Happy Birthday

Yes it is a little late to post but better late than never. Scott's birthday is probably becoming more like a dress rehearsal for Camryn's. She practiced opening and reading cards.

Blowing out candle(s). Yes she did blow but not enough to extinguish the flame.

And eating her cake . . . or in this case ice cream pie. And as most of us know . . . she thoroughly enjoys her ice cream. So Scott's mint chocolate chip pie from Whitey's was the perfect birthday cake for both of them.

We celebrated on Friday night with our Quad Cities friends. It felt like forever since we last saw them and Grandma Julie, Grandpa Tracy, Aunt Sam and Uncle Trace came out as well. No pictures though because I was busy keeping Camryn from attacking baby Lydia (Alice & Micah's little girl).

Christmas Finale

Christmas Day

Christmas Eve

It begins . . . Christmas 2009

On our way to green

We bought three rain barrels from River Action in late spring. We installed one over Father's Day and we installed another the weekend after our return from Arkansas. Camryn really wanted to help.
Now we did learn a lot from installing the first one (like don't follow the directions they provide) and especially DO NOT measure (really there was no point). Scott did all the work because I had the harder job of entertaining Camryn and keeping an eye on her.
The toughest part was cutting the gutter and making sure we could get gutter to mold around the rain diverter. In a perfect world our gutters would be buried (if anyone wants to volunteer for the job let me know). But you keep the rain diverter down until your rain barrel is full. Then you flip the diverter up and rain runs down your gutter. Now the only really difficult part is we have 3/4 inch gutters and the diverter is for a 2 inch gutter so Scott had to do some squeezing. It's not perfect but it gets the job done.

You would think it could take awhile to fill up a 60 gallon rain barrel but apparently it only takes one storm. Now we have a water supply for our plants without turning on the hose. It is a little more work because you either fill a watering can or get really low pressure out of a hose. But we are doing our part for the environment.

Next up: Garden design . . . do we have any volunteers?

I heart books and my dog

My what big teeth you have.

I guess I didn't realize but in this picture she is sitting and bouncing on poor Toro. All the while he simply lays down and looks slightly defeated.