Sunday, May 27, 2012

The Carousel of Happiness

We took a little trip to the mountain town of Nederland on Saturday to take Jackson to see a neat old fashioned carousel that has been fully restored and all the animals hand carved and painted. It was really beautiful. Jackson was funny because he was more intent and focused that I've ever seen him. He didn't laugh or smile, but he just stared and stared around at the animals as he rode.  He liked it, but he was in awe...













 They also had a cute little upstairs nook with an old fashioned puppet theater, and the little chest in the room had Jackson's name on it. He didn't care much about the puppet show, but he liked climbing up and down the step leading backstage. He did stay in the theater long enough to get a few pictures though...





 After that, we had to go back to the carousel for a second ride. This time, he even smiled once or twice.













After that, we took him and Aspen on a little hike through the pine trees, and again Jackson had a really good time. While Aspen sniffed everything and ran through piles of leftover snow, Jackson sat on the ground and checked out every stick, rock, and pine needle. He wanted to walk by himself (holding onto our hands) instead of being carried, and was talking up a storm with his gibberish words. He was just so excited!  It was a fun day.

Independent and Having Fun


Jackson's new thing is to help push the shopping cart. He just can't get enough, and he's determined to get what he wants.  His independent streak means it takes us at least 10 minutes to get down one aisle, but he's so cute that it's hard to mind.

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Weekend Work


We worked more in the garden this weekend. I put sunscreen and a hat on Jack so he could come out too. You can see how long the hat stayed on! He liked to fill it and my plant pots with rocks though.
 I told him to put his hat back on...he does understand, but the execution needs a little more work!
 We hauled 2 tons of rocks and shoveled them into the walkways this weekend!  Then, we even planted some veggies. I think it looks pretty good...I'm really excited that this project is just about done! It's been a lot of work. The only thing left now is to extend the sprinkler lines and install a drip system, but we are hiring a company to do that part for us.





Sunday, May 13, 2012

Yesterday, besides the usual weekend chores of laundry, grocery shopping, errands, and house clean up, we also built a water rocket launcher! Mike helped me to follow a plan on the NASA Science Olympiads website for making one. My class is going to love getting to do this experiment...learning about the laws of motion and then making and launching their own rockets on the last day of school!

Today, we spent the day working on the new garden. Our neighbor allowed us to come over and shovel trailer loads of her horse manure, which we then tilled into each of the garden boxes. Then, we did a lot (A LOT!) of raking to even out the beds and the walkways and make some rows/hills in some of the beds. We dug the extra dirt out of the walkways, and then put down weed barrier fabric in the walkways. Next weekend, we'll have to put pea gravel down over the fabric to complete the walkways. Then, I started planting some seeds for plants that are more frost resistant and/or like the cooler weather.  Still have lots of planting to do once the frost date passes, of course. I'm pretty sure I'm planting enough for the entire neighborhood, but I can't resist the space! Mike helped all day, too, of course. He's grumbling about how much I'm planting, and how much his back aches, but he likes it too! Probably we will both have sore muscles tomorrow!

Jackson enjoyed playing in the dirt while we worked. I set him on a blanket outside the garden, but it didn't take him long to crawl into the boxes to investigate the dirt and a shovel. I took terrible pictures...right into the sun so very washed out, but hopefully they will give you a sense of the garden and my helper.

Full view of garden from fence:
  Right side of garden:

Left side of garden:
 View from back lawn:
Back of garden toward the house:

 Jack "helping":



 Love the clematis that's in full bloom!













Only 7 more days of school with kids. We have this week and then Monday and Tuesday next week and then the kids are done. I will have to finish out that week working on report cards and cleanup, but summer break is coming close. I can't wait!

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Updates

How do you install child locks on a rolling spice cabinet? 
Ignore my messy countertop, but here's just another way that Jackson's getting too smart and too busy...he's discovered the spice cabinet, which rolls out. The child locks that are on the other cupboards don't work on it, so he pretty much emptied the entire cupboard on Saturday. Then, this morning, he took all the toilet paper off the roll. He's so busy all the time. 

 Poor Aspen...She's really not happy about her bandages and having to wear the doughnut collar again (not that it kept her from chewing off her front bandages while we were at work yesterday!). For those who haven't heard, the poor girl has blisters that popped on the bottoms of all 4 feet, leaving her foot pads a bloody mess. The Vet hospital cauterized them, bandaged her up, and put her on pain meds and anti-inflammatory drugs. She can't go for any walks and has to stay bandaged up for a few weeks. Not sure why it happened. She went for a bike ride with Mike, but they've been doing that for years, and it's not usually a problem. Not sure why her feet got so torn up this time...

Featured Post

Disneyland!

We had a great time with 3 days at Disneyland!  The Disneyland Hotel was very nice, classy but with lots of discrete Mickey and Disney detai...