Introducing...

Reese Renae Regier with her proud parents, Angela and Alan:

And her happy Auntie...

born this morning at 9:05

6 lb., 11 oz.

19 1/2" long

Loved and adored by her big sister, Taylor!

Welcome Baby Reese! We love you!

Congratulations Alan and Angela - good job! :o)

Backyard Blooms

Happy Earth Day! It was a lovely one here, with lots of outdoors time. Still cleaning out the dead, dry weed remnants from last year, but nestled in there are the sweet new blooms and shoots for this year.

Just inside the back door are many little seedlings sprouting. The red bell peppers and most of the herbs are taking their time, but everything else will be ready to move outside in a couple of weeks.

The daffodils literally burst into bloom just yesterday. I only have a few clumps of them, a gift from a former co-worker, and they're so cheerful!

These are a deep orange/yellow tulip with a black center. I love when they open up. They're a bright pop of color in the back yard.

The peonies that mean so much to me - taken from Mom's yard after she passed away. Think we'll have flowers by Memorial Day?

This little guy is a tulip, planted amidst the bachelor buttons and bee balm. I have no idea what color he'll be. Grace planted bulbs last Fall, and this looks to be the only one that came up. When I saw him today, it took a moment to figure out how he got there. :o)

Finally, my sweet miniature iris. These are planted in front, in back, and all around. They have no scent, but I can always count on them for early Spring color. These were a gift many years ago from a dear friend, and I've shared tons of them over the years since they multiply so quickly.

I hope you enjoyed seeing a few of the Early Spring things going on at my house on Earth Day 2009. I'm so excited about this gardening season, and it's hard to stay out of the garden centers. This year I've pledged to just play with the flowers I have already and concentrate on the veggies. I will grab some annuals to fill pots and baskets, though. It'll be tough, and I keep telling myself that perhaps I can grab a few new things on clearance in July. Yeah, I can wait for July. Sure.

Bubble Frustration

I'm home now from babysitting my little niece, Taylor. She'll be two next month, "no" is her favorite word, and she can throw a mean tantrum if she wants. But she's still a sweetheart. She loves dolls and blankies, books, puzzles, and stuffed animals. We had a great time outside on Wednesday afternoon with a little container of bubbles. Here are three short videos when she was trying to do it herself:



She was getting a little wild with the container and had dumped some of it on her leg, so I closed it up. She wasn't mad for very long, because then I showed her how to log roll down the little hill we were sitting on. Thankfully, there is no video of that. :o)

Tablescape Thursday

Welcome to another Tablescape Thursday, hosted by Susan at Between Naps on the Porch (she has an incredible porch!).
I love visiting all of the blogs that link up, but had just started looking last week when a virus warning popped up on my screen. Ugh. I spent all weekend running and re-running virus scans, restarting my computer, in safe mode, in normal mode, with system restore, without system restore. I think we finally got it cured, though, so this week I should be able to visit everyone, and maybe even catch up on what I missed last week.
Last week I put together a few different tablescapes so I could participate in this blog event more often. Sad to say, the tablescapes have not inspired Greg to sit at the table to eat more often. In fact, I think they frighten him.
Anyway, this tablescape is super simple, but I just love these floral embossed salad plates. I don't know where I got them or why I only bought two.

The centerpiece is my large apothecary jar filled with Easter eggs. We made these eggs with my mom twelve years ago, just a little over a month before she passed away. I knew I'd want to keep them, but instead of blowing out the shells, I borrowed from the Ukraine pysankas and left the eggs raw. They are carefully handled and packed away each year, and have dried up inside, so they do not smell. We used a marbling technique that was published in Family Fun magazine that year (1997) - it made for soft colors and the eggs are really pretty up close. They sit on a shredded paper nest in the jar.

They're joined by the sweet little blue bunnies from last week. These bunnies got a good workout that day, posing for each tablescape I photographed. I think they'll be a favorite Spring decoration.

So if you love dishes and tablescapes, go check out Tablescape Thursday. I promise you will be inspired.

