ahhh, the open road

well, i'm in memphis. my mom, my dad, the girls and i got here just in time for dinner at rendezvous. after ribs and greek salad that were oh so yummy, we went to the hotel to swim in the guitar shaped pool! tomorrow graceland:)

Prep

getting ready for east coast road trip 2011. while doing this i am getting ready for beila's fifth birthday party on sunday. she turned five yesterday:) i have to make a death star pinata while stocking the rv, good times. wish me luck with my time management skills!

Slow Down Cowgirls!

i told you we were some busy gals. our days and evenings have been filled with many things. here's a quick run down.

we go to sporting events....tulsa drillers baseball, green country roller girls roller derby....

we go and play with uncle peter and uncle james, take care of our chickens and bees, plan family reunions(happened this last weekend.)....

play adventures at bass pro shops...

pick blueberries, spill blueberries, eat blueberries....

cook fun food like green eggs and ham, spend time with cousins, and make sure we are in the water as much as possible.

we don't sit down much. our car has a broken part so we were slowed down for a little till we borrowed a car from pa-pa and bubbe. then that car broke, everything is fixed now! now that our family reunion is done we are getting ready for our 2nd great american road trip. our first one we took our airstream rv to the west coast...didn't make it, but we had fun...that is a story for a later time;) this road trip we head east! memphis, nashville, asheville, raleigh, laurinburg, wilmington, roland, florence....here we come! so much to do so little time!

LAst Weeks

we have been super duper busy. i am sooo exhausted. i'll fill you in later after i get some chores done, i have another time filled week this week, no slowing down now!

here is pop-tart eating a strawberry!

Monday Morning Anthropologie

yes, i know that i have not been on top of my job here....summer has been busy!
here are a few of my favorite.

lobster roll shorts
since i can't have a nice lobster roll from boston's faneuil hall, these would be the next best, no?

alma top
i love coral. i love lace.

indira dress
we all know i love doilys on dresses.

backswept dress
yes, i think i have a problem with loving all backless dresses.

enjoy your week!

44 Weeks

wow. she just keeps on getting bigger.
still no teeth:) no crawling:) and that's all good in our hood. "dog" is the new word this week. she first said it at my mommy's house, there are 4 dogs running around there right now instead of 2. my brother james, his girlfriend anissa, and their 2 dogs are staying there for a bit. no "mamma" to escape her lips yet. new foods this week were salmon, she loved it, and strawberries. we went to menchie's to cool off this week with a treat and she had some bites of the tart plain frozen yogurt flavor and she was shaking and licking that stuff up! we don't do sugared foods till the first birthday, but i rationalized the tart plain favor in my head:) i was so lucky that kristen had her camera at queenie's this morning, she took some beautiful pictures.

momma bear and baby bear

popi and olive

those eyes....

photos by free-range studios

Tulsa Tough Weekend!!!

my favorite summer weekend is the weekend of the TUlsa Tough. i love cycling, not sure why, but i love it. i would never do it, but watching is a blast! juni was at summer camp all week so bee, popi and i had a lot of time on the porch:)

wink always sits by popi, i like to think he is watching out for her.

tulsa tough in the blue dome area the first night!

edible garden tour has me thinking about quail now...

and i am thinking about doing something different with our coop.

saturday night we went all the way out to pawnee for the pawnee bill wild west show and museum.

the use the same original playbill for the current show. there were belly dancers, traditional pow wow dancing, trick riders, roping, guns, swords.....so much fun!

the whole gang, my friend valerie took her boys the same night, it was great to have some time with them.

do you see beila to the right of the fancy dancer? it was so cute. we had a blast last night.
this morning we were up and out to tulsa tough and cry baby hill, my favorite! we had to come home for naps....but we'll be back out there in a few!

okay, i feel better now.

i done got my license, and the pic ain't too shabby either.

oh, you're having one of those days

yes. yes i am. i usually have wonderful and pleasing days, but just like everyone else, speed bumps come out of no where and "break my stride". my ex dropped the girls off this morning on his way to work. june had day camp and my friend joey was going to come over to take june and her son harry to camp across town. june was dressed to go to school not day camp out in the woods so i asked her to put on her sandals and some shorts while i made her lunch. she then told me the dog at her daddy's house ate her 2 month old sandals i had bought her for easter. i got p.o.'d. buying them shoes, especially nice ones is few and far between right now because their feet grow so dang fast. speed bump 1. i then call the camp to let them know i will not be picking my child up from camp, that the woman dropping her off will be. they told me "no". speed bump 2. i talked to everyone i could think of there keeping my cool as best as i could, they wanted me to drive down there and put joey on the list, well that is a whole 'nother thing because yesterday they wouldn't even let parks, their dad pick her up. he called me fuming mad because they would not let him pick her up, his own daughter, i don't know what confusion this camp had going on but it is major. he had to go in the office, be kinda mean, and make them look up the "paperwork" that listed him as her father. on their "list" outside in the child pick up zone, they only had my father listed, not even me, so they would have denied me too. okay...so i was really peeved by now. i told the camp i would fax them a permission slip for joey along with my id....my expired id. speed bump 3, not wanting to rock the boat more i went to the tag agency to get a new id. (but before that i had to drive around the Greeks car in to get to the street because i couldn't find his keys to move his car.) it was two months out of date so i needed my birth certificate. beila, popi and i went to my safety deposit box to get my birth certificate. it wasn't there, speed bump 4. i took my passport and went back to the house to go look for my b.c. it was no where to be found, now the house looks like a paper monster puked in here. the dept of public safety that takes passports was across town, so i decided just to fax my passport to the camp as id and my id just for the heck of it. we went to fedex and faxed. there i saw my passport was a year out of date as well, speed bump 5. so, now i have to come up with a b.c. and need to go across town in another direction to get it. i left fedex and went to go get bee lunch before we drive off into the horizon where i found out i left my id and credit card at fedex, speed bump 6. i was about to cry. i went back, they had my cards, thank you Lord, and then i just couldn't handle anything any more and came home. i need to regroup my brain before i head back out into the oblivion to find my birth certificate to go back to the tag agency to get my id. all this while wearing blush and mascara for my picture i might not take...i hate wearing makeup.

