We had a breakthrough with Allison this week.  On Monday, her first day of Spring Break, she stayed dry all day!  Sandy was in charge of her at daycare (they swap off between Sandy, her husband Steve, and their daughter Marie as to who is 'in charge' of Alli - she admits Steve isn't nearly as concerned about toilet-training as she is) and she kept Alli on a schedule for toileting, and she was dry all day!  They even went to see Rio 2 at the movies and for a picnic at the park that day!  She even stayed dry for me that evening (and i am no where near as good as Sandy about scheduling!)  We haven't had the same success through out the week, but....if it happened once, it can happen again!  She did go through fewer diapers and is taking herself more often to the bathroom, so.....something is working for her!

They have kept Alli busy this week at daycare.  They are going to the park for lunch, to the movies, egg hunting in the back yard, lots of Easter crafts, etc.  Whatever the kids are doing, Sandy makes sure Alli is doing it too, as much as she can.  Unfortunately, neither one of us really thought about Spring weather - she came home yesterday sunburned.  They had been in and out of the house all day hunting Easter eggs, and dancing in the back yard, etc.  Time to bring out the sunscreen every morning after her shower!

Penney's sent me a $10.00 off shoes or jewelry coupon yesterday......these followed me home.

There was a little girl that had a little curl.......

When I combed Alli's hair back the other day, I missed one little tendril.  Of course, it curled into a perfect ringlet......

Here's what her hair looked like on Sunday after napping - it looks like I had combed it with an eggbeater!  You would never guess that it used to be in a nice ponytail, would you?

Book club was last night.  We read "A study in Scarlet" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - the first time I've read any of the Sherlock Holmes books.  I enjoyed the book - probably not enough to read the rest of the books though.  I also had no "clue" as to what to make for a bookmark, so.......they got Easter Bunnies.  The front:

The back:

I had started with other patterns, but just didn't like them when they were done.  Too much work, too fussy, too something.  I made one of each, just to see how they would turn out, and....the bunny won.

The next book is The Glass Castle by Jeannette Wall.  I already got the book so maybe I can read it on my flight.  Steve and I fly out Sunday at 9:15 to Nashville!  (That means we need to leave here at 5:15 to get there by 7:15 - bummer on that part!)

The garden is growing nicely.  These photos were taken Tuesday after work.  I have beans -

Lettuce -

Cucumbers -

And zucchini (some of these need to go - that is way too many zucchini plants!)

We had a bake sale for Relay for Life on Friday at work (yes, I'm walking again this year - donations are appreciated!)  We raised $561.00 at our office.  I haven't heard what Placer raised.  I worked the table (below are a couple of photos taken from my level of the building) and sold $60.00 in just that time.  We had to find a box for one lady - she bought one of everything, I think!

And the garden is up!  Okay - there are some hints that the garden is up.  These were taken Friday night.  You can see a sprout from the zucchini....

And the spinach.....

 

Here's the layout.  This box has eggplants at the back, two rows of beans, one row of lettuce and one row of spinach.

This box has four tomato plants......

The other box has two hills of zucchini and two hills of cucumbers.  Since these were taken Friday, quite a few more plants have popped up.  I want to take a few more pictures of them today.

Finished!  The last of the Thimbleberry quilts is done -  at least the last one I'm going to do!.  I have one more started, but it is so "not matching up" that I will probably never finish it.  I didn't like this one either at first - too much orange.  It still is a lot of orange, but....I like it better than I thought I would.

I got my garden in - I have 4 tomato plants (two yellow, two red) in one raised bed, and then I planted lettuce, spinach, bean and eggplant in one, and two kinds of cucumbers (lemon and regular) and zucchini (green and yellow) in the other.  I should be overflowing with veggies this summer.

Another shot of my flower garden.  The tulips are about done, but they have been so pretty!  I need to plant some more bulbs this year - I do love the color in the spring.

Today is garden planting day.  Yesterday, Dawn and I went to Turtle Bay's Nursery and picked up 4 tomato plants, and I picked up seeds a couple of weeks ago. The long range weather forecast doesn't have any frost warnings, so....today's the day!  Yesterday, AJ mowed the lawn for me and sprayed the weeds.  This place looks pretty good!  I'm not looking forward to doing my own mowing in a couple of months.  AJ was reminding me of that yesterday - ugh!  (And, the US Navy is deploying ships to Japan as a result of the threats of North Korea - again, ugh!)

I did have a nice mother/son bonding day yesterday though.  AJ sat with me through "Field of Dreams" and somewhere in the conversation it came up that he wanted me to play catch with him so he could get used to throwing the softball.  Yes, I still throw like a girl, I still have a fear of the ball, and I still can't catch worth a darn, but....I played catch with him.  Even better - the neighbor drove by as I missed a simple catch, and got out of the car as I made a lousy throw.  Now he too knows that I can't play baseball.  (He has kids the same age as AJ and Alli - he probably was wishing his kids would want to play catch with him again, not that he was noticing how badly I play.  At least that's what I keep telling myself!)

The fundraiser went off quite well on Thursday.  The play was excellent, and we had a great turnout.  The theater seats 92 people, and we had 65 +/- in attendance.  (We sold more tickets - some just couldn't make it to the show.)  All in all, we raised almost $1,000 for ACCA - the food shelf in Anderson.  My original number was $956.00, and then when I was cleaning the car out after unloading groceries yesterday, I found an envelope on the floor of the car with another $30 in it - woohoo!!!  That's a lot of food for ACCA.  It was a relatively painless fundraiser - the biggest problem was all the other people at work that had great ideas how we should have done it, but.....all wanted to be a backseat driver - they didn't give us their suggestions up front, just criticized after the fact from the sidelines, which was annoying,  Normal, but annoying.  I think this could be an ongoing fundraiser - but we'll have to see how things work out with the bank.  They may decide that this isn't something they want to do again.

Speaking of fund raisers - we have a bake sale this Friday at work for Relay for Life.  Our walk is the first weekend of June (I think) so we have started raising funds.  I think I'm going to make just plain old chocolate chip cookies - they are the best!  Last year, I made truffle candies, and I may try that again, too.  We'll see - I have a few days to decide - no need to rush!

AJ's team ended up winning the game on Tuesday - barely.  They were ahead by 5, then down by 4 (that was a really bad inning), and won 13-12.  AJ got one good hit, one mediocre hit, and struck out once.  All in all, a good game for him.  It was good to see him playing.  He's still not real comfortable with the other team members, and spends most of his time off the field with me, but.....a lot of the players sit in the stands with their families, so....it's all good.  He's looking forward to moving to Korea.....I'm not sure I am, but, he is.

Tonight is the Bank's buyout of the play "Doubt: a Parable".  Malorie from book club (and in my department at work) is in it, and the bank 'bought out' the theater - all 92 seats.  We then turned around and sold the tickets at a reduced cost ($5.00 off the normal price), with all proceeds benefitting ACCA - the food shelf in Anderson.  It's a win/win - the local theater gets money and another night to perform, and the local food shelf will get between $700.00 and $800.00.  I think we have sold between 70-75 tickets, and Alli's daycare providers are going to go, so there are two more!  We are also doing a 50/50 raffle during intermission, with the funds going to ACCA, and the theater sells wine/beer/sodas before the show and during intermission.  The only down side - I got roped into "helping". I will be on the door taking tickets at 6:30.  I already delegated the 50/50 raffle to two other people in book club, and I talked Dawn into helping at the door - I'm a good delegator!

The cloud passed us by at the baseball game tonigh...

The cloud passed us by at the baseball game tonight. AJ's playing for the bank's softball team and it's cold out there tonight!