Horsing Around

My work horse. I love that he loves to help me! He couldn't really push the mower, it's too heavy. But he did try.

 Esperanza plays more than she works. Typical 4 year old grass fairy.

Pony Party! We went to Sofie's birthday party recently at a pony ranch. My fearless daughter was the first kid up and on the horses. She was in heaven and loved every single moment and opportunity she had to get on a horse to take a turn. Everyone else had to warm up to the idea and only went once, maybe twice. Ezra never really warmed up at all. By the end of the day, he did let a horse sniff his hand, but that was about it. The kids decorated horse shoes after they had their run with the horses, then cake and some playing around in the field. It was off the hoof! Best birthday party idea ever!

 Ezra does love the wooden horse at home though

Armando takes the kids on a long walk most mornings. He pushes them in the double stroller. Usually they walk along trails but sometimes they go to the library or the store. Any type of weather, they still go - rain, sun, sleet, wind, snow, hail - anything. Most of the time, they return home drenched from the downpour they got caught in. I dress them in layers with umbrellas, rain boots, blankets and sometimes Esperanza even has her swim suit on underneath it all. Ya never know with this Spring weather around here.

 Ezra got a 'new to us' carseat recently. It passed the sleep test.

 Some friends of ours have been handing down some of their old kid stuff to us lately. This train table came with all the accessories! We don't really have the space for it but it is so cool. Ezra runs around yelling "chuga-chuga, choo-choo" all day long!

Monday morning, after I dropped Esperanza off at school, I checked my email and found out that school pictures were that morning. This is what I posted as my status update on facebook:

Great - just found out today is picture day for Esperanza's school (an email was sent yesterday - lots of advance notice for those of us who don't check email every hour). Esperanza's hair hasn't been brushed in days and she decided to wear her Halloween Cheetah outfit to school today. Ah the memories this will capture.

I had a moment of panic and was irritated with the school. We don't have a ton of professional photography opportunities and I had been looking forward to picture day all year, a one time event that I might be able to convince Esperanza to let me do her hair and get a clean matching outfit of my choice on her. If you follow my blog or facebook, you are well aware that I have more than enough real and raw moments of my kids captured on camera. The photographer who does the school pictures does a full on photo shoot for each kid, plus all the editing and whatever else super expensive professional photographers do! She is an amazing professional photographer and parents are offered full high resolution copy rights of all the pictures for a smokin' deal. She provides her services with the school in exchange for the cost of tuition for her children to attend the school. Otherwise, school pictures would just be the typical boring headshot and I wouldn't care about days old matted bed head, mismatched socks or...cheetah outfits. I was bummed I wasn't prepared. After texting with Maestra Gabby, who also didn't even know school pictures were that day, I drove back to the school to brush Esperanza's hair and wipe breakfast off her face. The cheetah outfit remained and everyone was happy. I stuck around to help the photographer for a few minutes.

Roar!

Those Little Rascals

We had a fun filled weekend. Our home was trampled by several sets of little feet running and jumping around all weekend, including an uninvited guest. 

Rafa, Kiko, Celeste and Grandma Angelina came over and spent the entire weekend with us. The kids had a lot of fun reading books, playing board games, helping me cook, watching movies, creating messes and...anticipating St. Patrick's Day. 

I've never done much for the green holiday in the past, besides drink green beer and maybe wear a green hair scrunchi. Kids have a way though of making almost any day magical even for adults. It all started when Rafa saw a small little picture of a leprechaun on an ad in the corner of my computer, "What is that?", he asked with curiosity. I wasn't really prepared with an answer, nor do I even know a whole lot about this particular fairy creature or Irish folklore myself. The Gill Irish in me came through though and I told some pretty good stories about leprechauns. Before I knew it, I was closely surrounded by 3 wide eyed preschoolers asking non-stop questions about leprechauns and St. Patrick's Day. I covered the basics and came up with some creative extras - from the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow to wearing green so the little old green guys don't pinch you. Esperanza and Kiko were thrilled with this new wonder of  these small, mischievous, old, green, magical men! Rafa was a little apprehensive. Actually, he was downright scared. He did not want leprechauns coming into the house and possibly pinching him. I had to assure him that Lucy (the cat) would guard the house and we'd lock all the doors to keep the leprechauns from coming inside. This was Friday night. On Saturday, we talked a little bit more about leprechauns throughout the day and the kids' anticipation grew. I really had no plans on doing anything other than tell stories, but then when the kids all were asleep, I decided to pull out a few little tricks.

