Organizing over and over again

There's nothing I love more than doing a project over again, especially a cleaning project. So I'm very happy that I get to do that pretty much every day. Today's project was the toy room. Again.

I may have a before before, but I think this one is bad enough.

What's sad is that the kids don't even play in here that much, so it's been messy like this for a while. Mr. Man plays with Legos and occasionally Baby Girl crawls around and gets into everything while I try to get stuff done. Anyway, I didn't quite finish (bedtime beckoned) but here's the room a few hours (I think) later.

Oops, I see an open drawer.

There was garage sale stuff kind of mixed in with everything else (that pile next to the treadmill), so the first thing I did was move all of that out of the way. After that it was just sorting, sorting and more sorting. I labeled one drawer set, and the other set will be labeled once I'm sure of what's going in each drawer. Even if the kids don't put stuff away in the right place, at least it'll help me clean up fast. We ran into the shelving at the thrift store a few months ago. I think each shelf was something like 65 cents, pipes included. Or you could just spend $15 on a four-shelf unit at Wal-Mart. Well, $30. This is two units.

I still have a few more bins to sort through, and of course getting all the garage sale stuff out will clear up a ton of space, but I think for a few hours' time it's not bad. I have high hopes for the open shelving; maybe the kids will put things back if there's a flat, clear area for them to do so. That's probably a pipe dream, but I can't help myself.

Gardening

I hope I can get a solid day outside this weekend; our yard needs it. In the meantime, though, I've accomplished a few little things.

I went up to my mom's last weekend and split some perennials. Not too many; I'm definitely going to need more.

Coneflower and sedum. That sedum at the front really should have been split at least in two, but it didn't want to so I didn't force it. I can't remember what the lily in the back corner is, but I vaguely remember it being orange. Tiger, maybe?

Kojak knocked over one of my planters and this is how B repotted it. This is the one I was worried about earlier. Poor plant. Still not dead, though.

Uh oh. My peonies have budded. Too late to move these two, at least until fall.

The transplanted peony. Obviously it has not budded. Definitely needs some mulch.

I still have these two hostas to get planted. I bought 200 pounds of soil for this bed, which I don't think will take care of the whole thing but will be enough for these, for now.

You can see what I mean about needing some time in the yard. I think I could probably spend a day on the weeding alone. And I haven't even shown you the front bed yet.

Family night

I had planned on doing some crafting tonight, but instead we went to Culver's for my nephew's third birthday. Then, even though we were ridiculously full of ice cream, we decided to take Kojak to the park for a run. See them way out there?

She also got lots of chances to practice not reacting to barking dogs. It seems that she could care less about them.

Baby Girl had no shoes, so no playing in the gravel for her.

The boys had a great time, though.

I foresee lots of trips to the park this summer.

Woof

Meet Kojak.

Kojak is a girl with a boy's name. And yes, I'm constantly calling her "he" and "boy." I'm getting better. She's a four-month-old boxer/springer spaniel mix and other than that we really don't know much about her. The cats hate her, although Bill is warming to her much faster than Poppy.

She's named after the dog from The Stand, also known as Big Steve. We're doing lots of teaching her that we (including the children) are the ones in charge and she'll be taking a training class soon. Because there's nothing worse than a big dog that's disobedient and poorly trained.

She likes the kids and is handling them very well, especially Baby Girl (as you can see). That was something we really were watching out for since our last shelter dog hated the kids. I think since she's only four months old we've caught her before she developed too many bad habits. She's not housetrained, of course, and thinks that being alone is the worst thing ever. The only place for her kennel is in the back part of the basement, so she's learning to get over that fast.

Skinny baby

Baby Girl went for her fifteen month checkup a few days ago. The appointment went well, we talked about her lack of walking (verdict: she'll do it sooner or later), her speech, etc etc. Then when I got home I was looking over her papers and noticed that her weight was 18 lbs 4 oz, which is the fourth percentile. Our pediatrician gives you a few pages about what to expect at this age, usually with the height and weight and percentiles written on the front, but the paper had changed format and this time her numbers were on the back, where neither the doctor nor I saw them. I save all of these sheets and I know her twelve month is around here somewhere, but so are a billion other papers. Even though I couldn't find it, I know she wasn't in the fourth percentile then. The one I could find, which was her four month, had her in the 68th percentile for weight. I called and found out that her twelve month weight was 19 lbs 6 oz, which means she's lost 1 lb 2 oz in three months.

No wonder she still fits into this twelve month romper.

So now she has to go back in four weeks to be weighed and I am on a mission to fatten her up. Bring on the butter!

Here she is eating bacon for dinner. Except not really; she chewed it up, got all the delicious bacon flavor, then spit it out. She does that a lot lately and I'm sure it's not helping her pack on the ounces. Lately even getting a quarter of a sandwich in her can be tricky, and that's assuming she doesn't throw a bunch of it on the floor or down around her legs in the high chair.

We'll be trying this tomorrow.

It's pudding made from avocados. Obviously it would be easy to get some weight on her if I just fed her macaroni and cheese and ice cream and chicken nuggets, but I'd rather she put it on from whole foods and good fats. So we won't just be slathering her meals in butter. Some of them will be slathered in coconut oil.

More gardening

Ugh. You guys. I lost my garden plan. I mean, I mostly remember what it was since it was only the back bed--shade plants in the middle, part shades next to them, suns at the edges--but still. I like to have a plan.

Yaya and I went outside to water, but the columbines (unplanted) were looking pretty toasty so we decided to get those in. It took maybe ten minutes since there were only three.

They're in front of the (still single) peony, which maybe looks less sad? I can't tell. It's not out and out dead, anyway.

I will eventually clear out the grass and make this a real bed. I wasn't sure if we were actually going to do this bed this year, and transplanting the peony the other day was kind an impulse decision.

I still can't tell about this geranium. The other one looks pretty good.

I hate this area.

Why is there not concrete here? Or dirt? Why rocks? Why an absolutely useless space? I'm thinking of filling it with hostas, maybe. Or hostas and heucheras. Whatever goes there has to be able to tolerate lots of shade, since I'm pretty sure the only light this spot gets is when the sun is almost set. But I want it to serve some sort of purpose. I've thought of building a pallet potting table and putting potted plants around it, but I want something I'll definitely finish. If we do move next year (this year's looking out) I don't want to have to scramble to get something in here. What do you think? Potting station? Hosta bed? Both?

Craftiness in progress

Nothing really interesting to share today. It hit 101 here, so obviously I spent as little time outside as possible. I cut latch hook canvas and sewed batting on it for a project, but I didn't get it done so I don't have anything to show for my work yet. The rest of the day was the usual: two loads of laundry, two loads of dishes, and an hour trying to get the baby to sleep. A pretty boring day, basically. Oh, and my little stinker is so proud that she can do this now.

Yeah, we see you up on that chair. Quit growing up. Unless you're going to decide to walk. I'm fine with that.