Young Environmentalists

A few weeks ago Benjamin started asking to plant a tree in our backyard. I can't remember how it started. We must have had some conversation about the positive impact trees can have on the environment or some similar tree-hugger type conversation I'm always trying to have with my kids. Start brainwashing them young! Anyway, he got excited about the idea and asked every day when we were going to plant our tree. I figured, how hard could it be? Dig a hold, put in the tree, fill it back up! Sure, Benjamin, let's plant a tree! Luckily I had the foresight to wait until a Saturday when Kelly could join us or we would never have gotten past the dig-a-hole stage. Our backyard is apparently all clay once you go more than a few inches down. So Benjamin and I dug a little and poor Kelly dug a lot, but the whole family had a great time planting our little oxygen replenisher and now if I can remember to water it, we might stand a chance of it growing! By the way, it's lilac (my choice) so it's beautiful and sweet smelling too. A win-win! It was cute to see Benjamin so very excited about all that went into the process (which had far more steps than I anticipated.)

Dig the hole.


Fill with top soil (from our compost bin - go us!)


Add some bone meal as fertilizer


Water generously (Benjamin's favorite part)


Put tree in and refill with dirt (Bella's favorite part)


Water again (and again and again, if you're Benjamin)


Surround the whole thing with fencing so it survives the night in our rabbit-infested backyard.


Smile proudly at your effort to save the earth.


Many have asked for pictures of me and my ever-expanding belly and I refused. However, one of the ladies I visit teach is taking a photography class and begged me to let her photograph me and my kids to give her practice taking portraits. She promised to delete any I didn't like and give me copies of all of them. It was an offer I couldn't refuse. So, I invited her over, got my kids all cleaned up, did my hair, etc. We were all ready and waiting when I got a text saying she wasn't doing well and was at the doctor's. What do we do now? The kids had gotten really excited about the idea of pictures, so I decided we'd do our own. We went in our backyard and the kids took turns taking pictures, I took some pictures, and we used a tree branch as tripod and took some timed shots. Some didn't turn out too bad! So here, at 2 days to my due date, are a couple pictures of me and my darling kids.




Finally, my favorite picture of Benjamin from this past week. This week my German mom's club met at a member's house who has a swimming pool in her backyard. (In addition to the 3 playstructures, sand box, kiddie pool, slip-n-slide, t-ball set, etc. etc. We all joked she should rent out her backyard for birthday parties). Benjamin spent pretty much the whole afternoon in the pool and this picture so perfectly captured his excitement. He's become so fearless in the water - especially for someone who still can't swim! We all hated to leave.


Benjamin has three goals he's working on right now - learn how to swim (he can do the strokes, but sinks like a rock if he's not wearing a life vest), learn to ride his bike without training wheels, and learn how to pump by himself on a swing. He practices at least one of these three every day, but progress is slow. Surprising really, considering how quickly he picks up most physical things. He's so incredibly enthusiastic about it, though, that I'm very excited for him. So cute to see him growing so fast.