Oh Starbucks...

Here i sit at starbucks...8:41pm and i'd rather be sleeping in my bed. No, i'm not a night person. But, yes i do love starbucks, the incredible smell of whatever coffee they are making and the "fresh" music-for lack of a better word. It's just comforting, calming, home-y, and just the kind of music i don't own but you need when you are sitting in starbucks working on a project (my project of the night, snapfish photobooks, they are having a "buy1get2free" photobook deal that i can pass up. I do one each year for each of my kids to re-cap their year) I'm taking advantage of the free wi-fi...but really i get here and it's not connecting so i start to fiddle and realize my "wireless" on or off switch is in the off position, so i could of most likely had internet at home all along. Oh well, now i am here with this great music. (but my toes are freezing, they to turn the heat up, wayyy up)

-since i can finally upload some photos here is what we have been up to in no particular order-

Riley's new boyfriend...

 Riley just ended her stage of not wanting pictures taken of her...i can't be happier, but she is a little too cheesy sometimes...look at this shoulder tilt, ha!

 A friend of mine showed me this awesome palce near our home that is so fun for hiking and playing in the water. We are looking at the rainbow trout before we settled in to play in the stream.

 So fun, us mom's just set up our beach chairs and let the kids have at it. there were lots of little streams of different depths all around. There were even tadpools which were fun to try and catch for the older kids.

 my best attempt at an airplane for riley

 she had a tea party that she invited (forced) me to come too...it was cute, i thnk she had every single plate set up and i let her poor real water and eat some snack right from the plates...she loved it!

 We've had some of those days that are just so tiring that even when you take your kids out of the car they stay alseep for awhile on the couch-love those days. It usually means we were out in the sun somewhere having a blast.

 Braden is in love with apples. that is quite the understatement. he says "apples. apples apples" from the minute he wakes up until i give him a slice for each hand. and this lastst alllll day long. he chose apples over doritos today people?!

 my berries are doing good! they are getting more and more leaves and i'm sooo excited! it's one of the things we planted this year...along with

our peas-they hadn't poped up yet, but they are right in the middle...imagine a row now growing from left to right between the two green poles...with watermelon seeds planted right in front of those (the first little leaf appeard today!) 

and to the left of the little plot of land we have tomatos(trying to live, corn that is scattered from the crazy rain we got the day after i worked so hard planting all these seeds in straight tidy rows) two squash plants that bit the dust with all the rain and cucumbers that sprouted then died with the SNOW we got after all the rain...i'm happy to report my mixed bell peppers, jalepenonos, serrano and anaheim chilis are all doing well in the house!

 April fool's day is my new favorite holiday...these are the infamous "cupcakes" for dinner...really meatloaf with mashed potatoes in top...braden didn't take a single bite but riley loved them again this year.

I got to play joke after joke after joke on April fools, some back fired on me but still made me laugh, i LOVE it.

Well, that's about it...i can't believe this crazy weather. One day it's warm then raining hard for a few days then INCHES of snow in APRIL? back to warm again...im hoping it sticks to just warm weather soon!

Two of my favorites...

I haven't posted in what seems like just about forever...but our computer was out of commission...so a quick post from a different computer:

i LOVE spring...i have my garden planted, for the most part. I planted it a few weeks ago, tilled it all myself mixed in some fresh new soil and ever so carefully planted rows and rows of different seeds... We have 6 tomato plants growing, 2 squash plants (well only one now, one died in the rain that started the day after all my planting efforts and didn't stop until it killed a few plants) cucumber seeds that i HOPE are going to sprout? (the rain really moved some dirt around and covered up the seeds even more), peas (that just popped through the top of the soil yesterday! i saw two little seedlings and had to help uncover the rest of the row that had an extra inch or so of soil on top of them), corn (that has yet to grow...i think those got hit hard with the storm and all, we may have to re-plant) and watermelon seeds! also on my kitchen sink by the window we have 2 types of HOT chillis growing, jelapenos AND mixed bell peppers....i'm SOOO excited.

As you all know the sun & heat just makes me happy...if i wasn't afraid of cancer i would be in a tanning bad every day of winter.

We have been playing outside, riding bikes, chalking the drive way, even took out the little pool once, watering our new flowers. I've been running more and even with the kids a couple of times.

My dad gave josh and i a beautiful windchime for christmas a few years back and it's FINALLY up and since the weather is nice we can have the back slider open with just the screen shut and i get to hear the windchime playing "waterfall". LOVE it.

(p.s.you could guess my age/generation by that windchime. quick story: the wind chime was finally installed and i was downstairs doing stuff around the hosue and everytime the wind blew the chimes my first reaction was to look for a cell phone. i kept wondering what alert that was and who changed their phone because it wasn't a usual one. hehe.

Pictures and more posts to follow as soon as we get our computer under control at home!

OH and happy April Fool's Day...it is slowly (? slowly? not really, i think today i decided it is close to my favorite holiday EVER)

Riley woke up to me telling her that she needed to put clean undies on (as we do each morning-but i was sort of forcing the issue this morning so i could get off to work. aka i made her get out of bed and forced her to the dresser and she did the whole "limp body thing") she finally reached in to find...diapers...hahah she just rolled her eyes at me.

At lunch i prepared a bag of cheetos for the babysitter to give her and braden, but when they opened them she found baby carrots...the babysitter texted me and said Riley was sort of ticked and braden could care less..ill post video as soon as i can.

For dinner i am doing, what is now a tradition of "cupcakes" for dinner (meat-loaf in a cup cake pan and pink dyed mashed potato "frosting" with the infamous  "juice" afterward :)

Happy Day!