Garden inspiration

This is the season of pretty flowers, and I've found some pretty ones lately. The first two pictures are from my Mom's garden. She does wonders with pots! The last two are from our trip to Calistoga a couple of weeks ago.

Daddy's Birthday

Jeff celebrated a birthday last Friday, on April 18th. We had a quiet little celebration with the kids, complete with cupcakes. See Jeff, below, blowing out the candle with Julia's help, and Andrew looking on.

Then we left the kids with Adela, our wonderful housekeeper/backup-nanny (shown in the pic below), and I took Jeff out for dinner at a place that has live jazz on Friday nights. (Jazz is a new passion of Jeff's.)

Julia LOVES cupcakes!

Nothing better than a big box to play in!

Calistoga Getaway

Ahhhh, a getaway! Just what we needed, and we sure picked a great spot for it. We spent two nights at the Calistoga Ranch. We missed the kids, but it was nice to have a break from the constant caregiving.

Here I am enjoying what was perhaps the best feature of our room: an indoor-outdoor fireplace. This was taken just this morning as I was enjoying my coffee in the morning sun.

Many many thanks to Mom & Dad and Wendy for staying with the kids and allowing us to have this precious getaway!

Photoshoot

I asked Jeff to take a few photos of me so that I could update my profile picture. Most of the pictures of me are either terrible or are so old they don't look much like me anymore (sadly). Here is my attempt to find a picture that just plain looks like the me of today. He took 30 or more, and here are my favorite few. I got one up on the profile, so now I'm officially updated. Thanks Jeff!

The plight of a younger brother

Poor Andrew gets dressed up in more dresses, fairy outfits, and high heeled shoes than any boy should. Then again, probably no more than the average little brother. I've got plenty of pictures to embarrass him in later life, that's for sure! Here he is after Julia dressed him in one of her new dresses. I really need to cut his hair again, he looks way too convincing in this picture!

A gardening weekend

We spent some time out in the garden today, putting in more plants and sowing more seeds. To help the kids understand the process I purchased some little seed starter cells and planted the seeds there so that we could watch them and see the seedling start, then transplant together in a few weeks. Hopefully it will work, even though we are a bit late in the season to be starting seeds.

Silver Tongue Tied (a poem by Jeff)

SILVER TONGUE TIED

A poet at heart
But too head-smart
To paint a picture in words
Not forced or trite or cliché

Mired in meter and rhythm and rhyme
And public displays of alliteration
Tripping over my own prosodic feet
Neglecting what I thought I had to say

Silver tongue tied
Reaping bland husks of verse
Empty of emotion

Straining
To let feeling flow
In unstructured form
And to trust the inherent beauty and sufficiency of the substance

I put my pen down long ago
These days I write with light

More than the sun is warm

When I tell Julia I love her, sometimes she asks "how much?" I typically answer "all the way to the moon and back." Recently, to mix it up, I've started saying "I love you more than the sun is warm." (that's a lot!) Tonight she told me that she loved me "as dark as it is outside in the middle of the night." (that's a lot!) : )

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Easter morning candy glee

You can't beat this level of excitement. And over a few chocolate eggs, no less!



Happy Easter!