We've been pretty busy this last week, so I will try to get everything covered...
I got the Spring pictures back from school and they were GREAT! Which meant I had to buy a lot! :) But that's ok. I don't know how to scan them in, so I will show my cell phone pics instead:
We are still going to swim lessons every week and we are going to continue with them. Teddy hated it at first, but last Wednesday he had a "break through" and now loves it! Charlie still loves going and on Monday was in the class by himself so he got a lot of extra time with Mrs. Toni. He can swim across the whole (short side) of the pool, he "swims" the length of the pool with the barbells, started learning to float on his back, can pick up toys/rings from the bottom (3 ft deep) and is learning to dive (from his knees) off the side of the pool. Here are some pictures from Monday's class:
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| Barbells |
If you remember about 2 years ago, Jeff made a flower bed on the backside of our house. This year, the plants are doing amazingly well. Our agapantha's are about to go crazy. Last year only one bloomed, but this year, there are multiple blooms on every plant. Now we are just waiting on the daylilies to start blooming.
We also started up our garden again. Last year I planted two basil plants and they went nuts! They were over 4 feet tall, each! So as we were getting the soil ready, I noticed tons of baby basil plants sprouting up! Awesome! I also have a ton of mint growing in there, which I have to thin out every few days or so, but it smells so good out there!
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| First garden bed. Mint along the edges, basil in the middle |
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| Close up of little basil plants |
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| Jalapeno plant |
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| Side view, tomato plants barely visible |
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| About a week after we planted the tomatoes and jalapeno (and mowed!) |
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| Teddy checking out the plants. Got to watch him, he likes to pick! |
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| Close up of jalapeno |
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| 2nd garden bed. |
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| From top to bottom: chinese cabbage, bell pepper/lemongrass, spinach/parsley, spinach |
I'm pretty excited about the garden. The challenge will be to keep it watered!
Our next thing we are working on is getting Teddy used to sleeping in something other than his crib. He does great in it and I'm not ready to get rid of it completely, but for the sake of traveling, he needs to get used to sleeping on a regular mattress. So we (Jeff) drug the twin mattress we had above the garage and with a little rearranging, got it set up in Teddy's room. Day one he did great, we did end up putting the gate on his door, but it was a success.
Day 2 was yesterday and was a failure. :( We were out and he fell asleep in the car on the way home and I tried his crib and the mattress, but he ended up just playing in his room. Oh well. Day 3 was today. It was a school day and he is usually pretty tired when he gets home. I put him down on the mattress, but he wound up screaming by the door. Which lasted maybe 1 minute. He eventually laid down and is now asleep! Yippee! Progress!
On Friday, we added another cousin to our Mauldin crew. Jeff's sister-in-law Kasuen gave birth to Baby Rex:
Now there are 7 cousins! Christmas should be pretty interesting this year! And the tally is 4 boys and 3 girls. Pretty even split.
I had heard of a dairy farm near here that sells raw milk and various other milk products, so I thought it would be a fun outing for the kids. My friend and her family came along as well. We had a great time and got to try some raw milk and I think it's great! We will be back and maybe we can time it to see the cows getting milked. But here are some pics Shane took of the kids with the calves that were hanging out near the front:
This is 1/2 gal of the raw milk we got. Check out that cream on top!
I attempted to make butter from it:
Not much, but very delicious!
And Jeff is in California this week on a business trip. He is also going to be the first in the family to meet Rex! Lucky timing on his part! :)
