Opportunity Missed

The one night in six months, the ONE NIGHT, that Spencer slept through the night without waking up once, what did I foolishly do? I accidently took a non-drowsy Claritin that kept me up from 1:30 AM on. WIDE AWAKE. A chance to get a great night's rest, and I bombed it. stupid stupid stupid...

Mad May!!!

May was a crazy time in the Larsen household, which is why I didn't blog or facebook much. We had Maggie's ballet dance concert, her Mother's Day program at school, Sophie's preschool graduation from Mrs. Broadheads', chasing Spencer constantly down the street, and our Footworks clogging studio concert. And the end of May is the Rexburg approved time to plant your garden (I'm so jealous of those of you with long grow seasons!!!).


This is my first garden EVER (apart from some pumpkins I think we grew as kids on Ambassador Way); we've never lived anywhere long enough (or anywhere with a yard big enough) to have a garden. And now we live in Garden Central - at least I had lots of local expertise to help me! I will say, it took a lot out of me. Preparing the soil, designing my layout and actually doing the planting took a good two weeks, almost full time. Take a look: TA DA!

I'm so proud. It's actually even started growing! We planted sweet corn, peas, sugar snap peas,bush beans, onions, potatoes, lettuce, carrots, zucchini, hubbard squash, spaghetti squash, and two or three kinds of pumpkin. And cilantro, basil and rosemary. And oh yeah, watermelon, tomatoes, broccoli and honeydew melon, but we're not sure they'll actually grow here. Then we planted 15 raspberry bushes and four fruit trees. We'll see if any of it actually turns out, but we have a good start. And now when I hear quotes like "we will see the day when we live on what we produce" (Pres. Marion G. Romney) I won't freak out quite so much.

Ignore the rest of the yard; it's mostly weedy parking lot for the dance studio, but we have big plans!

Here's a video on YouTube of Maggie's dance concert; we'll have more soon for the clogging concert.

And here are her closeups:
And Sophies:

And, well, Spencer of the Chicken Legs:Happy Spring!

"Reating"

Maggie just gave a name to one of my favorite pastimes. I love, love, love to just sit and read a book while nibbling on whatever comes in handy (frozen grapes, caramel popcorn, carrots and ranch, Haagen Daas... whatever). I've been reading a book Karsen sent me called "Katherine" about the 14th century Katherine Swynford and it's delightful, which means that I tend to either ignore the kids all day while I closet myself off with my book, or else make myself tired and short tempered the next day by staying up all night reading. Anyway, tonight after dinner I lingered at the dinner table while the kids played around me, nibbling on my enchilada leftovers and Chapter 12 when Maggie came up to me and said, "hey mom, you're 'reating'! Get it? Reading and eating at the same time?" We both got a good laugh at that, and now I have a name for my habit. "Reating." Yes, I am a reater.