recently...

oh man, school is busy this quarter!  and i've only just finished the second week.  i'm already exhausted.  only 8 more weeks of class, then finals, then i'll be done!!!!!!!!!!!  i want to write another post about that later, but for now here is just some random stuff.  mostly about my yard.  i absolutely love spring.  well, now.  i didn't used to, when i was younger, because it was mostly rainy still and sometimes stormy.  but now that i'm older and a homeowner, i'm so aware of everything that is blooming and growing in this season.  i loooooooooove the cherry and apple blossoms and all the springtime bulbs that are coming up and watching the trees bud and grow new leaves.  everything is becoming more verdant and green and full of flowers.  i love it!  we did a bunch of planting a few weeks ago for late spring and summer plants.  we put in some stuff for our shade garden that we are starting to develop in the back yard and some veggies in our planter boxes and some herbs.  the yards still have a long way to go but we are making a good start!

bought some camelias and planted them in the back yard

daffodils started coming up, this was a few weeks ago, there's a lot of new things that came up since then

rananculus!

the japanese maples are blooming

new guys coming up, it is starting to look less like the aftermath of a forest fire

planted some astilbes in the front of the planter boxes

japanese maple

rhodies and daffodils

new planter boxes on the side of the house, planted some veggies and stuff

in the front, bleeding hearts and hyacinths

got a few of these giant planters, the one in the front has rananculus

and then it hailed a few days later--doh!

let's see, at school i'm taking forest entomology (forest bugs), biological clocks and rhythms and evolution & medicine.  i was not too excited to take forest entomology and bio clocks but they are turning out to be pretty interesting.  i am in class every day during the week and 3 days a week i get home late.  so it makes things more tricky as far as getting stuff done everyday, like meal cooking and laundry and all the things adults have to do in order to be clean and functional.  but, it's temporary, once school is over i'll be all graduated and will have to figure out what to do with my grown up self.

z is just growing up into such a big boy.  he says so much, is putting together more and more sentences, learning so many new things and amazing us all the time.  he picks things up so quickly and repeats everything we say.  i will put together a new list of his words another time, but he says so much.  it's awesome.  he has been with my friend for 3 days a week and at daycare 2 days a week and is doing great at both places.  he loves being around other people, is so social.  we recently weaned from breastfeeding.  he has been saying 'no' to us more often and will try to assert his independence and autonomy quite frequently and been challenging us so we had to institute the time out chair.  except that we don't call it time out we just tell him that he needs to take a little break to calm down and he sits in his chair in the other room for one minute.  it has been working alright.  the next thing i want to do is wean him from his binkie.  that is going to be interesting as he is now super attached to it.

for naw ruz, we got him a tent with his own little flashlight

and from his grandparents he got this awesome table and chairs which he eats at all the time

easter brunch with friends

easter egg hunt with his friend.  we don't celebrate easter by ourselves, so we didn't have an easter basket or anything, so i figures his halloween pumpkin would works just as well

well, that's about it for now, things are crazy and we are trying to keep up!