The big Oh-Two

It is so hard to believe that our little man is now two. Hard to believe that was two whole years ago that we welcomed him into the world at 5:26 pm on 5/26/10. What a wonderful whirl wind it has been ever since. With his birthday falling on Memorial Day weekend we chose a low key (very low key) celebration. We did presents in the morning and then really just let him lead the day. I made an extra effort to only be focused on Saturday, instead of the usual on him and the laundry, on him and the dishes. Moms, I know you know what I am talking about! It was wonderful and I am vowing to try and keep more of that focused mentality throughout this year. I am a silly Oregon mama and got him an alligator sprinkler for his birthday. I know it will be tons of fun in of 3 months when it finally gets warm! This was really the only toy he got for his birthday and since delayed gratification is really a bummer no matter what your age, we made a special trip to Walmart today for a new Thomas train and the stand up racing spiral track he loves from daycare. Spoiled anyone??

Luckily Saturday was the "nice" day this weekend (notice the fleece) so we headed to the park. It was tons of fun and we took Truck who managed to make a gaggle of kid friends too while we were there. The SLIDE!

Turning the big wheel:

Caught him perusing his new book and DVD literature:

And now for the retrospective.... Brand new baby with his brand new papa 5/26/10:

Birthday bay with his balloons 5/26/12:

The big two year old busting out of his jammies:

We love you G man!!!

Birthday warm up

Since Gunnar's birthday is over Memorial Day weekend, I thought we would celebrate the weekend before by going to Dozer Days. Talk about right up Gunnar's alley - excavators, dump trucks, back hoes. The works! We met a friend for lunch and then made the trek to Camas WA. It was a gorgeous day and G had a blast and was a real trooper through a very long day. The lines were very long to ride the equipment and Gunnar decided there was no way he was letting a stranger take him. Excavator or not! So we dug in the sand pits, kicked some tires and ran a MUCK through the tube/slide complex. The only bad thing about the trip is that there are really no pictures. We borrowed a friends video camera for the trip because we REALLY wanted to document it. It took stills too so I left my point and shoot. Nick took some great video and we had a blast. Then when he went to offload the footage, we discovered none was stored. All that great video. Gone. I uploaded the two pics (us on the bus ride and the event itself) and they are too big. UGH and good night!

Side Tracked

We have been very fortunate this year to have actually had one long stint of true spring/early summer weather. I say had as it was barely 60 degrees and raining today while G and I braved the park. Sad!

Anywhoo, it was great while it lasted and we took great advantage. Nick has been wanting to make some improvements to the east side of our house for quite some time now but the monies, supplies and opportunity had yet to make themselves available. Well, wouldn't you know they did. Just as the weather was turning and while Nick's family was still in town, the plan came together. It all started when Nick got a call from a landscaper friend who had just laid a ton of bark down at a job but the home owner had decided they didn't like it and it had to go. Well, as they say, one mans misfortune is another man's landscaping! Nick and his dad spent 2 days loading, hauling and unloading bark from our truck into the side yard. Then they started on our new fence. We are terrible at remembering to do before shots so here is a "barely started" shot of the fence groundwork being laid:

While the men worked on the fence, G and I tackled the bark and landscaping. Here was our berm before with it's wild thyme jungle on the bottom tier:

And here are some after shots. You can now make out individual thyme plants:

With all the bark we decided to do a large bed along the side of the house that wraps around to the front. Here is the shot from the front of the house. Notice our main helpers - G and the chicken. Between Grandma D and the chickens Gunnar stayed quite "busy" whole his mama schlepped bucket loads of bark.

In the main section we are putting our yearly garden so here we are digging it out and planting the tomatoes and peppers. Our neighbor was kind enough to bring over his walk behind tiller so we have a great bed of soil, compost, sand and hay. Fingers crossed for some grape tomatoes!

We still have to finalize the bark layout, finish the fence and put in the patio but it is off to a great start! And now for the parting shot: