Emily's preschool program

Emily's preschool program was on Sunday afternoon, which worked out great since all the grandparents were already here for Lincoln's birthday.  It was very cute, and Emily did a good job, although apparently her tights were really itchy.  And at the last minute she insisted that she couldn't wear her fancy white shoes with her dress because they aren't allowed to wear sandals at preschool.  So she wore her bright pink Crocs.  Whatever!  Below are some pictures from the program.  There is also a long video with different clips from the program.  The memory card on the camera got full halfway through, but trust me, it was probably okay to miss the 10-minute "Alice the Camel" color countdown song. ;o)  We're so thankful for an awesome preschool program with two great teachers.  Emily absolutely loved it and can't wait to go back to Little Lambs in the fall!

Lincoln's birthday party

Lincoln's birthday isn't until Thursday, but we celebrated with grandparents this weekend.  Grandpa & Grandma Boote arrived on Saturday.  Lincoln got to open one gift at night and enjoyed playing "monster trucks" with Grandpa Boote using his new monster bowling set.

Grandma Boote brought some fun new books along.

 Grandpa & Grandma Lorenzen joined us for lunch on Sunday.  Then there were more fun presents.

And cake, of course.  I'm pretty proud of my little creation using the star layer-cake pans from the library.  Thankfully, the train cake mold was checked out, so I didn't have to try to attempt something like that. ;o)

Warning note: Blue & green cake with bright blue frosting is really fun but does interesting things to digestive tracts.  :op
 
Emily did a pretty good job of being a big sister and letting Lincoln be the birthday boy, even though she was really tempted.  She did corral the grandmas into playing Sorry! with her, and she was pretty proud about beating both of them.

Car heaven

A blast from the past

After watching the wedding I just had to get out my photo albums and look at my pictures from London.  This was way before the days of digital cameras, but I have a few good ones. :o)

A famous red telephone booth

Tower Bridge

Trafalgar Square

A new park and a Royal Wedding

I knew it was going to be an exceptionally hot and humid day for mid-May, so we decided to explore Cedar Bend Park soon after breakfast.  Cedar Bend is a county park along the river located just north of Waverly.  Emily was supposed to go on a field trip there for preschool last October but it got rained out.  I've been curious about it ever since.  The park consists of a campground, various picnic spots and some aging playgrounds.  I'm not an outdoorsy person, and I wasn't too impressed.  There is a decent little hiking trail along the river bluff that could be fun when the kids are a little older.  We just ventured across a little bridge for a photo op.  Then we spent a little time at the nicest of the playgrounds.

Since it hit a humid 93 degrees and was too hot to do anything else, I finally got around to watching the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton this afternoon (thank you DVR).  The kids got into it, too.  Emily thought it was exciting to see a real princess and decided to change her clothes and dress up for the occasion.  Something tells me she didn't read the 22-page etiquette manual that got sent out with the invitations. ;o)  When she heard the organ music she said, "That's just like the songs at Grandma Boote's church!"  Kind of, honey.  Emily also got out the foam blocks to build a church/castle complete with Little People in attendance. 

Lincoln mostly enjoyed marching along to the upbeat parade music.  I enjoyed the pageantry and the beautiful music.  It brought back a lot of memories because I was in London 10 years ago almost to the day while studying abroad in England during college, so all the places they showed on TV I've been to and seen in person.

Dandelions

What little girl can resist a lawn full of dandelions?  (Although her daddy wishes they were all dead!)  Emily has been all about picking dandelions lately.  I showed her how to make the stems curl in water, but she gets more excited about making big bunches.  We have glasses full of them.  Emily told me the posed picture in front of the rhododendron bush could be my surprise Mother's Day picture even though I was the one taking it and it was Saturday. :o)

Mother's Day

It was a great Mother's Day.  The weather was beautiful.  I got to spend 3 hours of uninterrupted time in my bed this afternoon, which I was really looking forward to after a long week of hard work.  Emily was able to wait until today to have me open the gift she made at preschool.  She was so excited about it.  She had already told me all about the "surprise" card she & Daddy picked out at Wal-mart last weekend. ;o)  Emily also made a "Happy Mother's Day" flag two weeks ago.

 I am so blessed to be the mother of two super kids!

New garage door

Austin worked on a big project on Saturday, too.  He and a friend replaced the old, heavy, wooden garage door on the attached garage.  The opener hadn't worked since February, and it didn't stay open, so after heaving it up you had to stick a shovel or 2x4 underneath to hold it open.  Not exactly safe or convenient for hauling out the trash, recycling and lawn mower.  But now we have a working, lightweight door with no ugly, stained curtains! :o)

Planting

It has been a super busy week at the Lorenzen house/yard with a LOT of time spent outside digging in the dirt.  On Tuesday I wielded a garden tiller (or more accurately--the garden tiller wielded me).  Emily helped me plant the garden on Wednesday.  The front landscaping got planted on Thursday.  Dirt was moved and flowers were planted on Friday.  The back landscaping was planted and mulch was spread on Saturday.  There is a lot of sweat equity invested in our yard, but I think it's looking great!  Here are some photo highlights...

Emily was all about digging holes--as long as she didn't get too dirty.

Watering was her favorite job.

I found a goldfish plant just like the one my Grandma Boote gave me when I was growing up.  Emily is super excited to have it in her room. 

Lincoln was ready to dig right in.

Lincoln loved watering, too.  He asked for "moh ah-toh" (more water) over and over.

We ran out of room in the main garden, so we decided to plant beans in these fun pots.

Emily helped pound in the landscape fabric spikes.

The backyard

The front yard

We still have to put some edging in sometime, but the main planting and mulching is done.  We ended up with a row of raspberry bushes, two blueberry bushes and rhubarb around the garden.  In the garden we planted sweet corn, tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, beans, marigolds and zinnias.  It will be fun to see what comes up and/or survives.  Emily checks every morning to see if anything grew. :o)  We'll post updated pictures throughout the season.

The peach potty saga

Background: The upstairs bathroom is peach--all peach.  It is all the original 1948 fixtures.  That's 63-years-old for you non-math wizards.

The saga really began shortly after we moved in and Emily started regularly using the peach potty.  I won't go into all the gory details, but by March 30 I was sick of it constantly running and having to stick my hand in the tank to jiggle and tinker with things.  So I declared it officially dead and taped it shut with masking tape.  When Austin returned home at the end of the week we ordered a new toilet from Amazon because it is a non-standard rough-in size.  The new toilet bowl & tank arrived a few days later.  However, when Austin went to unpack it for installation on the next Saturday, he discovered the bowl was shattered in the box.  I contacted the seller, and they gladly shipped a new one.  On Friday the new tank arrived, but the box with the bowl (which is what we actually needed) got separated during shipping and didn't arrive until the next Monday.  Another weekend lost.  The next weekend Austin again went upstairs to install the new toilet and discovered the supply line was also non-standard and would need some modification.  (I am not a plumber, so I don't understand what and how.)  It was already late on a Saturday night, so there went another weekend. 

Finally, this Saturday Austin was determined to get the thing installed.  Of course, he had some eager helpers!  It took three trips to the local hardware store and one trip to Waterloo, plus an entire day of tinkering, but Plan C finally worked and we now have a working toilet upstairs.  Hooray!  Three cheers for a handy (and determined!) husband! 











Today Emily & I hauled the old toilet, along with the broken and unneeded new toilet parts to the transfer station.  Now all we need is a new sink/vanity, new tile on the floor, drywall instead of tile on the walls, a new medicine cabinet, new lighting, some storage...