Birthdays, Plants and Swallowtail Shawl

Today was Hubby's birthday #44, which sure impressed the kids. It might as well be 144 where they are concerned! lol You would think it was a national holiday the way they have been excited! Besides a couple books and music that he likes, I got him some long sleeve shirts from LL Bean where I could get them long enough for his LONG arms! I also got him a non-pill fleece vest for our trip to Alaska along with a small first aid kit, bear bell and other survival essentials to carry in the pack when we are photographing in Alaska, Lord willing this summer.

I apologize for the lousy pictures. I am still working on learning how to resize in PS Elements 6. Actually I know how to resize, however, I just haven't figured out what will give a clear image in a small size. Anyway, we were at Costco and tried to get one of Hubby's favorites, Gummi Bears, but they were out or don't carry them, so the kids got him a box of his favorite candy bar. Poor guy has been eating whole wheat everything and has been quite a trooper so I can't begrudge him a treat every once in awhile. Hopefully this box will last awhile.

Yesterday after church we went out for Mexican food, which is Hubby's and my favorite, however it wasn't very good. So tonight we had another birthday meal... we grilled NY steaks (should I tell my friends who are buried in snow that we grilled outside in shirt sleeves?!) and I made roast potatoes. Dessert was hot fudge sundae cake, but I won't be sharing that recipe on Wellness Wednesday any time soon! This was actually the first time since Christmas that we used white flour and white sugar. (And we haven't really missed it!)

This is A, D and J with our current school project. We are studying about plants for science this spring. These are the seeds we planted on Thursday. On the left are 20 peat pots with mixed annual seeds. On the right, 6 Hollyhocks have come up and in the middle we have no progress on our Columbine or Foxglove. We also have some sunflower seeds beginning to root. We are all having fun with this project.

Last but not least, this is my progress on the Swallowtail shawl. I don't think you can tell in this photo but after the light blue and raspberry there is a bit of brown before it goes to green. I was pretty apprehensive about this as brown is NOT one of the colors I like much. But I decided to be brave and leave it in.. The yarn goes from the green back to brown, raspberry and then into the blues, grays etc again, before going back to the brown, raspberry and green. I am halfway the first chart of bobbles. This is the slowest I've knit on a Swallowtail shawl, but that's because I have had lots of distractions.