Since I've been extremely busy, I've decided to do a quick post to let all of you in on why I haven't posted in a while. It was my second week home and I'm back into the swing of things.
Here's a little of what's been going on around here.





We began our week with Kosta appearing TV early Sunday morning. It was a lot of fun to watch, his sense of humor is amazing. I did record it, however, not all of it. I missed the last half of the interview because I ran out of tape. Yes, I have an analog video camera so I'm still doing things the old fashioned way. You can hear Gigi barking and the kids whispering, it's classic.





As soon as he returned home that morning, we set off for a picnic. The weather was gorgeous, the kids played games and we enjoyed live music. Beautiful day.







Within the week, we explored in our yard. The weather has been so beautiful, we've already started to eat outside.









We celebrated Foti's fifth birthday. He brought his favorite lemon cake to school to share with friends and we had another waiting for him at home. I love that he wanted me to bake his cake!

I've noticed that the figs have already started to grow.

Our lilacs are in full bloom.

Asproula is happy here. We are keeping her. Kosta was out shopping one day and he came home with a collar. She's ours. She loves it here and we love her. The nicest part of this whole story is that she chose us. We're lucky.

The kithonia(quince) trees have blossomed. Out of all of the fruit trees that we have, these are my favorite blossoms.

We've had a few visitors and have seen a lot of our neighbors, especially since the weather has been so nice. We've been lucky enough to receive a lot of gifts this week. What gifts?

Well, when you live here it's typical to give and receive on a regular basis. For instance, if a neighbor has extra eggs from their chickens, they usually share them. I like to give my lemons to the neighbors and friends since none of them have their own lemon trees. In Milwaukee I have excellent neighbors that share as well, it's just that none on them have chickens! I'm so thankful for all of the generosity that we're surrounded with. Here's what we've received this week...

4 loaves of tsoureki

30 eggs

5 heads of marouli (romaine lettuce)

tangerines in syrup

a bottle of homemade white wine

How's that for genorosity? All of this came from 5 different families.

Since tomorrow is Easter, my in-laws are going to be arriving with even more goodies. I'm sure that there's another tsoureki on its way and hopefully, a karythopita!

Have a fantastic weekend and KALO PASCHA!!

Looking for a Poppy

After weeding my 16 rose bushes and planting a few flowers & seeds yesterday I felt a little stressed and I was crabby. I think that's because I usually view gardening as refreshing and therapeutic. Yesterday, however, it wasn't. Alexandra kept attempting daredevil-like stunts and would go missing from time to time. I had to keep getting up to find her. Gigi kept trying to dig in the freshly worked soil around the flowers that I planted. She also kept pouncing on Alexandra when they were playing but knocked her over a few times only to make her cry. It's amazing to watch a toddler and a puppy fight. Foti wanted to watch a movie inside, then he wanted juice...and pudding...he needed assistance in the bathroom...he wanted to go in the basement to see his dad...he wanted to play outside...he wanted to go back inside. His shoes were off & on at least 5 times within an hour. Izabella was whining because she couldn't figure out what she wanted to do, it was the same with her- in & out. Finally, I tried to redirect their attention and it worked. I had Iza help me with planting and watering. I gave Foti the job of watering the planted seeds. Finally, I gave Alexandra a spoon from the kitchen and a pot of dirt. She was thrilled. Everyone was busy and I finished my work.

As I was cleaning up Izabella asked me if I had seen the one poppy that was growing in the back by the garden. I said "yes, but I thought that it had lost its petals already". She insisted that there was another one so we went to look for it. Iza also mentioned that she could tell that I needed to take a little walk around to relax-and that I needed to bring my camera to take a picture of the poppy. Aren't kids perceptive? So here are somethings that we noticed on the way to find the lone poppy...

A Hummingbird Hawk-moth... It took me about 10 tries to get this shot. We have a lot of arugula that's flowering and it's always full of bees, butterflies and these little cuties.

The one poppy that we were looking for. It might be the only one in bloom for now, but there are a lot more on the way.

Our quince(kithonia) trees have blossomed. I hadn't noticed until I walked through the yard with her. (please excuse the huge, dead branches behind Iza-still cleaning up & gathering wood from the major pruning event)

The blossoms from the quince trees are just beautiful!

The walnut tree is blossoming.

The apple trees are in full bloom.

We also found a green catepillar that Iza put in her bug jar in hopes that it'll turn into a butterfly. To be honest, I can't tell if it's a catepillar or just a worm but we'll see.

Iza was thrilled to take this little walk with me and I was more than happy that she suggested that we look for that one little poppy. She helped me out of my funk and I'm so grateful. She redirected my focus...just as I had redirected hers earlier. I was refreshed and ready to make dinner, which she said was the best that she'd ever had! (talk about boosting mommy's ego!)