As the weather has become more and more lovely we have been spending more time outside. You know, we only have a small chance for loveliness here before it just becomes sweltering hot.

If you have walked up to my front door before then you have probably seen empty floor pots. They sit there, empty, because my thumb isn't green, it's black. When people have bought me plants Jeffrey says "Why would you do that to a plant?"

And, well, he is right.

But just like every year I decided I would give it another go. This time I thought I would try seeds. Somehow the thought that I can't keep already blossomed plants alive didn't cross my mind while in the check-out line.

Anyhoo, we had a great time digging out all of the dead leaves and yuck from the pots and then aerating the soil. I love to let the kids help. I am just hoping that they will have been passed on the planting gene from my grandma. We planted one package of seeds and only after the rock like looking seeds had been planted and covered did I see on the inside of the package that they wont germinate until next year. We were robbed. It said nothing of the sort on the outside. I had purposefully chosen something I thought would grow quickly because I had made this a part of circle time with the kids. Oh well, the kids and I laughed about it and moved onto the next package of seeds.

Wild onions.

Yes, that's right wild onions. An odd choice I know but they bring back fond memories of playing in the backyard/woods with my little sister. We thought we had our own cooking show. Maybe you saw us on cable. I was looking forward to seeing little green sprouts of green in 7 - 10 days. I told the kids to check out the pots every time we left the house to see what was happening in there.

In the next couple of days we had rain. And when I say rain I don't mean we had a nice little sprinkle, I'm talking gushing siren inducing wind and rain.

Much like me the kids like the idea of something for the first few days and then the newness quickly fades and you forget. A week later I noticed my lack of green sprouts. And then another week. I blamed it on the rain and not my black thumb. And then because nature wanted to thumb her nose at me grass began growing in my pots. Great.

A few days later, I'm nothing if not a procrastinator, I went to pull them up and noticed it wasn't grass it was my onions growing. It grew. I actually grew something! But sadly I didn't get to share this news with my kids because they were resting. See how I didn't say napping. We are having napping problems from time to time. And of course, being the forgetful person I am, I forgot to share this very exciting news with the kids. About the onions not the napping, trust me they know they aren't napping.

We have also been spending a lot of time outside while I am painting Bear's bed.

Neither one of the other kids was big on the play pen, oh wait, no one calls it that anymore seeing as it sounds like it's fit for a dog, I mean the pack-n-play but Timothy does just fine. Really, he has been a trooper. He just loves throwing all of his toys out and watching the kids throw them back in. From time to time the kids would stray to long to far away and I would have to ask them to come play close to him again so he didn't feel left out. Since they love their little brother they didn't mind and the situation worked out wonderfully. Just about the time he would get re-interested in his toys or the world around him the kids would go of on some adventure like finding rocks or "pee-cans" as Bear likes to call them. No one be jealous. We don't really have pecan producing tree in our yard, they are really acorns and he knows that, it's just that "pee-can" is so much more fun to say. Bear loves to gather up a whole bunch and then take them over to the concrete and smashing them. I love being the mom of boys. No sarcasm there, it's really great!

Kati on the other hand loves to color with chalk and run threw the grass picking weeds, umm, I mean "flowers". And from time to time I find wilted dead weeds, umm again I mean flowers, on my dresser, their dresser, the bathroom, the laundry, just about any ol' place. She just loves plants. She even likes that weed that looks a little like short green wheat. Maybe it doesn't look like wheat but that's what I always thought it was as a kid. She likes to pick them and rub it on my arm to show me how soft they are. Nature makes her happy. So imagine her delight when she found grass that smelled just like onions.

That's right she picked nearly all of my onions. Well, I guess there is always next year.