New Smyrna Beach June 2009

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Favorite Flowers

Okay, so I'm a really, really, really amateur gardener (can't overemphasize that point too much), but I love flowers and planting them reminds me of my Grandaddy who had an amazingly green thumb. Plants of all shapes and sizes loved him. He tried to pass that gift along to me, but I'm not too sure it transferred. It's been 10 years last month since he passed away from cancer and I've been missing him alot lately. It just seems that "playing in the dirt" brings back so many great memories with him that I was inspired this year to subdue our backyard and add some colorful flowers.
So far, I have lantana, begonias, petunias, marigolds, straw flowers, and tomato plants in the ground and wave petunias (my favorite), spoon flowers, impatiens, gerber daisies and a couple of other things in pots. It's been a fun project, and eventhough I know that the results are not amazing or anything, I hope Grandad would be proud! Also, (since I'm just learning) if anyone has suggestions as far as flowers they love (that preferably do not require massive amounts of attention), please pass them along. Here are a couple of pics of my attempts:

Ethan Language

Now that Ethan is starting to "talk" more, we've had fun hearing his own little version of different words. Here are some that make us laugh right now (I'll try to write them phonetically):
-"wa-du" is water or any type of liquid.
-"fla-du" is a flower, which Ethan loves to blow on (we can't figure out why he blows on flowers rather than smells them?!).
-"spi-du" is a spider or anything that resembles a bug (including a piece of black lint on the floor in our bedroom!).
-"Me-mo" is Nemo, of Finding Nemo. If he can't think of anything else to say, he pulls this one out.
-"Lu-ey" is my parents' dog, Lucy. It's funny, because now even Mom calls her Louie.
-"Go" is a car.
-"Pa-pu" is my Dad, who was originally "Papper" (like Pastor), but Ethan changed his name to Papu, and I don't think Dad is too keen on it!
-"Fa-fel" is a waffle, part of his favorite meal--breakfast!
-"Man-na" is a banana, the other part of his favorite meal.
-"Dar-der" is his cousin Carter-his favorite play buddy.
-"Beat" is his pacifier, which we call a binky. When he wakes up at night and drops his binky out of his crib, we hear him wailing, "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh beat!" It's pretty funny (and way too dramatic). Speaking of, if anyone has any ideas of getting rid of a pacifier, pleast let me know. I tried the whole cutting off part of it until it was gone, but then it started ripping and I had to throw it away so he wouldn't swallow part of it. Any other ideas would be much appreciated!

Ethan's Birthday - A Visit to the Georgia Aquarium

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Snow Day 2009

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Hail Storm

This past Wednesday evening, I was about to start supper when I kept thinking that I heard thunder. However, I just dismissed it as a car starting or something, because after all it is February, for crying out loud! Then, Andrew walked in and said, "Did you know we are under a tornado warning?" So, we turned on the T.V. and sure enough, they showed a very bad storm about 5 minutes away heading straight for us. A few minutes after that, it started raining and then almost immediately started hailing. So, we got some pillows and blankets and headed for the laundry room (it's in the middle of the house and doesn't have windows). We got settled in and prayed and then it started really getting loud. (Ethan thought it was fun! He was relaxing on the pillows.) After it got very loud, the deluge slowed down a bit and then we started hearing really loud "thuds" on the roof--at that point, I was preparing to wake up with Munchkins standing over me--I really thought there were small trees or big branches smashing into the roof. However, it stopped just as quickly as it began and all was quiet. So, we went to look outside. I've never seen that much hail piled up before. When we walked out on the front porch, Ethan put his little hand over his eyes and said "Ohhh no." My poor little pansies were beaten up (As Andrew said, "What do you expect? They're pansies!") We are also going to have to replace a few pieces of siding on our house and one of our cars sustained some dents. But we're thankful that it wasn't worse.
Our front bed. I guess this is the only frozen precipitation we'll see this winter!
Some of the pieces were about the size of golfballs! (Which explains the loud thuds, I guess.)
Our front porch:

Our Mini Valentine

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