Front Yard Makeover

I was done with my beautiful Russian Sage bushes since they look pretty and attract bees but they spread like crazy...means, they are invasive and even my across-the-street-neighbor has them. Little sprouts peek everywhere through grass, rocks or mulch and when I found them coming through my patio that me and my Mom built last June, I was done with these shrubs.





So I advertised them for free on Craigslist and within 20 minutes I got 6 emails back. That very same afternoon a very friendly older lady came by and dug 3 bushes out.


That left me in re-thinking what to do with the empty spaces...





Last week I found free rocks on my beloved Craigslist that I wanted for my front yard. One house in the neighborhood looks exceptionally beautiful the way they did their yard and of course I want to do this, too.

The stones are just 11 minutes away from me in Lafayette and even match the yellow tone of our house!

So total I drove about 7 times to the location and filled my van with the rocks. All I spent on the rocks worth about $300 I guess is less than $20 in gas....

Here the front yard in it's early make over stage:

And finally the 'done' stage:

The other side of our front yard:

Of course everything will look much prettier when the flowers bloom and the grass is green..can't wait to share then pictures with you!

Volcano Ash from Esjakollfulla (LOL)

After the kids were in the baby pool outside in the backyard on Wednesday morning, we woke up to heavy snow on Thursday morning. I put the kids into winter clothes again for driving to Olivia's field trip from pre-school at a garden nursery.

There we got lead around and at the end the kids could pot their own pansies.




In the meantime it stopped snowing and in the afternoon we could go outside and ride bikes but what mess the snow made!Everything covered in dirt! My guess is that this was volcano ash from Iceland!







I mean, I cleaned the table and bench because we were spending the prior morning outside so it was the last snow that was really dirty!

Gymnastics in 1943!

That's just awesome!
Take a look!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNR74UCidBI&feature=player_embedded

Silly Bobo

Bobo tries to hide a bone...silly Bobo!

Dan Crow in Concert

Gestern abend gabe Dan Crow in Olivia's preschool ein Konzert fuer die Kinder. Es fing an mit 'Potluck' (Glueckstopf) um 17:45, und um 18:30 folgte das Konzert (Potluck heisst, dass jede Familie ein Essensgericht mitbringen soll, egal was, es wird nicht vorgeschrieben, wer was mitbringen soll, also ein 'Glueckstopf') Ich habe wieder meinen Apfelstreuselkuchen gemacht...und nichts davon abbekommen, weil alle ihn so lecker fanden! Mich haben sogar drei Muetter auf das Rezept angesprochen!

Hier ein Ausschnitt von dem Konzert. Natuerlich ist Jonah der hibbelige Junge im orangenen Shirt, wer sonst?


Achso,abends im Bett geht es oftmals so zu:

Olivia's Shopping List

A couple of days ago, Olivia came up with a shopping list. She put tape on it and stuck it against her toy chest, so that we do not forget to buy all her stuff:




In case you are totally confused, this is what she wrote down:
Erdbeeren (Strawberries)
Milk
Bluemchen (flowers)

I guess I know now what her favorite items are!

Happy Birthday dear Papa!

Monday the 5th of April was Chris' birthday. Olivia wrote him such a cute card!







We did not do anything special since Chris was kind of...hm...grumpy. He did not sleep at all the night before and of course this affects your next day...when my Mom comes in May we will have a special day together, like spending a day at Waterworld (if it is open) or just at the Boondocks amusement park without the kids!

Zoo

Am Mittwoch und am Freitag sind wir zum Zoo gefahren. Unsere Mitgliedschaft laeuft Ende April aus, daher muessen wir noch ein paar Mal in den Zoo gehen...