Rafa and Esperanza playing on the top bunk bed while Kiko reads a book on the rocking chair

 Playing Candyland

I taught Celeste how to make laundry detergent. She was eager to learn and amazed at how easy and cheap is it. 

This is what we woke up to on Sunday morning

A pot o' green leprechaun pee!

Slimy green footprints were everywhere

Our visitor either had one leg or two left feet

handicap or not, it didn't stop the little fella from making a big mess out of the kids' dresser

He did leave a small pot of gold at the end of the green footstep trail. Each of the kids also woke up with a tiny green mark on their face. Our leprechaun visitor must have given each of them a little kiss while they were sleeping.

  Ezra wasn't so sure about all this

These 3 looked for 4 leaf clovers

 and they all went on a leprechaun hunt in the back yard

 We packed up and went to a park to see if we could find any leprechauns there

 We ended the day at the farmers market where we did see some interesting characters, but no leprechauns. 

Next year we might have to try setting up some traps

Monday was green day at school and I was able to convince Esperanza to wear my old dress

Of the many, many questions I was faced with, Esperanza wondered if there might be mermaid leprechauns. After some searching, we found what we decided could be a mermaid leprechaun

Spring Gardening

We've been doing a tremendous amount of yard work lately. Mostly garden and plant work. I've been digging up and moving some plants, transplanting potted plants, moving compost around, harvesting vermicompost, adding more dirt to the garden beds, planting veggie starts, caring for baby veggie seedlings and enjoying some of the warmer late winter/early spring days as they come.

 I dug up, brought home and potted my Daphne bush from the big house. I added a ton of worm poop, good compost and a lot of love to it and it seems to be happy so far. It smells heavenly! I still plant to dig up a hydrangea bush, a small magnolia tree and a few other plants that I meant to bring over a long time ago.

 My worm bin was just crawling with goodness! Tons of valuable worm poop just waiting to be used. I spent an entire afternoon separating the worms and little tiny pieces of plastic (those pesky plastic envelope windows that snuck into the paper shredder) from the vermicompost. It was worth it though.

Ezra thoroughly enjoyed getting his hands on some worms and poop. My helper!

Even with all the compost and dirt I made last fall, I was still in great need of more dirt to fill up my garden beds. I convinced my husband we could wheelbarrow loads of dirt from a construction company that sells fill dirt, literally 3 a quarter of a block away from us. It turned into a way bigger task than I had in mind. Our wheelbarrow handle broke on the first trip. We borrowed two different neighbors wheelbarrows, but they had issues as well. In the end, Armando still managed to hobble several loads of dirt to my garden. I'm sure our neighbors were entertained (hey, it's the least we can do with all the entertainment they provide us).

I also had one more garden bed to start the process of making more dirt - I'll be laying down layers of chicken poop, straw, leaves, cut grass, dirt, rotten food, worms, rabbit poop, ash, egg shells, etc, etc...It will be my late spring/early summer bed for tomatoes, peppers and other warmer climate plants. Or maybe it'll be my herb garden plot...haven't decided.

We planted rows of carrots and radish seeds in between the kale and broccoli starts in one bed

These kids never get bored with digging for worms, then feeding them to the chickens. The garden beds I added the layers of stuff to make dirt with last fall are filled with huge earthworms! Dozens of them. I made some bad ass dirt!

 I re-potted some of my indoor plants since I now had lots of dirt, compost and vermicompost to make a nice potting soil mix with. Here's a plant my sister gave me for Christmas, finally potted in a nice pot.

 Seedlings! Broccoli, Tomatoes, Basil and Green Peppers

When I laid down the third raised bed, I had to move the strawberry patch. I filled two pots with strawberry plants, then created a smaller patch for the rest.

The garden! Lots of work done, lots left to do.

 I found this perfect and cozy lawn chair set on the side of the road the other day (along with a few other great things). A great spot to sit and relax after working hard.