Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Ain't too proud to beg.

Ok, guys, just a quickie. I was hoping for a favor?! I've been really interested/slightly obsessed with pillowcase dresses/tunics (typically for little girls) lately. They are super easy to make, and really fun to customize. Thing is, they are supposed to be made out of old pillowcases- the more vintage in feel, the better. We live on a little island in the middle of nowhere and commodities such as neato vintage pillowcases are a tad scarce. In fact, they don't even need to be authentically 'old', just something different than the standard unadorned white case. So, if anyone was cleaning out the linen closet or making a trip over to goodwill (and happened to come across the bedding aisle) and found a neato pillowcase that they wanted to, ahem, donate, ahem, to...uh...,me, that would be soooo cooool. Any fabric design would be awesome, and I'd even send it back to you if you wanted- I just have fun making them. These also make really cute maternity tops...hint hint hint.
So I'll post something real a bit later- I just wanted to beg while the courage was fresh. Email me if interested in helpin' a sister out. ;) Love you guys!

Monday, April 27, 2009

A day in our life.

Let me begin by asking everyone to take a moment of silence, and to send warm, healing thoughts to Percy. Percy (whom I have just now named) was burning up with a fever, and I feel he just gave up on this life. But we, I hope, caught this disease in time, as he is now lying in the hospital, where he will remain for two weeks getting treatment and transplants. Percy has been with me for a long time, and he is my very good friend, and without him, this blog wouldn't be possible. Yes, folks, Percy is my dear, dear Macbook Pro. His fan died, and he's been very sick, and I had no choice but to give him over to those who could take care of him better than myself. Did I mention he'd be away for two weeks?! Sigh.
So, I had some posts planned, but all my pics are held captive in the Mac store currently. I have a few current ones still stored on my camera though, so I thought I'd use them to give a pictorial of what an average day in the DoMESStic household is like (lately). Enjoy.

::Administrators note: please do not look too closely at the pictures. I edit almost every picture I ever post. These haven't been touched. They look like dookie, and I'm too lazy to do anything about it. Thank you for your understanding. ::


7am: Kenzi wakes up. She says/screams, "Mommy! Mommy! Moooooommmmmmyyyy!" Oh god. DH and I rock, paper, scissors it to see who'll be getting up. We take so long fighting over it that she falls back asleep. Phew- close one.
8:30am: Kenzi wakes up. Again. She says, "Mommmmmmyyyyy!" (I've really got to get her trained to ask/scream for her daddy). Hubby usually gets up- he keeps expecting me to, but ha. (He's got a lot to learn). I roll over to fall back asleep. I hear little footsteps. "Mommy, what doing?" "Sleeping." "Oh, I sleeping too!" "Great." "Mommy, what doing?" "...Sleeping." "Oh. .... But mommy- what doing?" Sigh. Now I'm awake. We all go downstairs.
8:30-around 10- Breakfast stuff. Hubby plops my coffee in front of me. It's like instinct. Nothing gets done in our house until Mommy gets her cup of coffee. Which is funny, 'cuz after I get it, I wait about an hour for it to 'cool off' before I drink it. Guess it's just psychological. Kenz feeds Ripley, the dog. There is a 50/50 chance she will dump the cup of food on the carpet. On purpose. If this happens, it will be a bad day. If mommy is making breakfast, it means some combination of waffles, pancakes, omelet, yogurt, and fruit. If daddy is making breakfast it means sharing a bowl of cereal. Daddy made breakfast this morning. The cereal had pumpkin seeds in it. I told Kenz she would grow pumpkins out of her belly. She grasped her belly in shock...
and began to scream....
I chuckled and grabbed my camera. World's Worst Mother {takes a bow}. You know, my dad tormented me relentlessly growing up, so A.) it's only fair that I get to dole it out some myself, and B.) it made me a much more cautious, empirical (right word?) person, and that's never a bad thing, eh? Haha, she hates the "I got your nose " game, too. No, really, you've got to try it!
10-1- We try to tire her out. This often involves a playdate- these days are lifesavers- or a trip to the beach with daddy, also a good time.
(This would be a good time to get some surfing in. But daddy took mommy's surf board out to play, and forgot to strap it on the roof as he drove to come home. Can you believe it made it alll the way across a four lane highway without hitting another car? Crazy. I'd post a picture of the damage on here, but that would involve me getting off my chair, finding my camera, walking to the garage, and taking the board down off the wall, and then making the return trip. Use your imagination on the damage.)

