lovely white flowers...

Resident House Wren (or I think that's what this little brown birdy is). This one sits near my window boxes and hollers sings at the world. How does your garden grow? Do you do companion plantings?

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Personalized Wreaths for the Girls

Do you remember the egg wreaths I had hanging on the girls' bedroom doors? Those were from Easter. Actually from before Easter. That was a long, long time ago.

I think it's time for a change, no?

So on a rainy day...too wet to go outside and play (isn't that a line from the book Pinkalicious?) the girls and I created personalized wreaths for their doors.

I already had the straw wreaths from an earlier project that didn't happen. I wrapped them with muslin fabric leftover from another project. (I wrapped them with fabric because I didn't want bits of straw falling off and making a mess)

Then the girls got to have FUN! I love collecting little bits and bobs...random small things that I find interesting and don't have the heart to give away or toss out. The girls went through my bits and bobs stash and my scrapbooking stash (for paper and paper flowers) to create their wreaths. Annika did her own placement but I helped Ava put hers together. I manned the hot glue gun once the items were perfectly placed on the wreaths. Then we hung them up using fat ribbon and a thumb tack (tacked to the top of the door).

Annika's Rainbow Wreath:

Annika decided to place her chosen items in a rainbow color pattern. She picked the glass hummingbird ornament as her center piece.

Ava's wreath of miscellaneous found items. Complete with a nest, tiny red birds, flowers and ladybugs.

The girls love creating blanket forts. They're supposed to be Secret Forts...shhh...so please don't tell anyone about them! LOL! They set up these two (one on either side of the bed) in our guest bedroom. Not exactly what I'd call secret but I'm glad they had fun.

They wanted to sleep in their forts...and why not? It's summer after all! The first night they slept the entire night in their special forts. On the second night we found Annika back in her own bed but Ava was still tucked away in her fort. I guess with all those sleepovers she's done on Annika's bedroom floor Ava is used to sleeping on the floor whereas Annika isn't.

Daddy reading The Hobbit to the girls. Ava is in the entrance to her Fort.

The wreaths and the blanket forts were all from our Summer To-Do List.

What's on your list?

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2010 Elementary School Art Show....

There's no doubt....

I'm way behind in posting photos! Funny how life just kind of gets in the way of things like blogging. :)

Here are some photos from the 2010 Potosi Elementary School Art Show held on May 25. It's always lots of fun to see what all the kids have created in their art classes. I just love how colorful the school's halls are during the art show. Plus, there's always a spaghetti dinner held at the school so I don't have to worry about cooking dinner that night! Sweet!!!

Ava having a jumping/flying contest with herself.

The "Mom, please stop taking photos of us" looks. Can't wait to see what next year will bring!

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One AK Girl + One OK Guy = 15 Years being a Happy Family

15 years ago.....

in a land far, far away....

(that being my home state, Alaska)

We said "I DO!"

(for the record...My family- Mama (mostly), Opa and myself did all the flowers for the wedding...including this bower or arch. My hands were so scratched up from making topiaries with spruce branches that there are NO hand photos- you know the ones- that show the new wedding bands. I loved, loved, loved all the flower arrangements and bouquets that we had. It was one of the few things I really wanted- lots of flowers!)
One of our wedding invitations......

All the wedding invitations were hand-painted by either myself or my mom. (I painted this one) They were all unique. Which is probably why I didn't make enough of them. LOL!

We had a very simple, small wedding. It was absolutely lovely! I had my heart set on an outdoor wedding...but the weather in Anchorage wasn't great that summer so we weren't sure if we'd be able to do it. Turns out our wedding was on the ONE beautiful day that summer! We even had a Wedding Moose visit us during our wedding rehearsals at the church. :)

The only thing I would do differently (if I could go back in time and make a few changes) is to get a different wedding dress. It's not that I didn't like the style. (I had a seamstress sew up this simple dress for me.) It's that I chose a SEE-THROUGH fabric! Whoops! I didn't realize that until a few days before the wedding and Mama and I'm not sure who else helped fashion a slip of sorts. Whew!

So....what is the traditional fifteen year anniversary gift?

Maybe a new set of pots? LOL!!!

Have a great day!

PS. Happy Birthday Tante Kirstin! We love you! Hope you have a Wonderful Day!

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Lemonade and Butterflies...

Annika's Lemonade Stand.... complete with butterfly observing jars.Annika really wanted to capture a butterfly with her net and place it in her little butterfly home she created.
Here's her butterfly home...do you see the butterfly in it? I think it's some sort of skipper but it's hard to tell. She named it Violet. I think....or was it Rose? I just asked Annika to kindly not capture any of the grand dames of butterflies- the monarchs or swallowtails. She observed it for some time before letting it go.

Ava hugging her butterfly jar that Annika made for her (and also captured a butterfly for her).

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Late May Garden with New Star of the Show...

My hanging basket I planted full of lovely plants. (I can give you the plant list if you're interested). In another month or so this beauty will be really full and hanging beautifully.

Do you see what Mark made for me???

Check out the New Stars of the Show:

{{{{Upper Window Boxes}}}}

I planted Wave petunias, sweet potato vines, purple asters, pink geraniums, lime green creeping jenny, purple cabbage (hoping for fall color) and teddy bear sunflower seeds (they're short and sweet). Shouldn't take too long before these window boxes are overflowing with color. LOVE them! Thanks so much, Mark!!!!

(Do you think I should paint the shutters black? Then I could paint my front door a fun color....like turquoise or yellow or orange or red or green or...)
Another view of my darling hanging basket. I couldn't find just the right one so I planted my own. Annabelle hydrangea is getting ready to bloom.

Veggie Garden, early June 2010. My tomato beds are completely over-run by borage. I'll have to carefully lift them out and plant them elsewhere (great for pollination as bees LOVE borage). We created a larger pumpkin patch (which I'm hoping will also be home to some cutting flowers). I just planted the beans around the poles. This year I'm trying some novelty yard long beans. Can't wait to see what those will be like! I still have lots to plant but I'm still in recovery mode from the half-marathon from last weekend. See that little inflatable green pool? That's how I plan on keeping the girls from whining at me every time I have garden work to do. Plus, I can take a dip after a hard day of working in the gardens. :) I'd say it's a win-win situation!My potato patch this year...

Perhaps a little unusual but I really wanted to give these potato growing bags a try. So far the potato plants are taking off and growing like crazy. The cart means I can wheel the potatoes around (for maximum sun, etc). I'm growing red, white and blue potatoes. Okay, so they're not really called that but those should be their colors!
Front flower garden. It changes a little from year to year (as the shrubs grow). I really love the color and texture combos. I mostly look at leaf color and texture when I pick out plants or flowers. On occasion I do choose a flower based solely on its bloom color but it's pretty rare. I love variation.
Front Door Greeter. She's spiky on the inside but very girly on the outside.
Around the corner of the house... My giant red poppies just finished blooming....
Hummingbirds...frequent visitors at my feeders.

This is the first year for the iris. I bought them from some elderly ladies at a garage sale. They said they were tiger lilies. Hmmmm..... I don't think so! I didn't know what color they'd be so I was taking a chance but as it turns out they were a deep purple- absolutely perfect for my garden!
Just love this color/texture combo.
Hummingbird feeder by our front door. We've seen up to five tiny birds feeding at once.

Hope you're enjoying your garden! Now you know where to find me on a nice day.....

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