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7.01.2011

The Lemon Tree

The second Mike saw his first california lemon tree in a cute little CA neighborhood lawn, he knew he wanted a lemon tree. I’ve been hearing about it ever since and I love that he wanted one so bad. Unfortunately a mature lemon tree runs about $300+ and we’re not exactly the kind to stay in a place for 5 years waiting around for a seed we planted to bear fruit. So when we saw these mature lemon trees for sale at costco for only $50, we got one!! Since it was a saturday and costco wasn’t going to wait for us to drive home and get our truck, and it was the very last lemon tree they had (that looked healthy), we shoved it into our subaru.

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Then a few weeks later we were picking our first lemon! (It was already growing on the tree when we bought it, a major selling point Smile)

Atlas got the honors

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mmm yummy guacamole : )

Yard Work & The Little Helper

Mike has always wanted a yard to fix up, and now we have so much more than we can handle! He’s done a lot, the biggest project of all so far being the removal of 6 stumps after chain sawing the tree down (yes ladies, I let my husband buy a chainsaw, and he’s all the more manly for owning one, or so he thinks). Before removing the stumps, there was some shoveling to be done, which Mike did a little bit of everyday for about a week until he could finish he project on the weekend. Atlas was very helpful with this!

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Seeing what daddy was doing, he started collecting sticks too. He even tried to put them in the compost bin all by himself. He couldn’t reach…

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We have really great neighbors! Anytime we’re doing a project outside and it appears that we’re going to need some help or equipment, somebody comes over and offers that help! We had no idea how to get the stumps out and after mike spent a few days stabbing them with his shovel, one of our neighbors offered his removal chain thingy. Which work very well.

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The last stump!

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Mike tore out the totally out of control Ivy and discovered a cool cement planter box, with levels! Never would have guessed that was there. Herb garden here we come!

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Mothers Day at Filoli

If you haven’t been and you live in the area….you seriously need to check this place out. It’s a Mansion built by a Gold Miner back in the day, and the mansion is a.ma.zing! But I don’t even know if that’s the coolest part. The really crazy part is the 650 acre gardens! totally unreal.
Then Mike made us what he thought to be all of my favorite foods (pretty much right) guacamole, pizza, steak and potato and bacon and onion shishkabobs, and tator tots wraped in bacon (no I’d never had that before….) and lemon aide. Yum!
P.s. I’m trying this skydrive album thing for the first time…we’ll see how that works out….

Random Cuteness

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Lately when we’re cooking Atlas demands that we give him the apron and a cooking utensil. At least he wants to help : )

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Atlas’ first Nursery craft! That’s right, he’s a nursery super star! He actually started going when he was 16 months, we were supposed to just be staying with him so that he could get used to it, but he was so thrilled with everything he could not have cared less if  we were in the room, so they told us we could just totally leave him alone even though he wasn’t age yet (18months). Now when I go to pick him up he’s a little disappointed to leave all of the fun that’s going on. Once he tried crawling into a large toy box when I showed up. Oh dear, like we don’t have toys at home! I’m glad he’s such a good boy though and its nice for neither of us to be roaming the halls all day in church! Although I’m in Primary, but I do get one Sunday off a month where another lady teaches my class so I get to be with the Adults and no Atlas that week : )

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This is from about a month ago, but I just stumbled up it and had to post it! I remember spending hours and hours playing in boxes with my sister! One of these days Atlas and I will build a fort, but for now he thoroughly enjoys crawling through the costco sized diaper box.

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Another one about two months old. But look at that cuteness right?!

Just Summer Stuff


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A lovely bike ride through Atherton, the so to speak Beverly Hills of the Bay, just three miles from where we live not to say that our home is at all Beverly Hills, with its doors that shut only during certain months of the year….) You’d be surprised what can happen within 3 miles….
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double <3
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I tell no lie: neither I nor Lily’s mother had any idea he was taking this lovely shot of her! You can see me in the chair behind her, and her mother in the chair to the right. Apparantly he’s figured out the camera all on his own!
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Then he turned the camera around and there are seriously about 10 pictures like this, and then 10 more with his finger over the viewfinder, not quite pro photog yet.
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One of Mike’s Mission Companions (Texas Fort Worth – Spanish) lives about 3 hrs North of us and they came down for the weekend to hang out. It was a lot of fun! We went to the beach for part of a day and although cloudy (Half moon Bay…whats new??) it was super enjoyable.
I wish I’d gotten a picture or video of it, but apparently Atlas’ new lady charming technique is exposing his belly. The two of them were sitting on his little couch together, looking at each other, Atlas had his arm casually over the back of the couch, and then suddenly for no apparent reason he just slowly took his other arm and slid his shirt up over his protruding belly, then just stared at her with his little look. It was hilarous seriously. And then he did it again tonight at the store! A baby we don’t know was wanting to play with him, so he slid his shirt up and looked at her, waiting for her reaction, then she laughed and smacked him right on the belly! It didn’t hurt, he loved it Smile.
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If only Atlas would have chowed down on the Spaghetti as Adelaide did….