Hard labor!

Well, this week went by fast...but this weekend seemed to drag on an on! That is because we were prepping for our big Orange Picking Party that is next weekend. The premise of this party is we invite our friends over to help us pick our trees we feed them yummy food and provide games and entertainment. Plus the get to take home oranges! The only problem is that it takes us a good couple of weeks doing work to get all the details in order so everyone has a good time.

This weekend we had our baby sitter come for a few hours each day to play with Henry while we slaved away. Saturday mom and I made 8 batches (well, I made 7...then had to leave while she finished the 8th) of tangerine marmalade. Plus, one batch we forgot to add the Suregel...so it is now Marmalade Syrup. I am sure Andrew is not going to complain when we have to make pancakes to use it up. YUM. Saturday afternoon/evening was fun for Andrew and me. One of our friends had a Birthday party at the F1 Race Factory...which is where you get to race Go Carts. I had only done this once before and to be perfectly honest, I didn't see the appeal. This place had very nice go carts that went up to 45 miles per hour. It was more fun that I was anticipating, but it was one of the most stressful 10 minute periods of my life. Andrew, of course, had a good time.

Today was full of yard work, yard work, and more yard work! We have a HUGE yard...and it was not taken care of properly when we were in Oregon. We could probably spend 4-5 more days in our yard working on the sprinklers, fountain, zen garden, pruning, mowing, weed whacking, filling in dog holes...the work seems to never end. Plus we are at war with the family of gophers who moved in while we were gone. They ate through a bunch of irrigation piping. So of course, they had to move when we dug up the piping. Then they moved into one of our raised garden beds...this was when I officially declared WAR! They came up in our asparagus which has been a 3 year in the making crop. So, we put down gopher pellets (which I hate doing) and they moved to our back yard. Which would have been okay, but in two days we had 5 mounds. So, more gopher pellets and they moved to the dog run. Their is only one mound there, but it is literally 2 feet tall...and Andrew told me that he saw a fresh mound by the asparagus...grrr...I don't think these little creatures know who they are dealing with...no body messes with my asparagus! We will have to give it a few days to see if they still attack our asparagus, but I am hopeful they will leave and go live in our neighbor's yard. But the yard is in pretty good shape for a party where the hosts who #1 are at war with gophers and #2 have a 17 month old who still does not sleep through the night. This week is going to be full of me doing little jobs while Henry sleeps (like cleaning off the grill, and setting up the horseshoes and badminton). But we only had to make 3 trips to Lowe's today for miscellaneous items, so it was not too bad of a day.

Henry has started doing a very fake smile when he sees the camera. He scrunches his face up. Andrew asked "can you smile?" Henry said "Uh-huh" (which is they only affirmative answer we get) and smiled like this. I am sure in the months to come you will be seeing many more pictures with this expression. Plus, I got to hear him say a new word today..."Dinosaur". Which I have been told he could say, but have never actually heard him say it. The only thing I seem to hear from his is "Read to me" while he is shoving a book in my face and "I'm done now" which he usually does when I am on the second or third page of said book. The then promptly turns around and gets another book off the bookshelf and the whole process starts again!