Let them drink wine.

Is there an AA for 3 year olds?

This morning, I was flipping through a grocery home-delivery catalog while the boys were eating breakfast. I got to the Easter candy page, and Benjamin leaned over to say, "For chocolate, I want something big, like this. A fish."

I replied with one of my standard "neither yes nor no" responses, "I bet you do," and turned the page.

Noah, feeling it was his turn to chime in, said, "I want this!"

I was on the page with bottles and bottles and bottles of wine. "You want wine?" I asked him.

"Yes, I want wine," he stated confidently. "I like wine."

Oh dear....

Tulips!

I just think our house looks so much prettier with flowers in front of it!
(Ok, it might look prettier with the lawn mowed, too, but one thing at a time. And now that we know where the tulips are, we need to remember to dig them up when they are done, so we can move them elsewhere for next year.) These are our authentic Dutch tulips, that we brought back with us from Amsterdam 5 years ago.


This year's Snail and Slug War is officially on. The opening salvos were fired (chomped?) last night by the Snails and Slugs, who decided to feast on one of my new primroses!You will pay, little pests! I scattered the Blue Pellets of Death all over the retaining wall planters today. (cue evil laughter)Next up: Harvesting the Slug and Snail Cadavers. Mmmm.

It's gardening time!

With the gorgeous weather we've had all week, I've been working on weeding the retaining wall planters. And chopping back the forsythia.

And giving the big, overgrown plants haircuts.

They go from something like this:

to something like this.

but I suspect I may need to dig them out and start over, I think they are so rootbound that they just look tired and yuck.

Today, we decided it was time to head to the nursery to get some plants for the retaining wall. I had to do it all by myself this year like a big girl since my mom isn't here to help out.

We planted some phlox.

Some for the moment sad-looking daisies.

Some of these, which are supposed to cascade, and which are supposed to be frost and snow-resistant.

and a bunch of primroses in various colors

Frédéric also started preparing the vegetable garden plots.

And cleaning up the remains of last year's forgotten harvest.

And planting his tomatoes and pickles.

And we have plenty of these guys around already to help with our garden.

Singing in the Rain

Actually, they don't sing much.

And I think it wasn't even raining at the time.

But boy, do they love their umbrellas!

Who's superstitious? Not us!

Noah is 3!

He is very proud of being a big 3-year-old. We celebrated his birthday Sunday with some of our friends. Sunday wasn't his birthday, but it was supposed to be, if he hadn't decided to arrive a few days earlier than his scheduled c-section date. He dithered between green, pink, red, and blue, but finally decided on blue for his dump truck cake (thank you, Frédéric, chef extraordinaire!). (Yes, it's more turquoise than blue, but Wilton claimed it was blue, we went with it.) He gave a fantastic, heartfelt rendition of Happy Birthday to himself while we sang to him. We kept the gifts low-key (SO tired of all the toy clutter), but he was thrilled with them all. Especially his umbrella, which he'd been coveting ever since Benjamin got his for his birthday three months earlier.