WALK OVER

For quite some time now Mimi and her gymnastics classmates have been practicing handstands against the wall at the gym. Eventually they will do "walkovers". To my surprise the other night Mimi was already doing them. Still needs a little more practice though.

MYSTERY PLANT

While doing gardening work the other day, I noticed these plants growing underneath my kitchen window and for the life of my could not figure out what they are. Then I remembered that last summer I had purchased some herbs at our local arboretum then proceeded to forget to take them from the plastic pot and plant them. Also forgot to water them. Needless to say they up and died on me. Somehow the seeds must have gotten into the soil and these plants showed up. I pulled a leaf off to rub into my fingers and smell it. It smells almost like celery. Hmmmmm.

JAPANESE MAPLE TREES

Even though I do appreciate the luxury of being a stay at home mom at this late stage of my life, I absolutely love it, crazy, hectic schedule and all. Training a fairly new puppy, school for Mimi, playdates, baseball, gymnastics, piano lessons and swimming this summer. Also besides doing the daily chores of grocery shopping, cleanning house and laundry, I am working on beautifying our backyard. I have been making quite a few trips to our local Walmart where they have some fantastic deals on plants and such. In the top left picture is our Japanese Maple Tree that came with the house when we bought a couple of years ago. Last year I thought that I would plant a couple of more trees to spruce up our fairly bare backyard. It is a running joke in our family that mom "does not know how to read the instructions". Which is what happened here. I bought the trees just by looking at the picture (and not reading) on the package thinking "what beautiful trees these are" Time goes on and a pretty strong Winter came. By the time Spring rolled around both dad and I thought that these trees were gonners. Everything else was blooming except these trees. So the other day I went out to take a look. Lo and behold tiny little leaves are starting to pop out! I then actually read the package and was surprised to see that I had planted more Japanese Maple trees! Holy Cow! I guess there are different kinds of Japanese Maple trees as the picture on the package looks nothing like the one that came with the house. It does however look pretty on the package picture and yesterday Mimi and I were at Costco (my other home away from home) and saw that they are selling these trees for $54.00 and above. EACH! YIKES! I bought a smaller Japanese Maple tree at Walmart (my 2nd home away from home) for less than half the price of Costco. My apple tree is starting to bloom too. Things are slowly starting to take shape around here. Thank goodness. If you have the $$$ (which we don't), you can buy the plants full grown like my friend Shelley does. She says that she does not have the patience to wait. I on the other hand don't have the patience either but I would rather spend our money at Disneyland (hopefully in the fall) and the Olympics next year.

AT THE PARK

Today was actually much, much nicer than what appears on the camera. Tomorrow is supposed to be real nice too thank goodness as the Lugnuts have a scheduled game. It all goes downhill after that.

A GORGEOUS SPRING DAY

Oh man was it gorgeous yesterday. The temperature was just right, not too hot nor too cold. It was warm enough for Mimi and Blake aka "Dude'" to play outside in the pool. They had a blast squirting ole' Butch with water too. Mom's plants are finally starting to bloom and they make the grayness of our weather look so much more cheerful. In a couple of minutes I am going to pick up Mimi, stop by the house to pick up some snacks and off to the park we will be headed for the rest of the afternoon. It is way to nice to stay indoors. Tomorrow it is supposed to start clouding up again so we have to get the rays in while we can. Tootles for now.

LOCKS OF LOVE

I am definitely all for donations of any kind whether it is giving items to our local goodwill store or supporting the local girls scouts or cub scouts. However I believe that Mimi was given the wrong slip at school the other day. We are trying our darndest to grow her hair out and not cut it off as she has TWICE taken the scissors to her head. Finally, finally, finally it is back to the point of me being able to tie her hair into piggy tails. So I had to chuckle to myself when I saw this slip in her bag the other day.

Speaking of school by the way, we just received a phone call from the school district tonight in regards to a school board meeting that is coming up within the next couple of weeks. They are going to talk about our school budget cuts. That should be quite interesting to hear about.

AFTER THE SHOWER

When the kids came home, Maddie from down the street stopped by to help Mimi with her piano lessons while Halliwell watched. Then it was time for a delicious Mexican dinner at El Coporal. Mmmm good! Mimi discovered that she really likes the bean dip.