Catching up

We've had a series of busy days in our little family! Here's a quick catch-up as to our doings the past few weeks . . .

Clive received yet another hair cut
Matt is an officer of the hair-cut police apparently. Clive's hair was getting squirrelly around the ears so Matt whipped out the clippers. He did a great job on the cut but Clive is looking too much like a big boy and not enough like a baby these days.























Yard sale success!
Though we didn't rake in mountains of profits, we DID succeed in getting rid of loads of stuff. Even after selling our unwanted possessions, our car was full of discarded items to donate to our local thrift store. Feels so good to have fewer stuff-filled-bins in our basement.

Chloe made about $10 in lemonade and cookie sales. She was SO ADORABLE that not many yard sale patrons could resist her. She even had a little friend over on Friday and they BOTH sold lemonade in their princess garb!!! Too cute!

And big thanks to all of you for the great yard sale tips!

My general observation is that I'm way too cheap a person to hold a yard sale. It was a nice way to purge our household of stuff but I am a horribly low-pricer. I firmly believe that yard sales should be cheap and hence most of our items were priced under $1. (Check out the cool display contraption Matt built!)

That being said, we still think it was a very positive experience. It was a beautiful weekend weather-wise and I got to chat with several neighbors both days. That in itself was a huge bonus! I don't know about your schedule, but ours seems rather hectic during the school year. We seem to flit here and there without spending much time invested in the lives of our neighbors and community.

Also interesting to see the various characters that attended our small sale. The funniest was a lady who haggled with me over every single item she bought. C'mon, as if my stuff wasn't cheap enough already! Of course I gave in. I'm no tough salesperson.














Pittsburgh zoo trip
In a word, the Pittsburgh zoo is AWESOME! I highly recommend it as a family and kid-friendly zoo. We did the zoo in two days and saw it all. They have your traditional zoo-ey animals including all the cool African ones but they also boast some unique zoo sights. The onsite aquarium was a definite highlight for us all. It's small enough to hold the attention of little ones and yet big enough to showcase a variety of sea creatures. Faves were the stingray pool with tunnel, the 2 story high fish tank with sharks, and the rockfish (ok, that was mainly just my fave).

The kids kingdom was fantastic! Well-planned with unique playground stops throughout it was like a mini-zoo in itself. Wide variety of animals too. We saw sea lions swimming, deer, owls, an alligator, kangaroos, a skunk, sheep, and a camel.

By far the best element of the zoo trip was the fact that we were all together and AWAY from home. Without the distractions of computer and work we were all fully engaged in the time together. We're already planning our next mini-family-getaway!

Check out all the pictures of our trip here.

























Website project completion
Not much to report here but after hours upon hours upon hours of work I finally completed and successfully published a website for a small church in Wisconsin. Whew! It was a frustrating and rewarding journey. I love the design process of website production but I'm such a hacker that it's always a long series of trial-and-error before I have a finished product.

With that disclaimer firmly in mind, check out the website for tree of life ministries here. I'd love your feedback and helpful comments!

Flowers and garden in bloom
No photos of the garden yet as it's really just unexciting seedlings right now. My ingenious hubby built me a unique raised garden bed that's perfecto for planting shallow-rooted veggies. So, we're doing cabbage, romaine and two other types of leaf lettuce. Also tomatoes, basil and mint in pots. All thanks to my wonderful master gardener friend! She provided me with the seeds and seedlings and is constantly available to answer my lame-o questions. :)

This year we have irises for the first time ever. What gorgeous blooms! The first batch is a deep purple; I can't get over how symmetrical and intricate the flower head is! As Chloe gets older we'll definitely do some informal study on flower anatomy and pollination as the iris is such a large visual for such things.

And our peonies are blooming! I can't tell you how much we love the ease of perennial flowers. It's especially exciting to anticipate how many more flowers we get each summer. This year we got 10-12!



What flowers are you growing this year?