Party time

As you can see, we had a great turn-out for Elijah's birthday party.  

This was the only time all of the boys were in one place for more than a second.  They had the best time running all over the yard shooting each other with Nerf guns.  Elijah couldn't have been happier.

Elijah isn't the only one with a March birthday.  Our littlest is turning 4, and we celebrated with my parents and sister's family.

After all that sugar, we had to go run off some energy, so we took the kids to a local open gym:

Slowly but surely

Well, I planted seeds a while back, and now we have broccoli popping up:

Also, the lettuce is getting bigger:

Plus we planted another pot of lettuce, so we can get it in waves.   The tomatoes haven't sprouted yet, but I'm really not surprised since they take about 2 weeks anyway, and it's been really cold lately.  I have a few tiny basil seedlings in the house, and the carrots are still growing in the playroom.  I hope some of them are large enough to eat again soon; they are really so tasty.

In other food-growing news, we plan to plant a couple of fruit trees soon.  I've wanted to since we moved in, but figuring out where to put them is a bit of a challenge since we already have so many trees and don't want to cut any down.  We've lost several due to storms and bugs in the four years we've been here, though, and I think I've figured out 3 spots we could plant trees.  I need to show them to Nathaniel and see what he thinks.    I don't want to put any where they would shade the garden area, and there aren't a lot of sunny spots around.

Oh, and remember how I planted all those strawberries two years ago?  Last spring, they didn't do well, but I had hopes.....that have been dashed.  The squirrels have spent the winter digging up the strawberry plants rather methodically.  I guess they enjoy the roots.  That was a big disappointment to me, as I love fresh strawberries and strawberry jam.  And strawberry pie, and strawberry shortcake and strawberry rhubarb cobbler....

Cousins in the Woods

Saturday was a great day.  The weather was nice, and my kids got to run with cousins in the yard and woods all day.  They came inside in short bursts, mostly to grab more dessert.

I didn't realize until just now that I never got a picture of Malachi, probably because he was in the woods all day!  I was so glad the kids had fun while I was visiting with my cousins.  

Consignment Sale

It's Consignment Sale week, so I've been plenty busy up at church getting the sale set up.  It officially starts tomorrow, and I'll be helping again on Friday, so I've been spending a lot of time at church.  I've also been finishing up the last of the adoption homestudy paperwork and adoption education (only 2 more classes next week!), so I haven't got much done around the house, but I've been busy!

Recently, Elijah went to a friend's birthday party.  He declared it was the best birthday ever, and it mainly entailed the boys running through the house with Nerf guns.  So, he has requested a similar party for his birthday, and we've agreed.  He's very excited about having his friends and lots of "battles" here.  I'm hoping the weather is nice so they can run outside!

Seedlings

Lydia and I did do some planting this week.  On Wednesday, we planted more lettuce, broccoli, and brussel sprouts.  On Saturday, we also planted tomatoes: Kellogg's Breakfast, Brandywine, Better Boy, and some yellow grape tomatoes callled Ildi.  We also started a few bell peppers, but I plan on planting more of those.  Oh, and we planted the rest of the red cherry tomato seeds, too.  So if all this stuff sprouts, we are off to a good start.

The weekend was sunny and warm.   It really felt wonderful, and all 5 of us loaded up the bikes and headed to the library.  After checking out some books and movies, we rode the bike trail. It was a lot of fun.  Lydia rides in a seat on the back of my bike, so we all get in on the fun.

SNOW DAY!

When it snows, you have to clean off the cars!

 The boys really enjoyed sledding on our tiny hill out front.

Lydia's favorite snow activity?  Eating it!

And doesn't the pond area look nice lightly coated with snow?  

Seed starting

It's March now, so I'm really starting to think about the garden.  Lydia and I planted some lettuce seeds about a month ago, and now they have started growing pretty well:

I plan on starting our broccoli and brussel sprouts this week, and tomatoes if I get to them.  If not, then next week.  I'm very lucky to have a sunroom that supplies bright sunshine to my little seedlings.  Lydia loves to help plant, so I'll probably do most of the planting when she's here and awake.  I also plan on planting some more lettuce in the play room, so we can start having fresh salads soon.  The above lettuce won't last long when it gets big enough to eat!

We also have some carrots in the playroom.  They look like a few may be close to ripe.  I'll have to let the kids pull one and see.  It's a bit of a guessing game with carrots, at least for me, but the kids do eat them up and love growing them.  So it's a fun guessing game.  They are sweeter and tastier than any carrot you can get in a store, so I love to eat them too, when we have enough.  (I let the kids have first dibs.)

Whew!

Well, we had our last homestudy meeting yesterday.  Yay!  It went well, and now we are close to finishing the homestudy up.  We just have to get a few more pieces of paper in.  I'm sending off a lot of papers today (FBI checks, copies of health insurance card, etc).  I hope to get everything else in next week.  Then she'll be able to finish our homestudy report and send it into our placing agency. Then it will get translated and sent to the country's officials.  So we are definitely moving forward.

As part of the homestudy, she did talk to all the kids.  It was neat to see Elijah answer questions.  He got the most questions because he's the oldest and most likely to answer.  He was thoughtful and deliberate in his responses.  He really considers questions and gives insightful, truthful answers.  It was really neat to be able to hear his responses, and all three kids were excited and positive about adding a sibling.  Malachi even got to show off one of his Angry Birds drawings, and Lydia introduced her stuffed animal, so they were happy, too.