Native Garden

Nap time was planting time this afternoon for Mommy! We started putting in the plants for our native/butterfly/pollinator garden. I laid out the plants a few days ago to make sure I liked where they were going and apparently the bunnies liked them too. As expected, leaves were eaten off my asters and coneflowers so after planting today I sprayed some anti-bunny spray to keep them away. We may add a few more plants and will be putting in mulch in the next couple of weeks. Also we have four prairie grasses ready to go in around the lovely electrical boxes in the back. Tomorrow, Chris and I will be checking out a garden bench made by a local furniture maker. We are getting there!

Planting Round 2

We picked up some new veggies today at the City Market to replace the ones we lost in the cold. Among them-- peppers, eggplant, basil, lettuce and chard. We also got two tomato plants from our neighbor!

Get Down

Here are the boys getting down to a local singer named Kemet the Phantom. Kemet has a song called "Get Out" and the video for it is filmed on one of the new Kansas City streetcars. Jonathan (and Christopher and Mommy) love this song and we play it throughout the day. J has some pretty sweet dance moves, although in this video he's just being a goofball with Chris)...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6djxcxAX3j4

May Day 2016

 Today was May Day at Pembroke Hill! This was Christopher's third year participating in this 100 year-old tradition at his school. The first graders did the ribbon dance this year and it was great! It turned out to be a beautiful day after a chilly and cloudy morning.

 Christopher's grade did three different relay races for their field day after the May Day dances. Below is Chris in the potato sack race and the ball hop.

Jonathan enjoyed himself very much during the ceremony. He enjoyed the dances and was very happy to relax on his favorite blanket. 

 And although his face doesn't show it, he was very excited when Daddy, his favorite person ever, showed up!

It's what's for dinner

Unfortunately for them, there's a door in the way...

First Haircut

Jonathan got his first haircut today and it went great! He didn't cry a bit. He didn't exactly love getting the hair around his ears trimmed but other than that, he didn't complain. Success!

Plants!

I spent some of my child-free morning wandering through greenhouses and lots (and rain!) looking at potential perennials for our butterfly garden and now the trunk is full! While I am very excited to start laying out and planting these flowers, they are going to have to spend the night in the garage as we have some Kansas hail in the forecast. We will also be heading down to the River Market this weekend to the Missouri Native Plant Society sale. We are hoping to find a few more natives as well as milkweed (hopefully and for our monarchs) and the rest of our vegetables. 

Butterfly Garden Path

We put in the stepping stone path for our butterfly garden this afternoon. Next step--plants!

Trolley Run

This morning, Christopher participated in the Kids Trolley Run at Mill Creek Park near the Plaza. After Mommy finished her Trolley Run, the whole family returned for the kids race. Chris did the half mile race in the 7-10 age group. There was more than just running though. Chris got to hang out on the dark side for a little bit...

J got to pet the Kansas City Chiefs horse (who knew)...

Little man also did his best to find a way into the JC Nichols Fountain, but he was stopped by Mommy...

Here is the start of Christopher's heat...

And the big finish!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Boo2oTjB7Pk

After the race, we went to Westport to try out Meshuggahs, a new bagel place with the slogan, "Bringing New York to Kansas City, One Bagel at a Time." While I am giving them an A for effort in that they boil their bagels (and for having salt bagels!) we have officially arrived at the conclusion that it is, in fact, the water that makes the bagel. 

Happy Passover

Yay!! I found the Afikomen!

Lunch on the Deck!

Garden Update

We are learning some valuable lessons in our gardening experience this spring; namely, don't jump the gun on planting already-started plants! We had a few unexpectedly cold nights after we planted our veggies a few weeks ago and then lost many of them. Some survived however and the encouraging thing is that some of the seeds we planted have begun to come up! At the bottom is a picture of the sunflowers that are starting to emerge!

We will wait one more week to plant more veggies, although I put in cucumber, dahlia and zinnia seeds this morning. Still to come-- tomorrow afternoon we will begin our butterfly garden project in the back corner of our yard. Photos to come!

Earth Day Run

This morning was Pembroke's annual Earth Day run at Loose Park. Chris ran well ahead of Jonathan and I, who stayed behind to chat with friends while we ran, er, walked. It was a nice way to start the day. The boys each got their own ribbons and Jonathan looks thrilled as usual about it!

Hiking in Swope Park

We went for a nice family hike today at Swope Park (which is not far from the Kansas City Zoo). It was a great day to be out on the trails!

JJ and Friends

Bath Time!

Honey Bear

More proof of how much J loves his Daddy--hugs for Honey Bear...

Riding

Jonathan has been enjoying this little bike which belonged to me when I was his age. I believe they call it vintage!

The Growing Garden

We visited the Overland Park Farmer's Market which opened on this chilly morning for the season and picked out some starter plants for our square foot gardens! This is Christopher's garden which now has basil, oregano, mint, eggplant, cucumbers, strawberries and cherry tomatoes added to the seeds we already planted. We will visit Brookside next week to pick up the remaining plants for my plot (lettuce, chard, peppers) and then Chris and I are both planning on planting dahlia seeds in honor of Grandpa Clyde. Then it will be on to the butterfly/hummingbird/native plant garden in the back corner of our yard!

Open House

Last night was Open House at Christopher's school. It was his opportunity to show us some of the work he's been doing for the last several months. Above is a tile tree made by all of the lower school students that is in the front entryway to Christopher's building. Below is his mask and regular self-portrait (left) and abstract self-portrait (right). 

Next I saw Christopher's Ruby Bridges story where each student wrote as if they were Ruby herself...

Chris has been working on a biography of Harriet Tubman and below you can see his poster...

... and he read his actual book to me as well!

Finally the class made a 7+ yard time line featuring all of the people they studied and where they fell along the line. Below is a map Chris drew of free states and slave states.

It was great to see so much of the work I've been hearing about for weeks now! We also visited his specials classrooms and checked out some of the work there.

Workin' the Register

More garden progress

A little more progress on the garden today... we planted a few seeds as well as a raspberry plant and a strawberry plant. The rest will be planted when we get some already-started plants at the farmers market in a couple weeks. Plus we enclosed the beds with chicken wire to keep the critters out. We also had 2 trees planted so our yard is starting to look more and more full!

Dancing to Bruce

I am going to see the Boss in concert this week so J and I were practicing our Bruce Springsteen dance moves...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bjhJxd7P9w

Little Star Wars Guy

Garden Time

Spring is here in Kansas and we started our square foot gardens! Christopher has his all planned out on the grid below...

Here are some pictures of our garden divided into 16 square feet where we will plant different vegetables and flowers this year...

We also included marigolds outside the boxes to deter some of our wildlife from enjoying our vegetables. We will also be putting up chicken wire around the outside of our beds but this was all enough work today!

We are excited to see what will pop up in our gardens this year! We are channeling our inner Grandpa Clyde! Oh and Grammy, your chair is all set up for you and being kept warm by these two cute boys...