SUCCESS!

At last! In the last few days maple has suddenly become pro at the
potty. I could not be happier! After months amonths of struggles,
something finally clicked. I have to admit a little bribery was
involved to get things going (not something I had planned on, but...)
and in just a couple days we have gone from zero interest to zero
accidents. High five maple!

Happy EARTH DAY!

Another test at blogging by email via my phone. I couldn't get my
words to show up last time. So here's another shot.

This is one of the many murals in our little mountain town. It's one
of my favorites so thought it would be nice to share.

Today is earth day and I'll be planning (not planting yet) our garden
and finding a spot to build our compost pit. This will be my very
first garden. I'm very excited.

Happy Earth Day!

LEMONS!!!

backyard love.

we were lucky to get a few 70ish degree days this week. we broke out the summer digs and made the best of it. tomorrow it will snow and be cruddy all weekend. so here's a little taste of sunshine for you.

sunshine and backyard rompin' make for a happy maple. LOVE IT!

house tour

ok. so real quick before i wait any longer. you can view our new home photo tour HERE. these are a bunch of pictures i took when we were just making an offer on the house. i was afraid to post anything about this house until we actually closed and had the keys in our hands. didn't want to jinx anything. now that its ours i will gladly share. so enjoy, there is a bunch. not too fancy, but does the trick. a little TLC should help turn this house into a nice little home for us.

mmmmmmm. nanners.

oh man.......

i started this post about 3 weeks ago and just got the photos uploaded and then became entirely distracted by our move. i will now attempt to finish (briefly and quickly) if i can remember what all i wanted to say here.

this was maples first "real stuff" (as opposed to scribbles) drawing. mommy helped her learn how to draw faces, stick figures, and flowers. the green thing is her flower and she did everything in blue. you can see a whole person there on the far right. very proud mommy here.

maple says here marker tastes like red.

already coming up with some good ideas for halloween too.

this picture is blowing my mind because i only took it a few weeks ago and already this boy has changed so much. alaska is obsessed with standing and is having fun trying to walk with help from mom or any random object he can grab onto and push around. this kid is growing up way too fast. he will be ONE in less than 3 weeks and has just got his 5th tooth and now working on number 6.

he is super happy (except when teething) and a little snotty in this shot.

maple loves to eat snow. she calls it ice cream. i forgot to put gloves on her and after a few minutes of snow gorging she realized her fingers were freezing and started freaking out. oops. bad mommy. this snow was, yes a few weeks ago, very pretty, but nothing compared to the 11 inches that dumped on us yesterday. at our new house we actually have a yard and a little hill and we got to ride the sled down it and build a snowman (ben and i did this while maple hung out eating snow).

this deck used to be our only outdoor play space and now we have a real backyard which i will share with you sometime in the near future.

pretty view from the old house. also soon to share pretty views from the new house.

ok. now thats done. i promise i will get you the scoop on the move and the new house soon.