10 tons of dirt

As things are warming up, I'm starting to get things ready to plant my garden. The first order of business was to bring in 10 more tons of topsoil, to finish off my garden space. So I called and had it delievered, and of course they couldn't get it over the fence, so I had to wheelbarrow it around and into the garden area. My friend Heidi helped me, and we took turns dumping dirt for the first 20 loads, then after school I did about 6-7 by myself, then when Travis got home, I helped fill up the wheelbarrow, and he dumped the rest of the loads. Boy was I ever tired, and very sore the next day, but it felt good to get it done!! The next step is the compost, and I'm hoping to get the garden planting sometime next week, during spring break!

Samuel the escape artist!

Well, Samuel is at it again, yesterday Austin was outside coloring with chalk in the backyard, and Samuel ran outside to play too. So the next time I looked outside to check on them, I saw Austin on top of the fence and ran outside to tell her to get down, but she said Samuel was over the fence in our neighbor's yard. I said "what?" he can't get over there, she said she was coloring and looked up and saw samuel just as he dropped to the other side. So I peeked over the fence, which is just a little taller than I am, and saw no samuel, so I asked Austin where he was, and she said

"Samuel show yourself" and sure enough I saw a little movement inside the neighbors little play house outside, so I jumped over grabbed Samuel and took him inside and bolted the door. I don't know how he managed to scale the wall, but here is a picture of what it looked like. My guess he is climbed up the little green chair and somehow used the pool the we had draped over the side to pull himself up and over. Just a few days ago, he had climbed up and over our back gate to get out of the yard, and I had to tie a big piece of cardboard to it to keep him from doing it again.

Travis' candy man

In my last post, I mentioned how at Austin's b-day party, the kids used candy and frosting to make things. Well Travis made this little man out of tootsie rolls, nerds, and other candy, and I found him the next morning when I opened the cupboard to get out a plate. It was a pleasant surprise and made me laugh!

Austin's B-day

Austin in her new dress from Grandma Kirkman

J oseph and Austin in the sack race

Austin and her pinata!

Austin is now 6 years old! She is growing up so fast. She had her birthday party on Saturday, and invited her friends from church and school. She didn't really have much of a theme, other than the fact that she wanted to play lots of games. 7 kids RSVP'd for the party, and 20 kids showed up, so things got a little crazy. We played some games like, three-legged race, and sack races outside. When it was time for the pinata, we lined all the kids up and Austin was up first, and on her first swing she broke the thing and down came the candy. Well with all those kids trying to get to one spot, things got a little brutal, and couple of the boys got hurt from girls jumping on them, and we ran out of candy before half the kids had gotten some, so I ran inside and grabbed more candy, and trailed it around the porch, to split the kids up so they weren't on top of each other. I've never seen kids go that crazy around a pinata before, wow! Anyway the kids took their candy and used frosting as glue, to make things with their candy, played pin the tail on the donkey, and a cake walk (with prizes). I almost ran out of cake and ice cream, I had to cut really small pieces, and we had no leftovers. For her cake I made a rainbow out of M & M's. It was really loud and exhausting, but Austin loved it, and was happy so it was a success.