A Quick Note on Mother's Day

I know it's not Mother's Day... but since I've been so busy with the new baby, I'm a tad bit behind.  (OK, tad means a very small amount... so I'm more than a tad behind.)  Anyway, before it turns into winter again, I wanted to share my Mother's Day flowers with you!

The gorgeous lilies in the back are from my daughter Jen.  I planted them by the kids' swing set.  They wanted a flower garden in front of their club house, so that is the start.

The bouquet in front is my favorite!   Sorry, Jen, but you've been outdone again by Lexi.  Ever since we've lived here, Lexi has picked wild flowers to bring to me.  I was always afraid she'd end up with a weird rash, but so far so good.  She always takes such care to choose which flowers go in her arrangements.   Sometimes her arrangements are symmetrical, sometimes not. She usually tries to find a big variety of hues, but right now, yellow is her favorite color.  She decided on some tall, airy ones for the back-side, with shorter bright ones for the front...  and a touch of lavender for punch!  I think she has a talent for floral arrangements.

I remember picking wildflowers along the road for my mom, but mostly we brought her those bright yellow ones that appeared in the lawn.  Did any of you do that?

Time for Grandkids

Just thought I'd post a few recent pics of the new grandson with my youngest granddaughter.

Although Brady adores his cousin Melody, he refuses to smile for the camera.  No matter how funny something is, when the camera comes out, the expression goes serious!  Mommy said he got that from Daddy; he hates the camera, too.

Brady had fun squirming around on Melody's lap.  Good thing it's a big chair.  She's only three years older, so he's a lap-full for her.

Just like big people, it melted her heart when he smiled at her. 

This is my favorite shot:

Seems they both really love to watch Dora!

...and each other.  

I simply must brag on the intelligence of Melody's older sister Grace.  Gracie is five and just finishing kindergarten.  I was trying to trick her last week, but couldn't because she's so smart!  She told me that she's not really smart.  I said, "Yes, you are very smart.  I bet you know the capital of Mars."  She asked, "Is capital the big or the little letter?"  I said, "The big ones."  "Oh, then 'M'."  Now, is that genius or what?

Thank you, Tioga!

You may call it OCD, but I've been tracking what states and countries have visited my blogs.  It's an obsession.  I posted about it back in November, when I was visited by Bydgoszcz, Poland.  That day, I passed a thousand cities.

As of today, I've been visited by over sixteen-hundred cities around the world.  That amazes me!  Blogging has made the world a much smaller place... more like a neighborhood.

It used to feel like this...

 Now, it feels more like this...

I had a goal to be visited by all 50 states.  Delaware, North Dakota, and Rhode Island were the last holdouts... until this week.  Yep, all three showed up on my visitor widget.

So thank you, whoever you are, for visiting me today from Tioga, a city way up in the northwest corner of North Dakota.  Tioga is the Iroquois Indian name for Peaceful Valley.  My life is complete.

Not Enough Thyme!

How do you like my new title graphic?  Time is short these days, so I don't have much to spend on a picture. All the items in the collage are from photos I took here on the farm (except for the clothes line.) 

Speaking of time...  I have some lemon thyme in my front garden, but I don't know if it's edible.  Mr J and I had to make a trip to the feed store this morning, so on the way back we stopped at a small nursery to see what kinds of shrubs and herbs they had.  I spotted some lemon thyme that was solid green and edible.  On the same table with the other herbs was the green and yellow variety of lemon thyme that I have.  It did not say anything about being edible.  If it wasn't raining, I'd get a picture of it.  Maybe someone in Blogville knows.  But it is raining and dark, so...  if you don't hear from me anymore, you'll know it's NOT edible!

Last year I told you about planting onion chives off the bedroom deck where we built the new steps...  I love sitting on the steps and munching away, but I forget about the fresh chives when I'm cooking!  I do want to expand the herb garden, so today I bought a couple more perennials...

