Coming soon....

...to my garden....
...and to my sewing table.
Okay, so, the serger is actually already on my sewing table, but I am determined to get it cleaned up and figure out how to thread it so I can start to use it. I inherited this machine from Buck's Grams like 2 years ago and it has been sitting under its cover on my sewing table since then. I finally plugged it in and tried it out the other day and it is in great shape, I just don't know how to thread the silly thing and it totally needs to be re-threaded, as you can see.
The little seedlings are currently in my kitchen, waiting for it to be warm enough to get out into the garden. I decided to try starting them indoors this year so that some of them have a better chance of survival. The quail kept getting my beans last year so they should do much better this year as a plant. I was in the kitchen just staring at my little garden and Buck came in and said accusingly, "You love watching things grow." My reply was simply, "I know." I really do. I don't know when it happened, but at some point, I started to enjoy gardening. I used to loathe it. We had a HUGE garden growing up and I hate hate hated to have to help weed it. Now, I don't know if it's the challenge of putting something in the ground and being able to keep it alive or what, but I really like to garden. I am definitely an amateur gardener and still have much to learn. I still hate weeding but I do it because it needs to be done. Unfortunately, my children would love to come in the garden and help me with the weeding, but they don't quite understand what is a weed and what isn't. It's too bad they won't feel like that in 5 or 6 years from now....or maybe I'll get lucky and they will. To this day though, I am still afraid of shucking corn on the cob (even ones from the store) because of all the earwigs I met doing it back in the day for my parents.

computers, stitches and apple trees

I haven't had a work computer for 2 1/2 weeks now and my life has been "off" because of it. It has messed up my whole daily routine not being able to get my work work (that being the stuff I am paid to do) done in the morning after putting Grace on the van for school. I have had limited access since Monday but limited is the key word there. I can see all the emails I have, but do not have the ability to respond to any of them. Frustrating! I am trying not to think too much about it because I am the kind of person that likes to have an empty inbox and so having 2 1/2 weeks worth of emails sitting there will make me crazy if I dwell on it.
Anyway...enough of that...despite how I may feel sometimes, my life has still been moving on despite of my work computer issues.
Lucas cracked his head open 2 Saturdays ago. He continues to be ever following in the footsteps of his sister who did the same thing last June. The difference is she did it smack in the middle of her forehead and needed 9 stitches. His only took 6. You can tell he hit the whole side of his face too though because of the bruise down lower on his cheek.
His stitches are out now and he is healing well. The Dr. superglued his head after removing the stitches for some extra support. We gave Luke his summer buzz cut on Saturday and I buzzed the top first. We stopped to take a picture of it because he looked so funny (it is very hard to tell in the picture exactly what he looked like due to it being head-on, but you can kind of see) and Grace yells, "Luke's a Grandpa!!" The funny thing about that is all of her Grandpas have full heads of hair so she made the connection from somewhere else completely.
Spring is here and I am loving it!! The significance of this picture here though is the tiny little apple tree behind Buck. Grace has been fixated with it ever since I put it in the ground but as of a couple days ago, hasn't hurt it. If you look closely, you can see the buds on the ends of the branches in this picture.
Now look even closer here and you can see that the tree no longer possesses any buds. She broke every branch atleast 6 inches down and some of them further. What a stinker. I just don't think she gets that you can't do that, despite my previous warnings. Also shown in this picture is my new clothesline. I actually got it for Christmas but we have had to wait to be able to cement it in. I am excited to use it for laundry day tomorrow. We are going GREEN around here as much as possible and this is part of it. Go ahead and take a last glimpse of that busting down swing set. It has been a great one for being free, but coming soon to our backyard is going to be a new one that we actually paid money for this time. It's going to be awesome!
Oh, and happy Earth Day everyone!

I gotta be honest...

I hate to run. It is one of the most boring things I can think of doing. But, I'm doing it anyway. I can't deny the fact that it is making positive changes in my body so I keep putting one foot in front of the other. I think my next step is investing in a new ipod since no computer will read mine currently and I have been stuck with the same old playlists for too long now.

Last, but not least...

My little sister got married today. She is the last of the 6 of me and my siblings to tie the knot. She looked beautiful (especially her hair and make up ;) ). She is now Mrs. Hardus Visser (pronounced "fisser") . He was her tandem instructor the first time she went skydiving. Notice the "first" in that last sentence. She has gone enough that she now jumps alone. No thank you! I have no desire to ever fall out of a plane!!! Anyway, I am not much of a photgrapher as I have mentioned before, but here are a few of the shots that are half decent that I did take today.
Here she is coming down the aisle with my very handsome Dad. Sorry Bekah and Jen for the face shots here.... if only I had one of those cool flashes like Jon to bounce my flash off the ceiling, I wouldn't have Alfred Hitchcocked you Bek..... Yeah, right. I will probably never have a camera nice enough to be compatible with one.
This look was "Okay, you can cut the music now..." because it was playing a little too long. I wasn't in a great spot so you can't see the groom very well. He's the one on her left. Feel free to ooh and ahh over her veil because I made it. I also made Grace's dress. I have seriously busted out my Martha skills lately. Although, I should probably call them my Mrs. Sutherland skills because I don't really know anything about Martha Stewart and most of my knowledge of a sewing machine comes from my 8th grade sewing teacher, Mrs. Sutherland... and my mom.
Grace just wanted to adore her Aunt Katie all night. She followed her around for a good part of the evening. She would go shadow her and then go run around for a bit and then come back to Katie again. She LOVES her Aunt Katie!
Here is my brother Scott and his wife Natalie. We miss them living clear down in San Diego but are glad to have a place to visit near a beach!
This is my adorable niece Mara. She belongs to my brother Mark and his wife Stacy. She is such darling little girl and we wish she lived closer than Phoenix!
Here is one of her moments back with Katie while there was a lull in the line. Grace didn't nap today so she took a minute to rest in Katie's arms.
Here is my wrecking ball, as Buck so aptly defined him tonight. Right after I snapped this shot, that water bottle hit me in the head. His little suit looked so much cuter without all the water spilled down the front.
Grace was just taking another break right here. I found her up on the stage in this place just lying in the dark (the flash makes it look not dark, but it was) talking to herself.
This is Grace's best cousin Lizzie. This is who she spent most of her time with when she wasn't adoring Katie tonight. I realized as I was editing this picture tonight that at some point in the evening, Grace lost her flower clip that was in her hair when we left home. It was my favorite one too. Oh, well.
Congratulations Fish and Katie! I am so happy for you both!

Race

I'm running a 5k in May and am inviting everyone to do it too. All the proceeds benefit the Association for Deaf Children AND you get a t-shirt! T-shirts are always fun, right? Last year we also got a bunch of SWAG from local businesses and they had loads of fresh fruit, water and snacks at the finish line. You can visit their website for more info.
http://www.signsonthetrail.com/
Even if you don't want to run, Rachel Coleman from Signing Time will be there entertaining so bring your kids to see her!