1-4- Hubby leaves for work. I then plead, coerce, threaten, cry, pray, bribe, etc etc etc MacKenzie to take a nap. Didn't I mention somewhere on here that we (the parents) always lose? Sometimes she will lay in bed for two hours singing songs and talking to herself, not crying, but definitely not sleeping. Soooometimes she'll sing herself to sleep and sleep an additional hour or so. Lately, that's just not been happening. This means I spend an afternoon/evening alone with a cranky, overtired little girl. Sometimes we'll go for a ride during this time. I'll often remember I need *insert random item as excuse to go to target here* so we go to Target. But when we pull into the parking lot, I find this: Great.

4-6:30- We come up with things to do. A new fave is making Cheerio jewelry. I have to say, this was a stroke of genius on my part. This gets us, like, a whole half hour of activity time!
We also put our peepee in the potty. This usually works better if little bit has some privacy. But if it gets quiet for more than three minutes or so, this is what you'll find:"I wipe my booty!!" uh...Yay..??

6:30-8- We eat dinner. Dinner could be something super fancy like a fake turkey sandwhich- ...or boxed pasta and corn on the cob. Seriously- I get so down sitting down to a nice dinner that I've made when it's just me and the little one.
me:"Kenzi, how's the citrus infused fish?"
her:"Yucky."
me:"Oh. Well, I think the coconut rice turned out really well tonight. Thoughts?"
her:"Yucky."
me: "I see. Do you have any suggestions for next time?"
her: "Make boxed pasta and throw in some string cheese."
Sometimes in this time slot we watch a movie. We like the Blue Planet/Planet Earth dvds, or March of the Penguins. By "we" I mean "me." Kenz likes Elmo Goes to Grouchland. Didn't take me long to decide that we'd never be watching that one ever again. Ugh. I swear, Elmo is brainwashing America's children. Why?! He's a furry little red dude that has an obnoxious laugh. What's The Big Deal? Sorry for the tangent...
Anyway, March of the Penguins is at least educational. See, it teaches young children how babies are born:

8-8:30- We take a bath. (Kenz gently reminds me to wash her "arm-pitty-bits"..and her "toe-sy bits". Uh, and her "ear-sy bits". And her..."hair." Sometimes she forgets to remind me to rinse her hair, though...) We read stories. We 'wrestle' our way into pjs...it's so much fun. Really. We feed her fish- whom she named- OgeeOgee. (Not, BTW, Ogee for short. It's gotta be OgeeOgee.) I put her in bed.
She makes sure she has her wubby, her pookie bear, her pookie bear's wubby, her mao-mao, her mao-mao's wubby, her monkey bear, her dukey dog, her medium-sized bear, and her blanket. And her another blanket. And her another another blanket. Uh, oh, now she's gotta pee. Ok, now kisses. And noseys. And cheeksies... But she needs milk! And it's too dark. Is the fan on? Both fans? .....GO TO SLEEP MACKENZIE!!!
8:30-10:30- She sings. I try to tune her out and pay attention to Edward.

Friday, April 24, 2009

getting all techie

::So blogger lets you post videos. I (obviously) haven't tried it yet- so please let me know if these work! I don't want to keep dud videos on here wasting space.::

As many of you may know, my uber-talented hubby is not only a renowned polyglot (go ahead, look it up), an excellent daddy, and a super-duper cutie, but he can also sing his little heart out. He's not too bad on the gee-tar, either. We are SOO hoping that this musical ability has been passed on to the little bit, but the thing is, I'm around her much more. And I sing pretty much constantly. And it sounds like a bunch of hyenas with bowel issues. I have a song for everything, all made up and nonsensical, because I can't remember the words to real songs. In fact, hubby has actually requested that I don't sing so much (read: at all) around her, in case I may be contagious. Pa-shaw. I can't help it, I wouldn't stop anyway because it makes me happy, and besides, she doesn't seem to be toooo affected yet. 'Cuz she, too, can sing her little heart out! I think the first song she really learned was her ABC's- missing quite a few of the letters, of course. And from there her repertoire just exploded. Einsy weinsy spider, Baby Beluga, I love you, Wheels on the bus, Old MacDonald...and if she hears a song in the car that has a repeating chorus, she'll pick up on it and sing it by the third time around. (For those 'hipsters' out there, if you were to sing "Daddy tried to make me go to rehab, " she'd say, "no, no, no!" ) It really seems to be her thing. Here she is remixing the Elmo song- this was about a month ago, so she's definitely shown improvement since, but still pretty impressive, I think:


Here is an older version of her abc's and wheels on the bus. Be sure to watch it to the end, it's hilarious (but I guess I'm biased). And I apologize for the shoddy camera work...

