Happy Mother's Day

Missing my Mom on this day.  Can't believe she's been gone 4 years this month.  Her birthday is May 17th and I always took a trip out to Chicago to see her and celebrate her birthday as well as Mother's Day. Midge and I were just talking about Mom the other day saying we thought she was the smartest woman we ever knew.  Midge went out to her grave today and placed flowers for her and also for our Grandma Arends and Midge's son Jono.    Today Annabelle and I took our walk in the cemetery this afternoon.  I stopped by Jack's parent's graves and gave a Mother's Day stop for his Mom.  She's been gone 24yrs! 

I learned so much from her!  She taught me how to can fruits and veggies and how to be a better cook.  We had lots of adventures around this area when I knew nothing about Ashland.  The craft shows were always fun to go with her and she made the holidays fun for the family.  She would enjoy just stopping over to "yak" and talk about life.  I miss her and think of her almost daily too.  I hope if your Mom is still living you have taken time to call or visit her.  If she's passed I hope you have good memories to make you smile today.  Happy Mother's Day.

Spring Into Action!

 I was hoping to get one more April post in but May arrived quickly so I needed to spring into action and post something.   Happy May Day!  Our weather has been very Spring like.  Our temps have been pretty warm and off and on rain makes the grass grow like crazy.  I've already mowed 4 times and might even mow twice this week!  Anyway,  here's what April brought our way.  

Annabelle found a nice place to sit and watch the world go by.  I was a bit worried that this little apple tree's blossoms would get frosted when the temps last month dipped to freezing.  Thankfully they survived and hopefully some apples will too.

Happily I was able to pick some lilacs and enjoy their fragrance! 

Some new drapes for the living room.  They are room darkening so when the hot sun of Summer arrives it may help keep it a bit cooler and give the AC a break!

Hard to see here but they have a bit yellow in them that pics up the yellow of my chairs.  

I don't know if you'd seen these but my Daughter-in-law, Evelyn, saw this on her girl trip last month and got it for me.  So sweet! It unzips and opens into a pretty good size bag.  I love it. I'll keep it in the car for trips to Farmer's Market this Summer.  

This is it all opened.  It will come in very handy I'm sure.

Speaking of Evelyn, she sent me this pic of Jordan and me.  As you can see from the camera in my hand that I usually do the photo shoots so I don't have a bunch with my boys.  I'm not sure when this was even taken...either Easter or last Fall.  

As you can see from this pic we have a Robin back on the patio between the house and the garage.  Of all places to build a nest having it on the baker's rack I use for flowers makes me shake my head.  If I had caught it sooner I would have taken it off of there.  However,

These were already there.  I had cleaned out a nest on the back deck gazebo top only to find out too late there were babies in there.  Yikes!  I couldn't do that again so I put some wood on the shelf above this nest to help keep the rain out. 

Yesterday I noticed this....babies just hatched with one left to go.   We have 6 acres of land with 4 of it being woods.  A good hundred pine trees surrounding the property but the birds have to build a nest right near a busy walk way at the house.  They don't get the "location, location, location of realestate I guess!  Good luck birdies!

Last but not least this past weekend was Ashland High School's senior prom.  Here's our Lexi with her boyfriend John.  Her dress was pretty amazing.

To show off the back of the dress we had them do a dance pose.  All those feathers reminded me of a peacock!  But it was very lovely.  I had to think back to my prom in '71.  No low cut dresses then! High collars, long sleeves, very modest.   Different than today's prom fashions that I see all over.  Oh well.  I had to laugh when they did this pose and my son said: "Remember...dance far apart to let Jesus in"...where he thinks this stuff up I'll never know!

I still can't believe in a few days Lexi will be 18! They grow up so fast as I know from seeing my boys being the Dad's taking the prom, graduation, and other rites of passage pics.  April was a mixed bag of activities, work,  even sadness, but thankfully many blessings.  I hope May is a good month for everyone.