  On the left is Pineapple Sage, and on the right is peppermint.  The sage tastes exactly like pineapple.  It should make an exciting addition to a stir-fry.  I have an addiction to Altoids Peppermints.  I think I can pass them up now.  Just a pinch off this plant gives you nice peppermint breath that lasts!  I hope they spread fast... I can see me chopping them down to the ground in no thyme!  LOL

I'm not much into annuals.  I like plants that stay year after year and spread.  I had some rhubarb in one flower bed, but something dug it up.  I'll try a different spot next time.  We're also going to plant some asparagus.  It is a lovely garden perennial, but gets much too large to  place where the herbs are going.  I will place it out in the lawn and build a new garden around it.  I think it will look good placed between Mr J's new plants...

Mr J picked up these two varieties of lavender... English and Munstead.  I think they would look splendid framing the asparagus, and would make an ideal garden spot for the windmill.  The windmill was damaged by the hurricane that blew through the mid-west a year-and-a-half ago, and has been in storage ever since.  Sounds like we've got another spring project.

I need to visit my bloggy friends!  Brady is keeping me away for awhile, but I'll try to get around to you all this week during his nap times.  Wish me luck.

so far...

I've had fun going through my photo files trying to pick some for a collage.  As you can see, I have a little trouble making decisions.  I guess I kinda overdid it.  I have some ideas of how it'll end up, but I didn't have much time to work on it.  Let me know which shots you like, and any ideas you have.

Here's a shot of my weeping cherry:

Spring has sprung!

I do love winter, but this winter was long enough.  I've started weeding my gardens... not making much progress, but I've got a very good reason...

Yes, this is the guy that has kept me from blogging.  It's his fault I haven't had my giveaway!  But he's just so doggone cute...

Brady comes to see me every morning at seven, and stays all day until his ride comes.  We sing, we play with a cow.  We watch Spongebob.  We eat, we nap.  We laugh, we cry.  The hours pass quickly.  I think I'm in love.

I have been trying to capture a smiling face, but Brady doesn't like cameras.  He puts on his 'glassy-eyed' look and stares at his shoulder each time I try to snap a cute shot.  Or...

...he moves.  I have a lot of blurry shots.  Even the camera that freezes the galloping horses is no match for Brady!

Brady does let me go out sometimes...

I caught Sadie and Chubs having fun in the weeping cherry branches.

I have some good news to share...  Sadie lost almost 10 pounds!  Daddy has a hard time holding back the treats, but, now that she's made some progress, he's ready to stick to the diet, too!

I have managed to leave the farm a couple of times...

...like the night we went to see Dani (G #1) in South Pacific.  She's a nut for musicals.  Dani passed up trying out for the fall play because it wasn't a musical! She wasn't crazy about this one, but she went out for it anyway.

I think she looks cute in her military uniform.  It makes my heart just a little bit heavy to think about how grown up she is...

OK, I just had to post one more...

Brady is starting to settle into a schedule.  Soon I hope to be announcing that giveaway!  Stay tuned.

Now, I'll leave you with a couple of shots of my lovely river birch.

Me me meme....

OK, I've been gone a bit.  It's going to take a little while for me and the new grandson to get in sync.  He leaves me little time through the day to get things done, so I end up using my internet time to do laundry!

I haven't forgotten about the contest... It will happen!  But for now, Crazy Cris over at Here and There and Everywhere has tagged me.  I don't usually spend time on these, but now it's a chance to post without skipping the load of whites...

Cris' instructions were to open the tenth folder and post the first picture.  Oh, let's just see where that takes us...

My 10th folder is titled 'my scrap book' and is for things I've scanned.  Some are old photos, some special cards.  There's the lock of hair from my daughter's first haircut...

That folder has folders, so I went with the first one.  It is titled 'Jenny & kids' and is for things relating to my daughter and her four girls.  The first picture was this card:

This was the very first 

Valentine's Day card 

I got from my granddaughters.

 It was really signed by them...  Well, I think Danielle might have signed for her little sis.

Yeah, it's my birthday too.

Might as well show you the lock of hair, too.

The tape wasn't yellow back then, but the hair was. 

 Actually, it was a beautiful strawberry blonde.  

It's straightened out a little over the years, 

but she's still my little curly top!