And a more current version, complete with guitar accompaniment. She's usually much less like a stoned zombie, I promise...


So, like I said, if she has talent (we can't really tell yet, as the screechy-baby voice is kinda hard to get past) she'd have come by it naturally from her daddy...

::: Ok, so there used to be a video here of hubby singing and playing a song.
I warned you guys it wouldn't be here long. Well, he made me take it off.
Grrrrrrrr. He said he'd 'let me' put up another one sometime
but I'm not going to hold my breath. Can you tell I'm a bit peeved?
This is all I will say on the matter.:::




Thursday, April 23, 2009

procrastination

It's amazing the things you can find on the internet if you're avoiding actual work. Not that blogging is work, really. It just requires me to use a bit of my brains, and as I've been proactively turning my brains to mush, it takes a bit of effort to come out of my haze to type coherent sentences. But back to my internet procrastination... Like, for instance, did you know you could take a quiz to find out if you're the Messiah? Find that here: http://community.sparknotes.com/messiah/ Or, did you know that you could play with a virtual tarantula (but unfortunately, never succeed in killing it...)? http://www.onemotion.com/flash/spider/ And, you know what else? You can buy fabric online! Oh, dear, I just never knew.... The internet truly is a marvelous place. I should really be cut off...
A brief explanation: DH is on the nightshift. Sort of. There's a new teacher on board where he works, and he's "training" her- which means his 7am-5pm day has turned into a 2pm-1am-ish day, leaving miss MacKenzie all to myself. For a veerrry long stretch of the day. Without someone to keep her from the kitchen while I cook dinner (so I've stopped cooking 'dinner') or someone to give her baths at night (so I've 'learned' how to clean my own child) or someone to watch her while I go upstairs and scream into a pillow (so I tie her to the kitchen table)... ok, not really on that last one. Sigh, this schedule does make for a long day for me, though, and at the end of it, I just feel like shutting off. Either watching tv (mindless HGTV), plopping down in front of the sewing machine to do (again, mindless) quilt piecing, or wasting time playing with virtual (mindless..see the pattern?) tarantulas.
And then, there's Edward. I needed someone to cuddle up and fall asleep next to, now that my beloved hubby has left me each and every night. Everyone's been recommending Edward to me, but I just didn't listen until recently, and now- well, guys, you can't have him back. He's mine and I'm lonely and I deserve him. (For those of you totally confused right now, I'm referring to Edward the erm, vampire, of the Twilight Series fame. It's kinda lame writing. It's a kinda lame premise. It's juvenile literature- literally. But you won't be able to put it down and yes, I'm a little ashamed to be so hooked, but there you have it...)
So, as you can see, between (my) Edward, HGTV, tarantulas, and sewing, I've just been swamped. ;)
I have been productive in my mindlessness, at least. A few ladies in the mommy-group are expecting their second child(ren) soon, and there was a triple baby shower thrown in their honor. I made a set of burp clothes/nursing covers for each of them:
A green set for the one boy, and pink for one girl, purple for the other.

I added taggies cuz well, they're cool.

The cream fabric is an ultrasoft, undyed organic cotton- that side down is for nursing, facing up is for burping.

Here I am 'nursing' Pookie bear. Hey, he was handy.

I did place an order for fabric online- after hours of 'window shopping'. Here's what I got:The owl fabric on the far right is for curtains for Kenzi's room, the lemon is destined for kitchen curtains, the japanese leaf fabric will become some clothing and bags, I believe, the navy net fabric will be a border for a log-cabin pattern quilt top, and the fabric on the far left I've used to recover two of my dining room chairs:


I've also made a monk bag using some leftover fabric from Hubby's 30th b-day quilt:...And a book sling- it's like a book shelf, hung on rods. This one is for my sewing room, which has a nautical "theme."
Lastly, I'm working on two quilts- both are surprises, though, so I won't add pics. I will say that one needs to be done, like, nowish, and the other, while I have a bit of time to finish it, is NOT the type of project for my currently mushy brain, as it's the hardest quilt I've attempted yet. Wish me luck!

Ok, so it wasn't the plan to bogart this post with my sewing stuff, but now that I have, I'm thinking adding any more content would be overkill. So, stay tuned for:
What hubby, munchkin, and I do in the mornings since he's now home...
Our new babies: tomatoes, peppers, beans, carrots...
Our musical family. (Excluding myself, of course. I'm on crew. And occasionally cowbell.)...

