These are a Few of My Favorite Things - May 2014

Now that we're halfway through June, I thought I'd share some of my favorite things from May this year.

Here we go!

My daughter's super easy birthday cake!  I'll write more about her party later - it was so much fun!

My children turning 9 this year - last year of single digits!

 

My son deciding that he needed a day with Daddy more than he needed a birthday party this year.

 

The food for my daughter's party that turned out SUPER pink - pink plates, strawberries, pretzels in pint tulip cupcake liners and flower-shaped sandwiches with strawberry jam.  Served with pink lemonade.

My parents being here for their birthday this year.

 

My cousin Diane being here too.

 

My son learning the basic of how to carve and spending time with Grandpa discussing the finer points.

 

My daughter sewing with my Mom.

 

Being able to make it to every event on our schedule even though it looked like it was going to be impossible.

 

My daughter's fairy "village" - or part of it.  Here you have three houses (across the back), the campfire (in the middle with 'benches'), and the well house with cold storage (front, slightly right).  She's been reading pioneer stories lately - can you tell?

 

My daughter deciding that she and her friends needed to put on a play for the school.

 

The Principal actually letting her do it - all of it! - including costumes and advertising.  They didn't use sets except for a cardboard sleigh.

 

They had over 50 people show up to watch the play after school one day!

 

And they did a terrific job putting the play on.  Way to go girls!

The children riding the zip line at one of the nearby parks.

 

We had some lovely weather in May and my garden started to burst out of it's hiding.

 

The children coming in from outside smelling like sunshine and grass.

 

My bleeding heart blooming.

 

My rhododendron blooming - this one is my favorite!

 

All of my daffodil bulbs coming up but only 1 (of about 90) blooming!  I had thought I lost them so the fact that they all came up was a good thing.

 

Getting to see a friend's new baby girl for the first time - what a cutie!

 

The children giving me pea plants for Mother's Day with cards that said "I love you to peas-es".  Super cute and very practical!

 

The children did an art unit on Matisse at school to correspond with a display at the local museum.  They did some chalk drawings and oil pastels that I am going to frame and hang in my family room - they turned out wonderful! 

 

John's last day of work - he was showered with so much love.  It is so good to know that he was appreciated.  We have some people there that we will truly miss!

 

One of John's co-workers gave him a huge poster of something they had been joking about for a long time - don't worry, it's something nice; something he was joking about buying.  We are going to frame the poster so he can hang it in his office this year. Instant and almost free artwork!

A very small part of the front flower bed that I'm cleaning out. 

Cleaning rock out of the front flower bed finally!  This will be an all summer job but I've gotten started on it.  In the above photo - the darker area in the bed itself is the part that's been cleaned out - you can see that the level of the dirt is lower than the rest.  The bucket is full of the rocks I dug out.  The blue thing is a sand sieve that the children used to play with in the sandbox.  It's sitting over an old pot from a plant from the nursery so I can save the dirt between the rocks (we have wonderful dirt - I don't want to loose any of it!)  It took almost 2 hours to get all the rocks out of that little bit right there.

 

So why does picking the rocks out of my front flower bed qualify as a "favorite thing"? It's been on my to-do list for a loooong time and I love that I will now be able to plant some plants there finally.  I also am reveling in a relatively healthy body that allows me to do that type of work for longer periods of time.  Those things make it a favorite thing!

 

 

My daughter sewed these hot pads and the orange bag lying under them as part of my mother's day gift.  She and a friend got to sew with a teacher at their school who donated her time and her fabric and purchased the salad tongs and the magnets as part of the present.  My Mom got the green set and I got the orange set for our gift. She was so proud of her work and she did a lovely job too!  And I love that I can tell my guests my daughter made the hot pad. (Sorry for the upside down photo - I guess I took it that way!)

We also found out that an anonymous person at church wanted to give us the exact amount we needed to meet our savings goals for Internship!  Since they wanted to remain anonymous, they gave it to us via our church (the check we received was written from the church's account).   That was a huge blessing and we were able to start Internship with all the money that we will need to meet our basic expenses.  We are SO VERY blessed!

 

 

How have you been blessed with your favorite things lately?