The Lieslands

On Sunday I picked up a swing set that we bought off of Craigslist. It is just a simple A-frame with swings, but I think that the kids will enjoy it.

We plan on having a nice vegetable garden of some sort at our new house. We aren’t totally sure yet what form it is going to take, but we definitely have plans.

This past weekend we start some seeds. We started 12 tomato plants and we have plans to start some cucumbers in a few weeks.

We don’t know where we are going to get a lot of sun, so we are going to have to see how our garden plays out over the next couple of years. We have visions of raised-beds and containers. I want to plant a garden in our tree-lawn – the area between our sidewalk and the street. We have a corner lot, so we have 150 feet of curb that runs down the side of our house. It will be a little weird to try a garden there, but I think it could work, and it wouldn’t have to take up any space in our yard.

Susan comes up with a lot of sort of ‘entrepreneurial’ ideas. Not always business related, but usually ideas that involve starting something. Most of the time these ideas leave as quickly as they came, but one actually managed to make its way to fruition.

Starting in a few weeks, Susan is going to be leading Bean Sprout Parents & Tots in our house. It will be a Waldorf-inspired Parents & Tots class, similar to what she used to attend with Andrew, Mari, & Elliot in Cincinnati.

She is really excited about it, and I am too. It has made us think a lot about the layout of our house and what is in each room – mostly on the first floor. I think it will be great to have a living space that is Waldorf-inspired.

We have been doing a lot of work around the house lately. We took out the closet in our dining room a few weeks back and a couple of weeks ago Tom and I got some drywall up to make the room look more normal. This past weekend Susan and I textured the wall, to match the others, and painted the room blue, cornflower blue. I still need to finish up some of the trim, but the room is just about done.

Up next is the entry way and the stairs. The stairs had some paint on them that we have been removing. We are going to refinish the stairs and repaint the walls and trim. Right now all of the trim in the main entryway is still mauve and forest green. Like most of the painted trim in our house, we are going to be painting it white.

Once the entryway is done we are going to move on to the living room, where we are going to repaint the walls and trim. After that, I think we are going to be moving outside. I can’t wait to get out and get some work done. There is just as much to do outside as there has been inside.

I just added some new photos to our 2008 II gallery and also I started our 2009 gallery.

It took almost two years, but last night Elliot slept through the night for the first time. Up until two nights ago he stilled nursed several times during the night, but it seemed like he was ready to have some daddy time during the night, so two nights ago whenever he woke up I would comfort him back to sleep. Last night he never even woke up, until this morning! It was quite a treat and I know not to get too excited.

Des Moines has a nice bike trail system and today I was able to check out the parts closest to our house, well some of them. Gary has mentioned that he could make it all the way to the B-Bop’s on 73rd. I wanted to see if there was a way to get from the B-Bop’s to close to our house, and there is. I was able to make it to a park that is fairly close to our house. I could have gone a little farther, but there was high water covering the trail and with Andrew and Mari in the trailer I did not feel like going up and around (and I was tired). It was a great ride and I can’t wait to try to get all the way from our house to Gary and Kathie’s. The system should make for some nice rides this summer.

Elliot will be 2 in 2 weeks. Hard to believe. We still think of him as our baby, but I guess he is not. I think he will seem a lot older when he stops nursing all night.

Andrew slept in his own bed a few nights this week, even going to bed by himself. I think he got bored with it and is now back to going to sleep with us and sharing a bed with Mari.

Mari is still a little challenging, but she is showing signs of pulling up out of her funk. I think that she is beginning to understand a little more about her actions. She has also taken a great interest in the kitchen lately, enjoying helping whenever she can. Every morning she wants to help make the oatmeal by scooping it into the pot, stirring it as it cooks, and then portioning it out into our bowls. She is also in charge of distributing raisins for our oatmeal – a handful in mine and hers, and a few on the table for Elliot.

We had some good weather today, so we decided to take the new bike trailer out for a spin. Since Susan doesn’t have a bike yet, we attached the stroller converter, loaded in the kids, and went for our first family walk in the new neighborhood. It was a nice walk followed by a grill-out/hang-out in the backyard. We had a fire in the fire pit and a fire in the grill.

The kids played in their recently completed ‘snow house’. We started building it a couple days ago and Susan and the kids finished it today. It is cool, but in the traditional American style I want to build a bigger one next time. They also put together a nice snowman in the back yard, whose name is Andrew Mari Elliot. Both the house and the snowman should last a while, as temps are supposed to be pretty low over the next few days.

Also, someone stole one of my license plates. I guess I have to get my IA plates now.

We went to a fun craft event at the Ames Waldorf School this morning. It was about a 45 minute drive up, but definitely worth it. Susan needle-felted a mouse, and Andrew and Mari worked on some needle-felting projects of their own. I assisted and Elliot played with the toy kitchen.

Hopefully we will be able to attend more of their events. It felt great being in a Waldorf classroom again.