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Happy Easter, everyone!

Happy Easter. Ok, I know it's not Easter anymore, but when I started writing this, it was. Really! I just got kinda busy. Or lazy? Both, I suppose.
I loved Easter growing up. My mama always did a great job with our baskets- unique gifts and special treats instead of three pounds of chocolate and assorted marshmallow animals. Although we got some candy, too. And, as we were allowed candy at Halloween, Christmas, and Easter only, trust me, this was a big deal. I hope that MacKenzie gets a kick out of this special day throughout her childhood, as well. I think we're on our way to ensuring this.
This was the first year she really understood that something different was going on. We had a week of Spring time events leading up to Sunday, and she had a lot of practice hunting for eggs before the big day. At a playdate, she dyed eggs for the first time. She really got into it, although she thought she was making soup.


She also thought she could eat un-peeled hard boiled eggs just like peeled ones. Bit right into one. Uck!
I'm also very proud to say that she didn't know what the heck was inside her plastic eggs once found. They were filled with little candies, but she hasn't (hadn't) experienced small candy before (yes, we're Nazis at this house), so to her, it was just shiny stuff that rattled inside the eggs. Fun! Notice I said she hadn't known about candy...

For her real-deal Easter Morning egg hunt, I did fill one egg with a Hershey's kiss. The rest were filled with fruit chews, goldfish crackers, and hair do-dads. She opened the one with the kiss, got really excited (I think because we were "oooohhhh"ing so much) and said, "oooh, wow! It's, um, it's a...it's a Brown!!!" (It was a caramel kiss- brown wrapper.) Priceless. She figured out the wrapper pretty quickly though, so now she knows all about the shiny things inside eggs. Sigh, it was good while it lasted. But that one kiss, plus an Easter ice cream, turned our little Princess into a crazy crazy monster! It's amazing how much sugar affects little bodies- she really looked like she was on drugs.
The saturday before Easter there was a little festival at a beach park down the street from us. Where we live, we can walk (about 15 mins) to a small, decent beach, or we can take a ten minute bike ride to a really nice beach park. This park was having an event, and we rode our bikes over for the day. I love where we live on the Island, cuz it's a lot more "local." This side feels different from the Mainland, which is how I think Hawaii should be. For instance, at the festival, we were perhaps one of three white families there. Out of hundreds of people. That ratio seems a bit more appropriate to me. And one thing about holidays on island- they go ALL OUT!! A huge stage set up, with music all day, thousands of eggs in the Easter egg hunt, lots of rides and bouncey houses, and fireworks! Because no Easter celebration is complete without fireworks, right? Ha, it was so much fun. We actually watched the fireworks from our backyard (it was getting pretty dark to be biking home.) Oh, it's a good life.



So part of the reason for the delay in my blogging has been my increased sewing. I've been doing a lot of projects, which I will share in another posting (I can already sense the eyes glazing over now- best to do it in small doses..) but one current-theme-appropriate project I completed was a bunny-ear headband for MacKenzie. I was cutting fabric for another project and had these scraps left over in the exact shape of a bunny ear. How could I resist? I whipped these up using some other leftover fabric from my neice's baby quilt, and the ears were born. I loved them. MacKenzie did not. In fact, she kinda refused to wear them. It cooooould have had something to do with the fact that they were slightly too small, or that the ears kept (constantly) dangling in her face, but I'm leaning more towards that she just wanted to be spiteful. Really...you don't know her like I do....

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Get in my belly!

For a skinny b*#%h, I really love to eat. Like, really. Snacks before dinner. Seconds of dinner. Dessert. And then the second dessert that I sneak after hubby goes upstairs to shower. "Hmm? What cookie crumbs? Honey, I really think your age is starting to affect you.." I've already opened the one bag of Easter candy we got to put in plastic eggs. I'm an addict. Luckly, I also really enjoy (now that I know how) to cook. For one thing, it's the one time during the day that I get to myself. No little monkeys or monkey daddies in the kitchen while Mommy is cooking. Do not test me. ;) Also, sometimes I cook with wine. Like, in the sauce. Like a glass full, right? I mean, it's in the recipe...
I also enjoy taking pictures. I'm really inexperienced, and have never really taken the time to sit down with my camera and figure it all out. But it still makes me happy. So I like to cook, put wine "in my sauce", and take pictures of dinner. Kenz is going to grow up thinking that before any meal is served, it must be properly photographed. It's like saying Grace in our house. Anyway, I've collected some foody shots and thought I'd share them, as well as brief recipe descriptions, with you guys. And no, I'm totally not eating cookies as I write this. They have lemon in them, so I'm counting it as a serving of fruit. Several servings.

