Family Photos

We had family pictures taken this past Saturday by our friend Tysha Carter. She has started her own photography business Little Red Wagon Photography and she is amazing! Rob and I are very pleased with the way the photos turned out. Miraculously, Tysha was able to take some shots with the entire Egbert clan looking and smiling at the camera. Rob and I hadn't really thought through how difficult this task of photographing our boys was going to be until we were in the car on the way to the shoot. We realized that Jasper hadn't eaten a good breakfast and was a bit antsy and needing to run around, Gid was falling asleep and due for his morning nap, and neither Rob or I had taken time to eat breakfast ourselves... I thought it would be impossible to get both Gid and Jasper simultaneously happy, but Tysha did it. Thank you so much Tysha! You'll be seeing us again in a year or so for sure!

Here's just a few of the photos (I'll put some more up in a week or so):
http://littleredwagonphotography.blogspot.com/

Our garden

We are p-patchers. We love our garden. It's our special thing we do together as a family. I love having this place where we go together and get all dirty and do some hard physical labor and work together as a team. This is our fourth season at Picardo p-patch. I feel like we are really getting the hang of things this season. When we started, our plot had some wonderful perennials that we inherited- asparagus, a lavender bush, a rosemary bush, sage, oregano, and thyme. We have contributed our own perennials too- autumn gold berries from my Grandpa Bob, raspberries, rhubarb, purple fingerling potatoes, and dahlias. Each year has been a new learning experience for us. I remember we grew a lot of lettuce and spinach our first year (a super easy, no fail, no brainer for Seattle), our second year we planted tons of tomatoes and basil (a super adventurous, somewhat risky endeavour for Seattle), and the third year we tried artichokes and brussel sprouts (the artichokes nearly took over our plot). Each year we've grown peas and carrots too. This year we have planted (from seed) swiss chard, spinach, carrots, peas, and lettuce. Our new adventure this year is strawberries and pumpkins! We planted the strawberry starts last week and they look fantastic. We are going to grow our own pumpkins to carve and eat. We will plant the seeds this week and the next. We are going to try two varieties- a sweet pumpkin and a white pumpkin. Fun, huh?

The best part of gardening this spring has been Jasper. He loves our garden. He asks to go to it every single day, I kid you not. And, honestly, he is really helpful. We've worked really hard to teach him where to dig and where not to step. He helps pull weeds and waters all the tiny, baby plants very carefully. He and I went last Friday and he did all the watering for me. It was great. Peter, Paul and Mary sing a song called "the garden song" and we listen to each each time before we go and Jasper and I dance around the living room and get ourselves pumped up to go.

Here are some pics of our garden:

Jasper watering the baby lettuce plants


Rhubarb


from top to bottom- autumn gold berries from Grandpa Bob, potato trench, peas, carrots, and asparagus popping up in the middle


Strawberries and oregano


Jasper at work

Sunny Seattle

Today was a beautiful day. Tomorrow is supposed to be even better. I'm so happy that spring has finally arrived. This seems like one of the longest winters of my life.

Our plan for this morning was to go work at our community garden p-patch. I got the boys and myself dressed- overalls, boots, sunhats, shovels, seeds, the whole works. We were ready to walk out the door when I realized I couldn't find my keys. I looked and searched. I asked Jasper where they were and he said "in the night kitchen" (one of his all time favorite books). I called Rob at work and he said that Jasper had been playing with them earlier in the morning. I asked Jasper again and he said the same thing. I looked for my keys for an hour and a half!! No keys anywhere. Finally, I decided to stop looking and pick up the house instead. As I was picking up Jasper's room, I found them underneath a diaper cover that was on the floor that I swear I'd looked under two times already.

Anyway, we ended up getting out of the house by 10:30 and going to BF Day playground. It was so much fun. Jasper is really starting to notice and play with Gideon. It fills my heart with such happiness. Here are some pictures from the morning:







Jasper's hair is incredibly curly. Here is a good close up of this row of ringlets along his neck, but it still doesn't quite give them justice. When I get his hair wet in the bathtub, it is way past his shoulders:

Tom Wales Memorial Run

On Saturday, I ran in the Tom Wales memorial 5K. It felt so great to run in a race again! The last race I ran was four years ago when we lived in DC. I love that feeling of seeing the finish line and giving it your all the last 200 yards or so. My time was okay, definitely a starting point that I can improve upon. Jasper got to run in a 1/4 mile kids' dash too. He was the youngest kid that ran and he did awesome! He spent the first couple of minutes trying to figure out what to do as he watched all the kids take off but he figured it out eventually and ran the entire distance.

Jasper's race:




Sara's race: