{this moment}

My dear Willie, 

On 04/05/2003 you came into our lives, stayed, barked and wagged your tail endlessly.

You were the best dog ever, my forever dog! And today, on your birthday, we miss you very much!

I hope Dog Heaven was full with Cheeseburgers and soft chew toys for you.

Happy Birthday Boo-Booloo!

 Your tree in full bloom and we brought Daffodils to brighten up the day. 

Your chimes still sing for us and remind us of your constant presence!

So pretty!

"Little Brain" comes to wish his big brother a Happy Birthday.

We are so glad Ed found us so quickly after Willie left. He sure has taken our minds of the pain and has brought a whole lot of commotion and happy-pee-dribbles into our lives and on the carpet ...

L taking a moment to hang out with Willie.

She was just chatting with her Willie-Angel.

We will celebrate the day with Cheeseburgers (Happy Meals for the Ls since that was Willie's b-day supper every year) and home made ones for the grown ups. 

It was a happy and sad day at the same. 

Lots of good memories of our waggy-tail man and many quiet, sad and a bit teary eyed moments too.

Oh my wonderful Willie, we love and we miss you so very much!!!

I wish you could see how much ...

In case you want to revisit, this is how we celebrate one year ago (click here).

VIP of the week

L is the VIP this week in her class.
This meant she had to prepare a posterboard about herself today and talk about it in front of the class.

We had ordered pictures two weeks ago, then realized that the posterboard we had was WAY too small for so many pictures, ran out got a BIGGER one and then sat in front of this HUGE, emty space all afternoon yesterday trying to come up with a cool way to display the life of Lillie-Bean Czarnota.

Version 1) was mama sorting pictures by topic (i.e. L herself, her hobbies, her friends, ..)
Vote of the fam: B-O-R-I-N-G!!!!!!!

Version 2) L trying to group pictures, rather randomly, piling them up on top of eachother and wanting to put stickers all over at once.
Vote of the fam: NO!!!!

Version 3) Lulu suggesting to buy a lila posterboard and put pictures of mermaids and Barbies on it
Vote of the fam: NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

Version 4) Papa suggesting that we should make it like a story, using the pictures to fill in for words and writing it more like a book.
Vote of the fam: YES, YES, YES!!!!!!!!!!!!! (he is getting quite creative, I better watch out or he'll surpass me by next month :)

So on to the creation part we went.
Pat took Lulu to the store to keep the distraction to a minimum and L and I went down to work.
This morning we added a bit of bling in form of flowers and Lulu helped decorate.

This was the final result.

( click on the image to enlarge)

 

Good job fam!!! L's teacher was quite impressed and had tons of questions about all the pictures for L.
I can't wait to get it back so we can hang it up in their room.

Here is to the VIP of the week!!!
Love you Lillie-Bean!

CZ Garden 2011

Ready for the first real pre-view ... Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present:

The CZ Garden

2011

I am just posting this in case everything dies before GP gets here, in two weeks.

Just as prove that I did, indeed, try it on my own :)

One week ago

Lulu was my little Garden Buddy and helped me set it up

All that was left from last year were the herbs, the strawberries
 and the "Colleen-Flowers" (aka Gladiolas) that GP planted last year. 

No broccoli seedlings were available, so we needed to grow them by "my-lone" (Lulu for ourselves) 

Ahhh ... thats how they do it ... I see!

B-r-o-c-c-o-l-i-e 

Kohlrabi.

We LOVE Kohlrabi!!!

... then Aiden came and he REALLLLLY likes his Jelly-Beans!
 So the kids decided they needed to plant some Jelly Beans for larger consumption purposes ...

This was serious work!!!

Proud gardeners!

They also planted "googly" eyes

 and colored Styrofoam balls .
I am hoping that our craft supply will be nicely stocked up by harvest time :)

Oh yes, meet my re-enforcement team!
I am going full-power this year!

Extra calcium for the tomato-ladies, "Sluggo" for my sluggish friends,
 (we told Lulu it makes the plants taste like chicken so the slugs run away since they are also vegetarians. She was strict against killing the "baby sluggies, or they can't go back home to their flamilies!")
And Critter Ridder, pepper flakes, to deter the cats and the Dork from using my garden as a littler box.
It works, so far I have seen no digging and no turds ...

Today

The new 4 ladies of the house.

We even have one lila/ purple tomato.

We are trying to grow carrots this year.
GP warned us that they are hard to grow

 and get woody easily but we'll try it.
 ... just for the fun of it :) and Kohlrabi.

Zucchini, na-course (we still have some in the freezer from last year ...)

Cucumbers ... 3 english and one lemon cucumber.

Let's see how fast I can kill them.
I am already down one and it's just the beginning I am sure!

A WHOLE lot'a peas!!!

Butter lettuce
(SNAILS be warned, it's definitely war this year!!!)

Lulu planted some princesses, na course :)

"Jasmint" 

the Colleen Flowers

Papa's strawberry patch.

Looking good!

My flower patch.

Raspberry bushes and herbs

and we also had some fun in the sun 

... nakidie style!!!

The Ls were pretending to "pee like boys"

No further comment ...

Off to schmiere more sun block on the Ls. 

Lulu is roasting by now, I am sure.

She burns faster than GP burns a wok-pot :):):)

... wahahahha! ...