Our Memorial Day Weekend

We got a lot accomplished over the long weekend.  And by "we", I mean Mark.  Obviously someone has to direct take care of the baby.

On Friday, my niece Kylie came to play.  She loves Jack SO MUCH that she can't seem to keep her hands off him.  Basically, she thinks he's a doll that she can pick up and put places and Jack puts up with quite a bit from her because he loves her back.  However, in the midst of their playing, a gentle nudge from Ky turned into Jack losing his balance in the wrong location and he fell face first into the windowsill of our bay window.  

The result:

You were supposed to be watching me.  I'm so disappointed in you, Momma.

His first black eye :(

Honestly, I think it looks worse than it is.  He only cried for a minute or two.  I've seem him get far more upset over seemingly less serious injuries.  He got over it pretty quickly, but I didn't.  It hurts my heart to look at his poor little face right now!  I suppose I'm going to need to get used to it though.  I doubt this will be the last black eye he ever gets, probably not the last we'll see during todderhood :-/

On Saturday we visited the farmers market.  Still a little early for a lot of produce, but we did pick up some local grassfed beef and a few plants - basil, cilantro, and 2 zucchini.

Mark worked on stuff outside and mowed the grass.  All of the plants we have are planted now and Mark built a second small raised bed to go with the one that we had last year.

On the left is the new box with 2 zucchini plants.  We're probably going to add a few smallish plants to the front half of the bed, but not sure what yet.  The bed on the right is filled with 5 tomato plants, which my Dad brought back from a recent trip to Tennessee.  We had plants from the same nursery last year and they did beautifully.  Hoping for more success this year!

And here are my little herb plants:

I think I'm just going to stick with Basil and Cilantro this year.  Those are the herbs that I cook with the most anyway and last time I tried to grow herbs it didn't work out very well.  If these do well this year I'd love to grow some more varieties next year!

Mark also fixed my laundry line.  Apparently he didn't dig the hole quite deep enough when he put it in last year and after leaving it to fend for itself over Winter when we should have taken it down and the weeks of rain also known as "Spring" around here, which flooded our backyard it was looking very sad.  It was leaning really far to the side and if I hung stuff on it unsupported it would literally just fall over.  Line-dry FAIL.  I was able to use it by propping it up with a patio chair for stability, but now that the ground has finally dried out Mark was able to actually fix it and I have a nice sturdy clothesline now!

Bad cell phone pic, but this is how my clothesline started the Spring.  It got worse from there.  Timmmmmber! 

Much better!

Jack spent some time walking around exploring the backyard.  This is one of the first times we've let him in the yard because well... it rained for about 6 weeks straight in Ohio and even when there was a break in the rain and we could get outside the backyard was a swamp.

He's still trying to figure out how to navigate the rougher terrain of the outdoors.  This was pre-mow so the grass was a bit long and of course the yard isn't perfectly flat like he's used to walking on everywhere else.  He has to learn how to pick his feet up more when he walks.  He's starting to get the hang of it, but he's getting some help from DaDa here. 

Sunday, I went grocery shopping for the week and visited Half Priced Books to pick up some new reading material for Jack.  I'm sure it's hard to believe but we needed some new blood in our stack of books because I'm a wee bit tired of reading the same stories 50 times an hour.  They were having a 20% off everything sale so I got some great deals!  Later that evening, after his nap, Jack and I went out to my parent's house for dinner while Mark stayed behind and cleaned the carpets.  They were in desperate need of a good cleaning and are in a much improved condition now.

Monday, we went to Kohl's and got Mark a few new clothing items, Jack got some sandals that he hasn't yet figured out how to walk well in, and I got some new tennis shoes because I hated the ones that I had. 

I kept telling myself that I'd like them more after they were broken in a bit.  Intermittent wearing over the last year or so is probably sufficient enough breaking in time and I still hated them.  I'm angry at Nike because clearly they make goofy fitting shoes.  My new tennies are pretty - they have pink laces! - even if I did have trouble choosing between this pair and one other and Mark and Jack were rushing me.  You can't rush this type of decision.  I was probably rushed when I picked out my last pair and that didn't work out so hot. 

Jack finished off Memorial Day in the right way, with a dip in his pool for this first time this year!  The last time he was in this pool he couldn't even sit up on his own yet!

When I first put him in he was excited and he plopped right down and I guess the water was still too cold because he freaked out :(  Whoops!  I felt it with my hand first and we had it sitting out in the sun, but how it feels on your hand is a little different than how it feels when you're sitting in it!  So, I had to drain out some of the water and add a teapot's-worth of boiling water and then all was fine.  Once he realized I wasn't trying to dunk him into too cold water again he had a great time!

Oh, and also, this didn't happen this past weekend, but two weekends ago I finally sold my pre-baby car.  I have mixed feelings about this.  I'm sad to see it go, which is silly because I literally have not driven it in about a year.  It's been stored at my parent's house and we tried to sell it last summer, but it was a whole process because I was still paying it off (Note to self: avoid car loans in the future.  They're a pain the rear.) so, we decided to hang on to it until it was paid off.  We finally got things in order and paid it off a few months ago, and then the car needed some TLC because it had been stored for a while AND THEN we finally put it up for sale and found a buyer and now it's gone.  I'm glad to have the money though.  The money is going to do a lot more for us than a car that I can't drive on a regular basis and has just been sitting around for a year!  I'm still sad to see it go.  I'll get over it though.

And we're trying to get a family vacation planned for this year.  I don't know if this is brilliant or insane.  Possibly a little bit of both, but people go on vacation all the time with toddlers, right?  Right.  So... we'll see what happens.

Whew!  So that's what we've been up to recently!  Because it hasn't been raining I've been outside as much as possible.  Jack loves to take walks and I enjoy sitting outside in the sun for a while reading while Jack's taking his nap.  I'm really enjoying the nicer weather!  Of course it's face of the sun hot now, but it's better than endless rain!

Jack just turned 15-months-old (crazy!) on Saturday.  Stay tuned because I'm going to get an update posted soon with copious amounts of pictures detailing what Mr. Jack has been up to lately!