For Those Of You Just Joining Us . . .

Robert has been gone all week and, along with phone calls, I've been blogging pictures so he can "see" what we've been talking about. If you haven't been following along keep scrolling down (I think you might even have to click on "older posts" to see it all) - we've had a busy week!
It did start with Mother's Day, last Sunday - and I'm finally posting about that.

We have been working on our garden and filling in the terrace with plants (we have a lot of room). I had wanted blueberry bushes to fill in the hill between the bottom terrace and the grass.
Guess what I got for Mother's Day? . . . 4 Blueberry Bushes!!

We had to plant them right away (they were starting to dislike the bucket they were in). I hadn't prepared the hill like I wanted to, but have now started getting rid of the grasses and weeds.

Alyssa also surprised me, the Thursday before Mother's Day, with flowers to plant in the front (I'm working on getting that the way I want as well). They were selling potted flowers at school for Mother's Day and she got one for me - she is a sweetie.

Natalie took Jake and Logan in the basement one day and, after a long time and making a mess they cried about cleaning up later, made me a great big Happy Mother's Day poster! They even kept the secret for two days before giving it to me last Sunday. And the girls had made cards at Activity Days.

In church the kids sang "Mother, I Love You" (always so sweet). Alyssa, who thinks she is getting too old for Primary didn't want to go up (her two friends are now in YW and wouldn't be singing). She said she loved me anyway - without singing, but in the end joined the others.
I love my children and I love being a mother. It gets busy and crazy, but it is all worth it!

Another bit of 'before our week began' was Robert coming home with a box turtle. He had almost run over it on the way to work and went back to see if it was ok. He had a box in the back of his car and brought him to work - did a little research about box turtles on line and brought it back home with him.
The kids have loved having the turtle this past week. He has been in a large container on the table.
The girls look for worms, feed him bits of apple, and take him to crawl around in the yard and climb on the rocks (which Alyssa says he LOVES to do).
Logan loves watching him look over the edge of the container or searching for where the turtle has dug into the dirt. He thinks it is great when the turtle crawls into the water pan - and says the turtle it taking a bath! We probably need to find a better place for him than on the kitchen table, but then he wouldn't be in the center of activity. The turtle is doing well and eating, so we'll see how long it lasts.