This has been a great spring so far. We've started our garden and already harvest lettuce, spinach, and radishes. They are SO good! I've been busy with lots of projects. I redecorated the family room. I love it. I kept the yellow walls (which still need retouching!) and threw out the red sectional replacing it with a white one from IKEA (washable slipcovers). I also tore up the carpet down to the wood floor and bought a jute rug. I reorganized the toys and replaced toy baskets with seagrass and wicker ones. It is a pleasure to relax in the room. Of course the garden has been another project and I've been working on my front flower bed that I transformed last year by tearing out the dying juniper. This bed is HUGE at least for me, but I've been able to keep it under control by simply weeding it every morning after I walk Noah to the bus. Another project I have been working on is fundraising for a 60 mile walk I'm going to be doing this fall in DC with my mom, niece, and sisters. I raised 600$ at a charity sale and have a few more things up my sleeve. I'm also working on throwing a shower and bachelorette party for Marie since she is getting married July 31st. I had fun making the invitations and working with her friends to pull it off! Last year I purchased a tiedye kit and a bunch of white t-shirts because I wanted to make "team" shirts for our family for the summer. Well, I never got around to it, but I'm so glad I didn't because I am currently working on that for THIS summer! Fun! They are in the "setting" stage and then we'll wash and wear. I finally made my first successful yeast bread and made a few batches of cinnamon rolls. We have been using the Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day recipe. It's a book, but you can also find it in an archive of Mother Earth News. Every summer, we have lots of family time and usually get back into our family meetings again. I've been meaning to make a talking stick to use during family meetings, but finally got around to it. It's a special talking stick because I used a neat thing one of Noah's helpers made for him. He was a little scared of it to use it in the way she meant so we repurposed it and made a nice big gaudy feathery talking stick! It's special to me because someone made it for us with love and took a lot of time. We just added the stick and voila!

Here's a link that talks about the use of a talking stick.:)The use and origin of the talking stick

I like to think of summer as "Mommy summer camp" so it seemed especially appropriate! :) Of course the kids have lots of summer camp this year, even Lucy! She will be attending the zoo summer camp with a little friend. Actually it is the daughter of great friend since 7th grade! Isn't that fun?

Now we still need to plan a campout and vacation and our fall and winter trips and home improvement projects so we can make sure to budget time and money! This is one of my favorite things to do. I love planning things like that. We have had to learn to plan way ahead since we have so many people that we depend on for help. We've got to keep it all straight.

Let's see. Oh yes. Memorial Day weekend. Great time. We saw my Grandma Heiniger. We hadn't seen her for forever. We visited my mom and dad and alternated between staying in a hotel and camping in their backyard. We saw the Snake Alley Criterium, we went hiking and saw fossils in the limestone, and just generally had a great weekend easting at all our old favorite places.

I've been thinking a lot about my Nana lately. Her sister passed away recently and she is very sad. Also her husband has been having poor health and now she has some medical problems to worry about. I'm thinking of her often and remembering how much fun she used to have gardening and growing things.

On a positive note, we have had lots of fun times with friends and family this spring and are really looking forward to a wonderful season! Oh and Noah won another medal at the state Special Olympics meet in addition to getting his g-tube out and using more speech, we have been loving seeing his growth. Anyway, that's the news from Des Moines, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and the children are all above average!