Hier der Bericht vom Mittwoch:

Hier ein Video von der Interstate 25 (I-25) die ich vom noerdlichen Broomfield nach Denver nehme. Man hat nach der Bruecke von Thornton (auch ein Randstadtteil von Denver wie Broomfield) einen schoenen Blick auf Downtown:



Familienbild


Bei den Loewen


Dieser Babybulle faszinierte die Kinder, da her die Beine graetschte, um auf dem Boden rumzuschnueffeln. Er war nur 10 m entfernt von uns!



Der Zoo unterstuetzt sehr viel bedrohte Tierarten mit Zuechtungen und anderen wissenschaftlichen Arbeiten. Ein Kamel hatte ein Halsband an und dieses Schild gab darueber Auskunft:


Fuer alle asiatischen Tiere wird ein neues Naturgehege 'Asian Tropics' gebaut. Durch einige Fenster in der Baustellenwand hat man eine tolle Sicht auf Downtown Denver:


Olivia und Jonah auf den Hippos:

A Hilarious Craigslist Ad

On my beloved Craigslist I am always on the hunt for stuff that I need. This time I am searching in the 'free' category for some wood for my garden and back yard projects. I came across this hilarious ad:


2 bags of crappy cat litter (Arvada)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2010-04-09, 3:56PM MDT
Reply to: sale-zzz@craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


For free: two 10lb bags of Purina non-clumping litter for multiple cats.

There was a really good sale on thus stuff a little while back. I'm pretty new to the cat-owning world, so I'm thinking "Wowie, Purina! It's name brand and everything, and dirt cheap, too!". So we bought several bags of the stuff.

First off, apparently "non-clumping" means that when the cat pees, it just disintegrates when you try to scoop it. Meaning that with every passing day, the ratio of cat pee debris to litter only increases. This is a selling point somehow?

Estha the Cat certainly does not agree with the litter. We've had the joy of finding poop on the kitchen floor in front of the fridge on a regular basis for awhile now. It's like she's leaving little fecal presents to thank us for buying such high quality cat litter. Mind you, it's not like I've ever pooped in front of the fridge, don't knock it 'till you've tried it and all that. And you know, I might be open to trying it if Estha would clean up after me. We'd have a nice fair exchange of services going on. But no, our relationship at this point is of the "she poops, I clean up" variety.

Cat diapers have also occurred to me as a possibility, but as Estha has all of her claws and we are low on Band-aids, I decided this is a less then wise idea.

Anyhow, Purina seems to be to pet products what Banquet is to frozen food, who knew? Either that, or Estha is exceptionally picky. In any case, there's two bags of litter up for grabs. Hopefully your cat isn't as picky as Estha. Also works great for cleaning up motor oil! (The cat litter, not Estha).

Frohe Ostern!

Frohe Ostern an alle!

Wir hatten einen schoenen, sonnigen Tag mit Chris' Eltern hier bei uns verbracht. Es gab Schinken und Sandwiches, Fruchtsalat und einen lecker Apfelkruemelkuchen.



Olivia hat einen neuen, pinken Regenschirm bekommen und Jonah konnte ihren alten blauen haben...welch eine Freude die Kinder mit solchen Sachen haben!!



Und der Fruehling haelt auch endlich Einzug...

Back together...

Jonah and Olivia are back together in one room...in Jonah's.

Her room started to become already soo hot during the few days we had nice weather that I could not help myself but to sell her wooden bed and put her bed into Jonah's room. I got a few other things off my beloved Craigslist and re-arranged Jonah's closet so that both kids are now sharing a room forever. Well, at least for a couple of months...

Something weird happened...now in editing this post I only see letters and such of where my pictures are stored within blogher but I don't see any pictures. If I view my blog I can see the pictures but can't edit.
So I just need to explain in short what you see:

Olivia's old red room is now a playroom with a tent and a reading corner. Jonah's yellow room is just big enought for two twin beds and a nightstand. They already had the same bedding so the room actually looks quite cute with even the mathing curtains!!

On one picture Olivia is a good mother and feeds her little pink pony some of her breakfast.

I hope for the next blog everything runs smooth again...