Cheesy Polenta Sausage Bake
Ingredients:Packaged polenta, sliced
sausage, I use vegetarian, italian style
one green pepper
onion
handful grape tomatoes
mozzerella cheese
vodka sauce
olive oil
fresh basil
Slice polenta, dice half the onion, shred the basil and put in baking dish, drizzle with olive oil. Broil on high, until onions look brown on edges.

Meanwhile, add sliced sausage and the other half of onion, roughly chopped, to skillet. Cook until cripsy brown, adding diced pepper toward the end.

Add sausage mix to polenta, slice tomatoes, and pour about half a jar of vodka sauce over. Top with mozzerella cheese (mmm, use plenty!) and bake, at 375, until cheese is bubbly.

Top with fresh basil, and invite me to dinner.

The next dish is a Barefoot Contessa recipe. I think it's meant to be a side, but it has all the dietary needs of an entree, so we eat it as such. And it's so pretty.

Lemon Orzo with Roasted Vegetables and Feta
Ingredients:
Orzo
Feta, cubed
two non-green bell peppers, roughly chopped
two japanese eggplants, roughly chopped
red onion, roughly chopped
4 cloves garlic, sliced
pine nuts
fresh herbs, chopped
additional fresh basil, shredded
lemons
olive oil
Add all veggies, garlic, herbs, and olive oil to roasting pan. Roast at 425 for 40 mins.
Meanwhile, cook orzo- al dente.
Combine orzo and roasted veggies in bowl, making sure to get all the gooey brown pan-leavings.
Add juice from two lemons, fresh basil, salt, pepper, toasted pine nuts, and cubed feta cheese.

I guess I forgot to say grace that night, as I don't have a picture of this plated- but I put fresh rosemary sprigs on top and lemon wedges to the side. It's a good spring/summer dish and I believe we ate this with sangria.
Lastly, what we had for dinner tonight:


I don't actually have a recipe for this, nor preparation pics, but it's pretty self explanatory. Broiled Ono (fish) fillets, on greens, with a sauce of lime, teriyaki, a touch of beer (really, just for the sauce!), some chinese 5-spice, and salt/pepper. I cooked this with mushrooms and added mandarin oranges in the pan towards the end. The side is wild rice Inari (stuffed sweet tofu skin.) The fish was a tad overcooked, to be honest, but eating it with the sauce and juicy oranges made it ok. The preperation was a definite keeper, though it was originally supposed to be Ahi, and I should've stuck to the plan.

And for those of you who skipped all the food mumbo-jumbo looking for that picture of MacKenzie, here it is. This is what I do to little girls who come into the kitchen while I am cooking.......




Tuesday, April 7, 2009

New toys and boo boos.

All the kids around here have Ripsticks. For those of you not in-the-know, a Ripstick is a skate-board, that flexes in the middle, with only two wheels. It's a lot of fun, an excellent workout, and tricky as heck. Hubby had to have one.
Said Ripstick arrived in the mail a few weeks ago (2? I dunno..) He uses it to walk the dog. To get the mail. To race with the girl (age 6) across the street. He loves his new toy. He had a friend over the other day to try new tricks. I was pretty impressed:

(Btw, the pants he is wearing are called Thai pants- styled after Thai fishermen's. We own many pairs, and they are one-size-fit-all. Highly recommend. Although I had a neighbor ask if we were from Africa the other day. "Um, no, the East Coast. Why?" "Oh, I just wondered because of those pants you guys always wear.." Ha. )

Here's his friend trying. He totally has shoulders. Girls, enlarge the pic.

Kenzi got in on the action, too:

And, then, last night, the inevitable happened. A wipe-out. I'm kinda bummed I wasn't there to see it happen (does that make me a bad person?) but he came home looking like this:

It actually looks worse in person. Without going into too much gory detail, I'll just say there were rocks and tweezers- I love playing nurse :) Enjoy your next meal, everyone!

Why I shouldn't bother.

I know I kinda gave the impression in my last post that I was not successful in getting any cleaning done. This is a half-truth- I got most of it taken care of, in about triple the time it should've taken. Is that a success? You tell me.. But, the place looked better yesterday, anyhow. However, this is what I faced as I was heading to bed last night:


And this:
This is why I should just give up.

