Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

Many apologies for my lengthy absence, life kept tossing tomatoes quicker than I could catch them! Ok, not all tomatoes, some lemons which were made promptly into lemonade. But things have finally eased up a bit to the point I feel I can blog positively again! Skipping the tomatoes, let's do a quick picture recap of the things that have kept me happy the past few weeks:

Girly's birthday(s)
My sweet daughter had her 4th birthday mid-April. The much loved birthday girl pretty much had a whole month of birthday goings on! From a special mommy/daddy/daughter date to purchase our first fish(that debacle shall be saved for later blogging), to birthday parties with 3 sets of grandparents(all separately) and one tea party hosted by yours truly for her little friends, it was busy. Think, lots of balloons. Lots of missed naps. But lots of great times with family!

Easter
Easter pretty much ran like all of our other holidays; aka: 4 family dinners. Three of those crammed into one weekend! No, we don't do anything the easy way here. That's just how it rolls with a large, close family. While it all ends with the wish of one more day to recover, wouldn't change it if I could.

Gardening
We lucked out in the midwest with a week of great weather around the start of April. It was well timed as we had 4 fruit trees, raspberries, blueberries and strawberries all delivered about that time. We worked hard to get everything in and were rewarded with just barely making it before the rains moved in. Lovely! Even managed to get the flower beds somewhat cleaned of debris and winter cover which I'm hoping equated to less chance of slugs. The last week of April was once again gorgeous, so we've been back at it mulching, tilling, planting, building raised beds, etc. There is still lots to do but I feel so much better now looking out at my tidy gardens.

Baby
I wasn't joking when I said we don't do anything the easy way here! To add to life(pun intended) we're expecting baby number 3. A bit of a surprise, but we are very excited. I'm about 13 weeks now and finally starting to feel something akin to human again. Technically this is my 4th pregnancy and I have to say, out of all of them this has been the hardest. The morning sickness has been difficult(may as well call it half of the day sickness) but the worst has been the exhaustion. Sheer, utter, indescribable exhaustion. Most likely exacerbated by stress from those tomatoes and lemons. But thankfully it's easing! Our due date is sometime November. My belly is definitely sticking out earlier than the others!

So that's about it. Minus the produce which you don't want to hear about. There's a lot to catch up on- I'll get there, bear with me! We have a mini vacation coming up next week but I'll be taking my trusty little netbook with me to blog our experiences. Twenty-four hour car trip one way with 2 kids and my in-laws? Check. First experience in Arizona? Check check. Copious amounts of delicious Mexican food? Check, check, double check! If nothing else, I'm sure you'll want to peek in to see what nuggets of wisdom were gleaned from the 24 hour, one way drive. Did I say 24 hours? Oh yes. Yes, I did.

Happy May Day!