Domestic Adventures

Emmaline couldn’t wait to give Shannon the gift she picked out for the baby shower today. Emmaline chose the stuffed snail all by her little opinionated self, and she also made the card herself with teddy bear stickers and some stamps.
Trent’s parents hosted the shower and the weather was perfect for enjoying their beautiful backyard. Everything was lovely until Micah took a spill down one step into their sunken living room, giving himself and fat lip which bled enough to make me a little queazy. We left early and Micah took a good long nap. After some rest and a bit of Tylenol, I think he’ll recover just fine.

Today I am waiting for FedEx to deliver four berghia nudibranchs from Salty Underground. Over the next couple of months, these little guys should rid our saltwater aquarium of aiptasia anemones. At first, I thought the innocent little anemone that hitchhiked into the tank on some button polyps was cute and interesting. That was before it multiplied like crazy, totally infesting our tank with little brown anemones that sting our other corals and have all but obliterated the button polyps. Now we are in serious need of some help. Nudibranches to the rescue!

I’ve never liked eggs much, but when faced with a dozen colored eggs this Easter, I figured I should try to make use of them. I used the egg salad recipe from Cook’s Illustrated’s The Best Recipe (my all-time, very most favorite cookbook), and actually liked it! I’ve even been boiling eggs just for this purpose lately. Everyone else probably makes egg salad all the time, but this is a brand new lunch option in our house.

Here’s all our Target loot. Emmaline and I planted daisy seeds in this itsy-bitsy pot. We’ve also got poppies, forget-me-nots, and a tomato plant. I have grand visions of lush plants and vibrant flowers all over our back porch, but even if they don’t grow as well as hoped, it’s fun project.

I’m starting to think there may be just a tiny bit of green in my thumb after all. Target has sunflowers on sale today as well as an assortment of cool little gardeny things in their dollar spot. Maybe next year we’ll be adventurous enough to try growing this sunflower house.

Hope sent me this picture of our boys and it really makes me smile. These two were born one day apart, and they must be about four months old here. I think they’re so funny together. Hopefully they will grow up to be good buddies.

You might be impressed by what an engineer can construct given a bag full of foamy shapes. The kids and I had been playing with these all day making spirals and non-descript little “critters”. Trent joined the fun and created a giant ostrich.

Today was exactly what we needed after this difficult week. Hope, David, and family spent the day with us at our house. After lunch the kids played dress up and read books while us grown ups enjoyed a chance to talk. David brought his guitar and we sang together and in the evening Trent grilled hamburgers. A perfectly refreshing day; we are so blessed through our friends.

Today is Andrew’s funeral. Even from my distance, this has been a difficult week. Please remember his family in prayer as this week is just the beginning for them.

This is Micah’s Easter Mammoth. You can see he also got some cars and since I knew he would want candy like his big sister, I tucked in some Gerber Graduate fruit snacks. Yum! Emmaline got some good stuff in her basket too, but I wasn’t quick enough with the camera. It was disassembled all over the carpet in no time and all that’s left now is some Easter grass and a plastic egg.