Monday, April 6, 2009

I should be cleaning.

I stayed home from a planned park playdate today to clean my house. This is pretty major for me- if I actually make plans to clean, you know that means the place is filthy. I'd take pictures, but I'm too embarrassed. Thing is, keeping Kenzi home all day is NOT conducive to a clean house. Because it means she needs to play, inside, with all her toys, in every room, at the same time. So as I clean my kitchen, she is busy destroying the laundry room, which I then tackle next, as she goes upstairs and tucks all her dolls into our bed, leaving a trail of their clothes in the hallway. Sigh. She is taking a nap now, which means uninterrupted work-time for me, and what am I doing? Eating frozen lasagna and typing to you lovely people.
So it goes.
Happy Monday to all. Hope everyone is well-rested, and had a wonderful weekend. Ours was mixed. Here are several things we did not do over the weekend:
  • Go surfing. DH finally gets cleared for going in the water again, and the waves are flat!!! Oh, the irony. And my poor hubby.
  • Clean the house. Pretty much all weekend, nothing. Eh.
  • Go pee-pee in our panties. That's right, everyone, not only did hubby and I stay dry (I know, sniffle, we're all growed-up) but the little one had a dry pull-up even overnight! She even came to get us from the back kids-room at a birthday party! Where Happy Feet was playing, no less. She still has accidents, but she totally gets it now.
  • say "no" to that second Lemon Drop Martini at afore mentioned party. MMM. I had no idea.
And here's what we did do over the weekend:
  • Spend $100 on macaroni and cheese. Ok, not exactly, but we went to Target to get ingredients for mac and cheese to bring to the b-day party, and left a hundred dollars poorer. I can't even recall what we got now that was so expensive- I have a hunch it was something we didn't need, though...
  • Sing until we were hoarse. Karaoke!! Ooh, it was fun fun fun. Kenzi even enjoyed it, singing her ABC's and Happy Birthday. I think a video was taken, I just need to get it sent to me to post.
  • Clean up after some jerk-faces. We had a wonderful picnic Sunday evening, at a local beach, watching the sun set (and storm clouds roll in). Another family was near us, and as they left, we noticed a mound of trash they had left behind. We're talking dirty diapers, empty beer cans, the works. It was so disheartening. Hubby came up with a good bumper sticker, though: "Life's a beach- just keep your trash off mine." I'd put it on my car.
I don't really have any pertinent images to post right now- my camera is in Hubby's car. I think I can edit this and add them in later, though. So check back. Until then, here's MacKenzie blowing bubbles. Literally.

Friday, April 3, 2009

Spring.

I awoke this morning to the sounds of our many many birds who live in the mountains facing our house. They tweet and sing away constantly, but this morning was different. I suppose it's springtime here in Hawaii. The morning 'chill' has lessened, the grass is seeding, and the birds are looking for some action. Loudly. It wasn't a bad alarm clock- if I had wanted to get up at, say, 7am.
I have to say, although I LOVE Hawaii, I miss the seasons of the east coast. I almost ache for my garden back home in Maryland this time of year. Every day, something new would pop up out of the ground. My tulips lining the path would be in bloom. The forsythia would be going insane. And our pear trees....oh, I miss them in all their stinky glory. But we have some pretty major flowers here, too. And since I plant a lot of seeds, I still have the joy of watching my babies grow up. In honor of springtime, and because I still feel icky and want the morale boost, I'm sharing some photos of my favorite flowers we have here in the garden. Or at least the ones I could take a decent picture of.

A terrestrial orchid.

I'm not sure the name of this one- it's a hanging plant, outside of Kenz's playhouse.

MacKenzie's birthday lemon tree. These blooms smell like love. Wrapped in Heaven.

Our snowy-white hibiscus. I don't see many of these around here.

Another hibiscus bloom- just opening.

Called a "coral tree." One of our centerpiece plants.

Some kind of iris. It's a teeny bloom- so delicate and perfect.

This flowers abundantly with perfect purple stars.

This lantana is taking over our front bed, which we love. The baby blooms look like little butterflies, and fittingly, the butterflies love this plant.

Not all of our gardening is for decorative purposes. We do try to keep some edibles and shade plants around. But I'll write about our practical plantings another time.
And for those of you who don't give a darn about my flowers, and simply want more pics of MacKenzie (sheesh!) here's a good one of my little helper: