he can see!

well, we decided the barrette and top-of-the-head pony tail were too confusing for people. I'd been asked, "oh, who is that?" by neighbors that would see owen all the time. Apparently when just wearing a diaper and barrette his looks change drastically and he's not recognizable.

Anyway. I cut his hair. He looks so grown up now! i can hardly believe it. Here he is!






In other news, we're super excited to get ourselves to Ontario. We'll soak up the family time, farm time, and from the sounds of it, some lake-front time. We leave Friday evening, with Daryl and Sandy, and we'll drive drive drive. We're stopping for breakfast at Mike and Brenda's - it will be great to see where they live, and to visit for a wee while. And so, I just have to get through another day of office work. woop woop!

see ya later oldie

dear old trusty car:
you served us well, taking us from minnesota to new brunswick to nova scotia to ontario. you drove so well, but now your final days have been set.

and so we've retired you from our family and now drive:



We love our new car, it's an upgrade and is 10 years new rather than 17. we just bought the car yesterday and so far i've driven it to work, and we took it to cannon falls. it's a beauty and it drives great!*


Tonight we tried to take a couple pictures together. owen was NOT into it. so this is what came out. some good ones, but keep in mind i've kept off the 8 that were terrible.

it's a garden day

owen has been IN LOVE with playing outside. i have no problem with this. today was a beautiful morning, though i can feel it's going to be a scorcher soon.

we have a screen door that leads to our outside step. owen always pushes on the screen, and he's pushed so much that there's now a portion of the bottom part of the screen that is not attached to the door. anyway, this is owen's drop-spot. he likes to pass things through this little hole; his cars, his water, his little yarn ball, etc.


owen and i like to sit on the steps together. he usually will take my hand, from where ever i am, and have me sit here with him.


and, since it was such a lovely day, i decided to photograph some of our garden.

Owen built this tower! I asked him to smile for the camera, and i snapped this once his smile toned down a bit - his smile was soo huge, and his eyes were closed! really funny.


We went the cabin a couple weeks ago. It was a relaxing time, the kids did alright, the boys fished a lot, jen and i read, went on a walk . . . it was a good time.



I like this photo because it shows the seriousness that Ry and Ben have when they catch a fish. Ben said, "i got one!" ... "It's a big one!" then ry went to grab the net. If you zoom in on their faces you can see how determined they are.

HIMSELF & our garden

i've been meaning to post some photos of our garden. We're all really excited about it! Everything is doing well, so far the squirrels have left things alone (they're the major predator here), and it's been not too hot yet. This is the view from our back door.


We're growing our tomatoes in pots, with mint alongside.


Yay Kale!


Mmm, red greens...


and here's a full view.



This past Friday Ry took Owen and Lillian to the park, while I was at work. It looks like they had fun!






Owen is very into building towers. He built this one completely by himself!


Owen climbed out of his bed all by himself this morning! I think he used his little rocking chair as a 'step'. But this is very much how he is these days: independent. He loves doing things by himself, and he will tell you, usually frantically, "no!" he does not need help. It's pretty cute, verging on obnoxious. We're constantly having him repeat, "No, thankyou" after he so rudely swats and yells No! He'll get it down.

new bed.

cherry almond scones and cement stairs

We have been busy busy these days. Ry is wrapping up his semester, he should be done by the end of the week. Yay! We're all very excited about that. He's going to be work at the University through the summer, 2 days a week. I'll be working at my office 2-3 times a week (depending if I can fit a Friday workday in or not).

Owen and I have been spending loads of time outside. He is obsessed with climbing our front and back steps. Unfortunately these are cement. so it makes for a boring time outside for me; he goes up, then he goes down. Sometimes my heart quickens when I think he's about to fall. So far so safe, though. He is such a busy bee these days. He loves building tall towers with his wooden blocks. He really enjoys his little cars and trucks. The trucks Heidi gave him have little magnetic ends so they all stick together in a row. He now lines up his 3 cars as though they have those little magnetic joining points. It's pretty cute. Besides the stairs, he's really into climbing now, too. He loves our kitchen stool. He knows that he can put that where-ever he wants to make himself able to reach things he couldn't otherwise. He's very responsive when we tell No to certain areas that he tries to use the stool; first freaks out, but then he's okay with it and he moves the stool somewhere else.

We're getting our garden ready! We're hoping to have all our lovely seedlings out in it in a week or 2. The seedlings are growing strong. We have yet to prepare our garden beds. We're going to do several raised beds in hopes that we can tend to things better, that we'll be better organized, and if we need to put chicken wire over everything to keep the dang squirrels out - we can.

I made cherry almond scones last night, and they were really good! I made up the recipe and the only form of sweetener in the them is maple syrup. I'm so excited they turned out, and that they're basically pretty healthy (they're still butter-full and mostly white flour)! Next time I make them I might tweak a couple things, but I'm mostly excited that something I made up worked out. I'm such a recipe-follower, and that's fine, but I've always marveled at how some people can just bake by the ideas in their heads. Pretty cool.

Jen, Esme, Owen and I watch Ben, Ry and Daryl play on their softball team last night. It's become our Monday thing now. It's so much fun! We head out after supper to see the guys do their thing. Their team isn't very good compared to the teams they play but they all have a lot of fun. It was actually quite cold last night, so we a left early, really chilled, and it was nice to come home to warm scones, and we made some decaf coffee. Mmm, it was a good treat.



Owen really wanted to wear his rainjacket, so he wandered around the house wearing it.




Owen in his room, after a nice bath, playing with his farm blocks, farm, and closet (he was moving the blocks into his closet, then into the barn's haymow).



Ry sent this to me while I was at work. Very fun to receive.