in the yard

we've been enjoying our yard lately. the flowers are in bloom and are beautiful. madeleine likes to "help" when i water the garden. 

i let her water the grass. 

some of our irises.

our neighbors have these gorgeous peonies that peek through our chain link fence (i guess chain link is good for something?). i am pretty jealous of them. they mingle with our irises and tease me. i was going to steal some that were on our side of the fence to put inside, but hadn't gotten around to it yet. we were at church yesterday and i complimented our neighbor on the peonies and she said, "feel free to snip some to put in your house." permission granted.

 

spring never lasts long enough for me. but i guess that summer means vegetables, so i won't complain too much.

swim lessons

madeleine is doing swim lessons for the month of june at the provo rec center. she absolutely loves it. she is doing really well - even better than i anticipated. she isn't anxious when the teacher has her float on her back, she is going under the water by herself, and loves to be in the water. but that's nothing new.

my favorites

these two are getting along really well lately and play together better than they ever have before. i love it. 

both of these girls love to read and spend a lot of their time surrounded by books. when the house has been quiet a little too long, it is almost always because they are sitting by the bookshelf in their room, reading quietly to themselves. much nicer than when it is too quiet because of mischief. 

even though madeleine can't read yet, she's turned into quite the story teller and "reads" books to rachel and diane. she's usually pretty close to the actual words, especially on the books that we read all the time. 

le bois

after some begging from a grandmother, aunt and cousins (it didn't take much), we decided that we were long overdue for a trip to boise and headed up last weekend. our trips never seem long enough and this was no exception. we packed in a bike ride along the greenbelt, watching a dance recital, a trip to the farmers market, and of course, lots of time with family.

the girls spent as much time in my in-law's back yard as possible.

one of the best shots we've ever had of all of the peck grandchildren together. 

kyle tried so hard to endear himself to diane and she never really let him hold her too long. she was pretty grumpy with everyone all weekend and was handing out the stink-eye left and right. 

these two were attached at the hip all weekend and were adorable to watch. i loved hearing them talk together in their high pitched little voices.

orem 5k

my sister, audrey, decided to run the orem 5k a while ago and about two weeks ago, randy decided to join her. the race was yesterday, so we all trooped over as a family to watch the runners.

yes, it is the end of may. 

we thought that audrey's boys would be there and had promised playmates for the girls, but the boys didn't end up coming. our girls were pretty bored with the whole thing. oh well. this is why i don't generally tell madeleine that she is going to see her cousins until they actually appear before her. too much room for disappointment if something falls through. 

and they're off!

coming into the finish line.

after the race.

it was a small group of runners and i was a little sad that i hadn't participated as well. of course, it would be good to have run at least once this season before engaging in a 5k. you know, small details. it turns out that i am not motivated to run when it is cold out (although i hate running in the heat more), but mostly, it is really hard to run with two kids when you don't have a double jogging stroller and your husband teaches piano lessons at 6:00 most mornings. once his students are out of school, his lessons will move back a little later and i can run before he leaves. the joys of trying to exercise with small children.

planted

some of my greatest joys, as well as my deepest disappointments, come from gardening. i planted my garden in the evening yesterday. i carefully checked the weather forecast and it looks like i am in the clear for planting. just to be safe though, i covered the smallest plants to protect the from the cold.

because i didn't think it was going to snow last year and it did.

everything went into shock as soon as i planted. which i knew would happen. i just hate to see it happen. it causes all of this angst, inner turmoil, and pessimism within me. plus, i kept waking up in the middle of the night and wondering how they were doing.

i am way too emotionally invested in this for it to be healthy.

i woke up this morning and went to check on the plants. some of them look great and they should pull through just fine. some not so much. are they still in shock? i haven't been doing this for long enough to know when i should give up hope.

i'm not optimistic about my cucumbers (i think that the key is to plant them before the starts get too big? so the broad leaves don't droop on the ground and get stuck to the soil? is this making any sense?)

the zucchini look like they'll pull through. surprisingly, most of the tomatoes look like they will, too. but my juliets are droopier than i'd like and they're impossible to buy starts for. the abe lincolns look dead. not mostly dead, but dead. and i'm not surprised. i had such hope for them when i bought them. the name alone was so promising. but the starts have struggled since the beginning and i'm not shocked (get it?) to see them like they are. there are two other tomato plants (can't remember which variety) that look dead too, but we're just going to have to wait it out. hopefully they pull through.

good thing i planted 16 tomato plants.

see what i mean? so many emotions in gardening. it's that season again.

nap time casualty

nap time is one of my many daily battles with madeleine lately. add it to the current chronicles of war (meals, going to bed, being obedient in general). there have been a few times in the past that i have thought that madeleine was giving up the nap, but this time i think it's really happening. most of the time she stays in her room for about half and hour, reading books, singing, and generally doing anything that she can to distract diane from falling asleep. she finally sneaks out of her room and comes out to the living room and i take her back to my room and make her finish out diane's nap with some quiet time on my bed. naps may be dead for her, but quiet time lives on until they start school. you'd think i'd just start her on my bed in the first place, but she insists that she wants to sleep in her bed and today will be different. it's not that i'm stupid, really, i know how it's going to go down.

like i said, many battles. daily.

plus, it kind of extends nap time in a good way for me as well. they entertain each other in the confines of their own room for an extra half hour before diane even falls asleep and occasionally, only occasionally, madeleine actually falls asleep, too. usually with an angelina ballerina book propped up in her hand.