Craig built me a raised bed in the last available space for growing things. This back section has been my nemesis for years. It is now, finally, completely, forever more taken care of! Here is Farmer Liam helping Farmer Daddy lay down weed block and rock. Today they put bark dust out front. We still need two more yards!! That will be six yards!!! At $35 a yard I think we are going broke! But it sure looks nice. Today Liam was having so much fun helping Craig...chattering about how they were farming. He came in to go potty and made sure I called him Farmer Liam...I was Farmer Mommy. What fun he is. He just seems to have so many different ways of showing joy. And he can make a job like laying down truckloads of bark dust take on new meaning. While they were filling the wheel barrow in America I was spreading the bark dust in Russia. What an imagination.
I glanced out the door the other day and what should I spy but a bird munching on a not ripe Bing cherry. So here is the Bing cherry tree summer ensemble. Thwarted the bird population. Funny thing though. To the left of this is the Rainier cherry 'stick' and it has quite a few cherries on it and in my opinion they are better than Bings. The birds don't touch it. Maybe because it has grown so slowly and barely qualifies for a tree yet...not enough to perch on...who knows. Today while I was watering the strawberry patch between the two trees I munched on a few Rainiers. They are about a day or two from perfect ripeness!
Last week we took a day trip over the mountain to visit my parents and Craig's Aunt Jackie in Redmond. While visiting her she called her brother Uncle Ken to come over. Craig had not seen Ken for many years. We had a really nice visit with them and my parents. Wasn't Liam stylish in his matching outfit? Craig matched as well..you would think I had planned it. We live just three hours away and hardly ever see them. That is sad. I made a note to myself...self I said, we are not going to go over there and not visit Jackie as well. She will get a visit each time now.
Aunt Jackie was taking care of Kitty Cat while Liam showed her how to play his Fire.
Can you see the child? Mom gave me some storage tubs before we left her house. Here was the best use for them according to Liam.
What is the brown thing in his hair? You may ask......a hair clippy thing. He raided my bathroom drawer just before hiding out in the tub. You know how they will sometimes....all the time....put a sticker on these sorts of things that sort of state the obvious for any thinking person? The sticker in each of these tubs shows a drawing of a small child in the tub with a red line through it.....You think we broke the law??
Here are Liam and Mclara heading up the steps to the top of the slide at yet another bounce place. He has had a lot of bouncy type activities lately.
And here he is at the top....Mclara had given up on him already and gone down. No amount of coaxing was going to convince him it was okay. So I did what any loving mother would do. I crawled up there and slid down with him. I burned my left heel and my left elbow....the elbow hurt for several days. I still have a fairly impressive scab...I know...TMI! I also got in trouble. An employee was waiting at the bottom to chew me out for going down the slide...I pointed out that I fit all the weight and height criteria. Maybe so I was told....but this was toddler time....I did not fit the toddler criteria. So what do you do when your child gets stuck at the top????
Did I ever tell you about the water slide? Back when Jacqueline was around four we visited Thrillville near our house. They had a huge water slide. We also brought Andrew with us. The plan was that he would do with Jacqueline what we couldn't and have some fun as well. Well...she didn't want to walk to the top of the slide with just Andrew so I went up as well....in my shoes, dress, sunglasses.....can you see what's coming? Yep...we get to the top and she refuses to go down with Andrew...only me. After several minutes of trying to reason with her I give in and do the deed. I loved it!!! Shoes and sunglasses were off limits but no one said a thing to me. It was so fun in fact that we did it a second time! It was a hot day...I dried quickly...my hair didn't recover quite as quickly but it was worth it! I thought back to that when I was going down with Liam.
I will now leave you with a Liamism: He took advantage of me being busy to dig through his closet. He came down with a box. It was a Western Sheriffs Office complete with horses, good guys, bad guys and a jail cell. "I need to open it mommy, it's a mystery to me." And I listened as he played with it. "I'm a good guy and I live in the West." And then in a completely different voice "Well, I'm a bad guy and I live in the West." So far he's gotten a lot of mileage out of that little $5 set.
Did I ever tell you about the water slide? Back when Jacqueline was around four we visited Thrillville near our house. They had a huge water slide. We also brought Andrew with us. The plan was that he would do with Jacqueline what we couldn't and have some fun as well. Well...she didn't want to walk to the top of the slide with just Andrew so I went up as well....in my shoes, dress, sunglasses.....can you see what's coming? Yep...we get to the top and she refuses to go down with Andrew...only me. After several minutes of trying to reason with her I give in and do the deed. I loved it!!! Shoes and sunglasses were off limits but no one said a thing to me. It was so fun in fact that we did it a second time! It was a hot day...I dried quickly...my hair didn't recover quite as quickly but it was worth it! I thought back to that when I was going down with Liam.
I will now leave you with a Liamism: He took advantage of me being busy to dig through his closet. He came down with a box. It was a Western Sheriffs Office complete with horses, good guys, bad guys and a jail cell. "I need to open it mommy, it's a mystery to me." And I listened as he played with it. "I'm a good guy and I live in the West." And then in a completely different voice "Well, I'm a bad guy and I live in the West." So far he's gotten a lot of mileage out of that little $5 set.