43 Weeks, monday

monday was memorial day so there was no queenie's breakfast for us. instead popi and i went to kristen and marvin's for yummy pancakes, bacon, orange juice and coffee. marvin puts fresh nutmeg in his pancakes, so they were super duper yummy.
well, kalliope was 43 weeks old monday, almost ten months old, that will be tuesday, and then i have two more months till she is a year old!! where has the time gone?
let's see, she said her first word a couple weeks ago, "baby." seriously. she was playing with her baby doll and definitely said it. her ya-ya witnessed it as well. "ba-by." she could have also maybe said "poppa." we are pretending she did, it sure sounded like it and her poppa was sitting right there. food wise, she does not have a routine. some days she eats solids, some she is milk only. her favorite things are breast milk and water. she loves water and only drinks from a straw. she loves cheerios, black beans, baby mum-mums, risotto, peanut butter-banana smoothies, and mango smoothies. popi is not a fan of water on her(she hates getting wet) or small fuzzy creatures, including our baby chicks. her reaction to feeling water and small fuzzies is shaking and screaming, this makes bath time hard. she loves "this little piggy" and will wee-wee-wee with you. she also like people to nibble on her toes. still no teeth or any hint of them yet, i don't mind, her toothless smile makes me melt like chocolate left on the front seat of an oklahoma car. she does not crawl, pull up, or anything besides sit on her toosh or play on her belly. she has been starting to lay over while sitting up, looking like she might almost start to crawl, but no go yet. for that i am grateful for as well. we have been enjoying chillin' on the front porch a lot these past weeks. i put her down on her rug with a small basket of toys and she sits there for hours just playing nicely while i swing and read or do chores on the porch or yard. the best part of that is she is immobile! we also recently bought a nice sized mirror we put in her room near the floor so she can sit and play and stare at herself. she loves being with her sisters and i, but especially loves seeing her poppa. when she gets near him she instantly grabs his beard and tugs, i find it highly entertaining. may i brag for a second here? of course i can! it's my blog:) i am going to say 97% of the time when someone sees popi, they react to her eyes. they say she has the most beautiful eyes, i'm glad everyone sees what i do, the cutest baby in all the world!

"Desperate Landscapes"

you ever watch the show desperate landscapes on DIY? well, i do, and it reminds me of our house. they go to the neighbors and video tape them talking about the landscape subject's house. they say things like "you need to get your butt in gear!", and "your house needs to be up to standard with the rest of the neighborhood." that's us. no one sends over a video of people saying that, but i know. i want landscaping! they want landscaping! we all want my house to be beautiful, where is the time and moola? well, we are trying. we took down the rotting shutters and started to scrape the peeling paint off the windows. we have some rot in the north windows that will have to be replaced, but mostly good everywhere else. we got some kilz and soon we will be priming, caulking and painting! after that we get to make new shutters. we have to paint the gutters too, maybe we will get new ones...that's all up to the Greek. what would be even better is if DIY came and knocked on my door and told me that i had the worst back yard and front yard in the world and that they wanted to give us a hand. do you hear that DYI!? i need help!!! you hear that? you can turn me in to the landscape police if you want.

Urban Farm Check In

the baby girls are getting bigger, we put them outside today to play for a little bit. they loved it, of course. i opened up the hives last sunday. i located the queens and brood, so all's well in the bee-hood, at least as far as i can tell. no one has been stung yet! my asparagus patch is good and ferning out. i cannot wait till next year and i can eat asparagus for 2 whole weeks!! my veggie garden is doing good and basically weed free this year. my tomatoes look fabulous, unlike last year. i have only 4 tomato plants this year, about half of what i normally have. i was very worried about the tomato massacre of 2010 and didn't want a repeat so i bought less. i have baby tomatoes right now, potatoes a'growin', the bell peppers are still smallish, my herbs are great and i am loving having parsley on hand, a bloom on the squash, beans on the stalk, onions doing great, arugula gaining ground, and raspberries getting bigger. i only used half my garden space this year and i feel kinda like a loser because i have not reached my whole farming potential. i have so much to do right now, i realize i can't spend as much time this year on my garden as i want. i am still getting used to the bees and watching the kids full time. whew! say a little prayer for me:)