Our Hunt: For the grammas and Ammas

We had a little easter egg hunt in the back yard and I took many photos and I am posting them for the Amma and Grandma because I know they wish they could be with all their grandkids on the Holidays so this way they can see just what we did. There are MANY photos.
Happy Easter!! We love you all.

Miriam

Easter 2011

I got the kids ready for church today and then asked Daniel to take some photos of them while I got ready. This is what we got. I heard a lot of "Sit down" "Look this way" EVA stop. They are funny. We had a lovely Easter and Daniel planted lots of flowers yesterday to prepare for this wonderful Holiday.

Its here its here!!

Well almost look what has started to show up!!!!


It started the day the Bailor's got here. Daniel kept going out there to watch it grow. I am sure they thought he had gone bonkers but luckily Michelle and Ryan already know Daniel pretty well. Now he is getting impatient for it to all be full!

Sun glasses

My kids have been obsessed with sunglasses lately.

Bailor Visit

We had a visit from our great friends the Bailors. It was so much fun! We didn't do anything extravagant but it was just nice to spend time together. They are probably the thing we miss most about college life. Their kids are sooo cute and our kids get along and play together well. Noah called Alexander Zander while they were here and now Eva calls him that. He has so many names now. Little Jacob was adorable too. He is the first 9 month old that I have ever seen wrestle!


Here are Eva and Noah sharing their dip dip snack (homemade salsa by michelle mixed with sour cream REALLY GOOD)
They have gone home now and we are really sad but its more motivation to plan a trip out there to visit them this summer. We LOVE having great friends, we just wish we lived closer.

Miriam

Oh and Daniel has called Ryan Bailor for a long time so our kids kept saying "Where's Baywor?"

I have a thoughtful husband

The other day I came home with the kids from doing errands and found this:

And it made me so happy. There was no husband home just these new blooms in my purple vase. I wasn't in a bad mood or anything but this really made the rest of the day fantastic. At first I thought "I hope Daniel put those there and not some creepy person" thats just how my thought process goes though.

The funny thing was later in the day when Alexander actually noticed them he said to me: "Mamma what are those" and I said "Flowers" and he said "who put them there" and I said" Dad did and he is very nice" Then he says "Oh is that why you are not mad"

Uh I guess I am mad all the time. I laughed though.

what have we been up to?

As you all know Spring is here and Summer is upon us (at least it is here) so we have been trying to get our yard landscaped. It has been going well (minus all the sand in the house at all hours of the day)

We planned on grass so Daniel put in the sprinkler system first. Leveled the ground (he removed 6 truck loads of sand by hand and shovel!) He actually leveled it last summer now that I think about it. Then he put in a retaining wall.

The kids LOVE all the working in the yard

Then we put in the metal edging.

I had to use a pick axe to get through the first layer of sand and then used a rubber mallet and hammer to get it in the ground (yes I did it, Daniel told me what needed to be done and I went out and did it, I was a laborer this time)

As you can see there is only sand in the back so we needed to amend the soil. First we put down an organic green waste mulch.

We raked that into the sand and leveled it. Here is the view from the balcony

I am LOVING the retaining wall

Then we added Albuquerque mix compost. This may be a bit gross, it was to me anyway. Albuquerque mix is an organic compost. It contains recycled greenwaste, manure, and biosolids. Biosolids come from recycled sewage. If you have anymore questions call Daniel. He kept saying "This is a really crappy day"Here he is on the big pile of crap mulch.

Did you know this is called Milorganite in Milwalkee? Daniel is excited about this stuff. He says the grass will grow so well!

Daniel raked that onto the mulch and then spread it out and graded it. Then we were ready for seed!!
And here it is all seeded waiting for 3 weeks to pass so we have GRASS! wohoo!

We hope the winds don't blow it all away but its going to be a fantastic summer after this grows.

We got it seeded by Friday afternoon (Daniel took the day off so I could go to the Dentist and he could seed) So on Saturday during conference there was a whole lot of this:


Daniel watching the grass grow :) There is little Jamison, he was having a rough horrible day because of his teeth.

Here is the most current plan for the backyard:


Can't wait until its all done!

Miriam