My new read...

I checked this fabulous book out from the library. It teaches you how to plan fruit & veggies in pots if you have small spaces. So far I love it! It also teaches how to mix plants so that the soil stays rich, and also how to arrange/combine plants in pots for beauty, not just taste! I'm so excited to get starting on my gardening. :) Hopefully at the end of the summer I'll have some beautiful & yummy photos!

Emma discovers a squirt bottle.

Happy Birthday Jen!

I meant to post this yesterday...HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Shane's sister Jen's birthday was yesterday. We miss her so much. She's the only member of our family that is super far away, and we don't get to see her to often. She's busy planning her wedding, and spending lots of time with her luvy-duvy Josh. We hope you had a great day! :)

Love, Shane, Carrie & Emma

Interesting...

I found this article today on Yahoo...I never know that something like this was underway around the world. Even more interesting was that there were similar ones in Afganistan, Iraq and the Phillipines, but they needed to find a more secure location away from weather/war. I just thought it was cool!

http://green.yahoo.com/news/afp/20080224/sc_afp/norwayarcticenvironmentwarmingcrops.html

Urban Vegetable Gardening

This summer, my plan is to finally do a little gardening. Since we are in a townhouse, with no real yard of our own, I'm looking into learning about container vegetable gardening. If anyone has had some experience with this, please share! I am a beginner, and I'm looking at starting simple.

I'm going to try to grow a few herbs, some tomatoes, and some squash/zuchini. I'm going to have Shane build me some containers that are larger for the tomato plants and their cages and the squash, but I found a website below that had this idea for container gardening in small areas...I thought it looked pretty cool! I might try it of the herbs and lettuce that I'd like to grow in small containers.

You create it out of water/soda bottles and then attach them to some plywood. It creates a vertical growing space, when other space is limited. Pretty cool!







It may look a little ghetto, but I love how it takes up such little space! :) I guess we'll see how much of a green thumb I have as I begin my gardening adventure this spring! :)

Cougar Mountain Park

After Shane got off work tonight, it was still a beautiful day and we went for a little drive. We ended up at the top of Cougar Mountain, and found a fantastic viewpoint. The park is huge and there were only a couple of other people there at the same time, it was very peaceful. Except for the fact that there were large areas where there was a ton of animal hair all over the grass, and some pretty obvious cougar tracks and scratches on the ground. It was making me a little nervous. It was beautiful, though!

Coupon for MAC users!

I've given up on traditional scrapbooking, and at the beginning of each year I create a MAC photo book. The idea came from Jake and AJ. They put together the cutest photo book for their wedding reception. Anyway, since then at the beginning of each year, I do a photo book of all the previous year's adventures. You can journal as well, and then its all put together in one nice hard-cover, professionally printed book. I love it!

Anyway, I was working on the book for last year and they are currently running a coupon for 20% off if you order your books by February 29th. Great deal! The full books are about $100 books if you do the maximum pages, so the 20% really pays off.

Use this code: NAWinterBook08

I miss the creativity of scrapbooking, but love the feeling of accomplishment and closure for just getting it done!

President's Day

Yesterday, the weather in Seattle was amazing--especially for February. We have a week off school right now for mid-winter break, and we had family here for the weekend since Grandpa Lyons is here visiting. We had all the Folkman's together on Sunday night for dinner, which was so fun! It was probably the first time since Luke's wedding that we've all been together. It's been a great weekend.

Yesterday we decided to take advantage of the sunshine and we went to Rainbow Run to do mini-golf. So fun! At first we were a little bummed that we had to pay for Emma...she's still just a baby to us... but as we played it was so worth five bucks to let her haul around her own putter and golf ball. She had a blast. Here are some cute pictures and videos.

We went with Luke & Lindsay, and Jake and AJ. So fun...they had a lot of patience with Emma, who had a hard time making it through all 18 holes.





Here is "Emma's turn!"



Since we live in Seattle, she never sees her shadow. She was fascinated by it yesterday! She spent a lot of time talking to it, watching it and playing with it!

Happy Valentines Day!

Last night, Emma and I enjoyed our Valentine's Day together. We had dinner, and Emma got pink milk. I remember my mom sometimes colored our milk on holidays, and thought I'd try it. Emma thought it was cool, although she really didn't drink that much of it.

We decided to try and make chocolate covered strawberries, and it was really easy! I melted three different kinds of chocolate chips, and then dipped them all! I rolled some in sliced almonds, and others just drizzled with the other two kinds of chocolate. It was really cute! Much easier than I thought it would be. We took some over to my parents to watch Lost on their new TV. It was very cool to watch it in HD! Emma was a little annoying though, since it was way past her bedtime. I'm not sure we'll try that again anytime soon.

It was a fun day...Emma's feeling better and finally getting over her little cold she's had. She actually slept all through the night last night--which is a first in the last week or so. No waking up asking for milk. It was great! :)

My Valentine?

Ode to my Sweetie-Pie!

It's so nice to have a Valentine as sweet as Shane. Here are a few of my favorite things about him...He is such a good man, he works so hard for our family, and is a wonderful husband and a FANTASTIC father. He and Emma have a very special bond, and I'm so glad that they are such good friends already. Everyday when I come home from work, he and Emma are laying on the floor playing, reading books, or just relaxing together. Everyone gets a quick kiss and then he's off to work. We have such a busy schedule that by the time Friday comes around, I just Crave spending time with him. I really miss him when he's not around. Shane is so patient with me, which I know that I don't always deserve, but he is sweet, helpful, gentle and kind. He never raises his voice, and makes me laugh all the time.

I love being in love, and I'm so grateful for such a sweet husband.

Happy Valentines Day!

Storytime with Emma...

Here, Emma will read you "Curious George goes to the Zoo". Below is the script, just in case you have a hard time translating.

"Kangaroo babies"
"Elephants"
"people"
"mommy"
"George"
"gets in trouble"
"Man in Yellow Hat"
"scream"
"balloon back"
"George & bananas"
"dinner"
"The End"

Zach is 20!

My baby brother Zach is turning 20 today! Congratulations on the successful completion of two decades!



(Sorry, Zach, this is the only picture of you I had on my phone) Here he is a while ago, on a fun trip to the ER...he was his normal Zach self and kept the nurses and doctors laughing and on their toes. Here he's becoming faster, stronger...