The competition heats up...

Two new couples have been added to our adoption agencies web site.  For some reason I view them as our competition. 

Obviously I feel that we're a great family... but we're up against some steep competition.  I can only hope and pray that the right birth mother likes our profile above the others.  And when other families are chosen, I can only trust that we weren't right for that birth mother and baby. 

Our CFLS profile

Garden!

This year I got the garden in early!  We'd been having such nice weather and Mat tilled it up on Mother's Day for me. 40% bigger, but I got it planted already!

I bought 11 starts from a garden center; tomatoes, bell peppers, banana peppers, basil, and jalapeños. 

We've got the rhubarb and cilantro going as the perennials of the garden. We planted raspberries. I did three rows of sweet corn in the back from the seeds I saved two years ago. And partial rows of green beans. If the corn or the green beans don't grow, the. I'll just have to but store seeds and replant.  I also threw in some sunflowers in the back corner just because I had some seeds from years ago. We'll see of they grow.

But now it's supposed to be below freezing tonight.... That's what I get for planting early!  So I went out and blanketed. 

It is very windy today, and I'm a one-armed person. I think I did pretty well 😊

I wasn't able to cover the whopper tomatoes, because Mat had (at my request) preemptively stuck fence posts in to hold them up (we've had serious tippage in the past). 

I just took down the cages that weren't posted in, put short sticks around each plant, and covered as best I could. With the fence posts that Mat brought over for me last night. Those things are heavy- so it'll hopefully stay put!

Weekend with cousins

This past weekend we visited with my sisters family while Mat installed a new bathroom vanity (the old one was leaky and there was mold underneath). He had to turn the water off so he thought it would be easier without Daughter here.

Daughter had a blast!

How many toddlers can fit under here?

Pooped after the park

Auntie did pigtails!!!!

Niece loves ice cream!

We were back for church with a new dress (too big for niece right now)

New vanity!

Silly the calico barn cat

Silly has been so named because every time she rubs against Daughters legs, Daughter says "silly kitty!"

Silly doesn't yet get along with Mookie....

But she loves the humans in the family

Daughter set up a rock picnic this morning (the rocks are cookies, and they were hot and needed to be blown on 😊)

Silly also enjoys rock picnics 😉

The past couple of days gave been stormy so we hadn't seen much of Silly. I was getting a bit worried about her because Mat said that the big orange cat had claimed the garage and wouldn't let her in. But she's ok and still just as friendly 😊

New barn cat

There had been three. Two orange ones and this one. Big this is by far the friendliest!

Potty training attempt #4

I should probably say "failure #4"...

I got so many tips that sounded like they'd really work. I tried them all... Nothing. 

She seemed to be happy about it at first... A bit excited. 

Then she started saying "no" every time I asked if she had to go to the potty. 

Then she brought Violet and Tigey with...

Then again it lost it's appeal. 

I should say that over two days with no diapers, she only had two successes. Went through many a pair of princess panties. 

She got really excited when I started incentivizing it with new toy cars. I had been using stickers and then candy. 

That died down after she got one. Then she kept wanting to go into the bathroom, not sit on the potty, and point at and ask for a car. She even said "pleeeaasse". 

So she's back in diapers. 

Bad morning...

Story time, play date, walmart. 8 melt downs. Three of them on the ground outside.

At story time, she wouldn't even go in to listen to the stories. That's not so abnormal... she likes to do what she wants to do and often it is playing with the train or puzzles during story time.  But she usually does the craft... she picked up one marker and wandered into the kids computer lab. 

There were several melt downs before we left. It got to the point where I had to say to her " if you don't start listening, then we can't go to the play date.  Will you listen to mama?". 

No!

Then we have to skip the play date.  That will make Cousins Daughter sad. Will you start listening?

Yeah...

So we went... Few more melt downs.  But play dates are fun for mama, too!  I didn't want to punish myself, my cousin's wife, and their daughter all because Daughter was being a fuss machine. 

Ordinarily I wouldn't have attempted Walmart. But we really needed milk and veggies. We got out of the car (in the rain!) and she had an immediate fit and dropped to the wet ground. 

Grrrrr. Then she fell asleep in the car

But luckily she went right to sleep for her nap when we got inside. 

Long morning!