I did it!

  Homemaking is not a skill that comes naturally to me.  I probably shouldn't have skipped Home Ec in the 7th grade, but I've been working on it for nearly 7 years.  So it is with no little sense of pride that I wanted to show off a couple of things that I did this spring that I have never done before.  The first was a cheese souffle I made.  You may recall that I have already blogged about this achievement, but here is the visual proof of the finished product.  And it was DELICIOUS!  (if I do say so myself)

The second are the flowers that started to bloom a couple of weeks ago.  They are in their last days now, but I've loved looking at them.  Last November, Eric brought home some tulip bulbs he bought from the clearance rack at Home Depot.  We have several flower beds that become overgrown with weeds before we make a valiant effort to control them for at least a week in the spring.  For the first time last fall, I spent a weekend clearing out the dead plants and planting about 80 bulbs of tulips and daffodils.  At the time, I didn't really believe any of them would come up, but I used it as a good excuse to work on the gardens.

Spring came early to Dayton and I watched as a lot of our neighbors' flowers bloomed.  Mine seemed to be stalled at the point where they just break through the surface.  Then, low and behold, a little over 2 weeks ago they started to bloom.  They were beautiful and I never was able to get a picture that did them justice.  I basked in the compliments of my two neighbors who have gorgeous gardens, though.

I realize this is a post that is absent of kids, so here are a couple of pictures of the boys on the rare occasion we remembered to take our camera to the Air Force Museum AND take a picture of the boys in the space suit.  Lots of firsts this spring!!

Oh!  And I want to give a shout out to Luke, Simeon, Lucy, and Baby C.  We are thrilled for you all to join this world of ours and we will be praying for you regularly.  In light of the extra special fact that you are all joining families with a sibling, I thought I would share this quote that makes me think of my own childhood and the childhood (and life) we are working at fostering for our kids:

“I, who have no sisters or brothers, look with some degree of innocent envy on those who may be said to be born to friends.” 
― James Boswell