Eggs

A few weeks ago, on one of ny homemaking groups, my friend Rhonda posted a link to a blog tutorial for making these decoupaged eggs. Last weekend, while Greg watched "Transporter 3" (a huge dissapointment of a movie, btw), I got out the plastic Easter eggs and played in Modge Podge and torn up pages of an old hymnal. I used the scrappiest of my old plastic eggs, now they have a new/old look and will be a neat addition to the Easter/Springtime decorThis hymnal was, I think, scrounged from the leftovers of a huge auction many years ago. It is falling apart (beyond repair) and the pages are brown and aged - perfect for this project. Plus, I liked the idea of using a hymnal for something I will use for Easter decorations.

If you visit http://inspireco.blogspot.com/search?q=glittered+eggs for the tutorial, you'll see she used glitter, ribbons, and neat little trinkets to decorate her eggs. I didn't get so far as glitter - I had to clean up before bed so the cats didn't play in my project - and then I ended up liking these eggs plain. I like the glitter version, too, so you may see some of those in the future.

Springtime on the Great Plains

What is wrong with this picture?Can this PLEASE be Winter's last hurrah? Please?

The magnolia tree was just about to burst into bloom. Guess that will be delayed a day or two...

It began to rain yesterday afternoon, then turned to snow about 11:00 last night. It was wet and heavy, and our power flicked off and on all night. I don't know our official total, but my best guess is about 3 inches.

Our estimated last frost date is 10 days away. I think someone needs to tell Mother Nature.

Peep Show!

Our local Chamber of Commerce is sponsoring a "Peep Show" where you use marshmallow peeps to create a diorama. My co-workers at the physical therapy clinic where I work put together the "Peep Sixteen", a tribute to March Madness.
Here's the tip-off:
All of the sixteen teams were represented.

They had their own little chairs, towels, and Gatorade coolers on the sidelines, as well as "Peepleaders" to cheer them on.

My favorite part of the whole thing, though, are the "peeptators". (If you click on the photos, I think you can read their signs.) "Hey ref! What's wrong with your peepers!"

There is even a "jumbo-tron". Scrolling across the bottom it reads, "For your sports injuries bring your "peeps" to YPT.

Here is someone with the local newspaper, and another saying, "You've been 'spotted'." (That's a feature of the real paper where they publish candid photos of people in the community and if you see yourself in the paper, you get a prize.)

They even have "peepcorn" to snack on.

Here's the whole thing - so much attention to detail makes it a fun piece.

The competition judging is tomorrow - good luck, guys!

Tablescape Thursday

Each Thursday (well, I start looking on Wednesday evenings) the inspiration for setting a beautiful table just overflows from Susan's Tablescape Thursday link-ups.

Today I puttered around when I got home from work and put together a possible Easter morning table. I pretended that both of the kids were going to be here (they're not) and we were going to enjoy a nice breakfast together. Um, and we're going to pretend that we drink wine with breakfast, too (we don't).

Besides the black chargers and my white Mikasa French Countryside stoneware dinner plates, I used four little dessert plates that I picked up last summer at Goodwill. Each plate is a different pastel color, so they're perfect for Springtime and Easter.

There are a few dozen of these ceramic eggs in my Easter decorations stash, so I used four of them as place card holders. I tied the tags on with a small piece of twine.

Full jars of candy arranged down the center of the table make for a sweet centerpiece. (yes, pun intended...)

These sweet bunnies are salt and pepper shakers and came from Cracker Barrel. They have little green chicks as friends, but I didn't get a good photo of them. They're hiding behind one of the candy jars.

The stemware came from the discount store and Goodwill, the flatware from the discount store, and I made the napkins. The lace tablecloth is about 25 years old and is showing how loved and used it's been, so I put a white one under it.
Simple and sweet, and I enjoyed imagining my little family all together for a good meal.
Thanks, Susan for hosting such a fun weekly event!

Warm Sweater Wednesday

I don't know that it will be an Open Window Wednesday, but there will be no problem keeping the heat turned down today. The sun is shining, birds are singing, and the wind is not blowing. Seems like a perfect Springtime morning.

Until tomorrow, when rain AND snow are in the forecast. Sigh.