Unfortunately...

...what I'm going to remember this Memorial Day weekend is terrible allergies. Finally we get some sunshine that's going to last more than a day or a couple hours and some good warmer temperatures, and all I want is for it to rain! Rain hard, and wash away all this pollen the trees are putting out. Seriously, big yellow clouds of pollen dust are blowing around this place settling on everything and making my allergies go into hyperdrive. My throat is on fire and congestion is coming and going clogging up my ear. I've been sleeping on the couch so I can be upright enough to breathe, but I'm not sleeping for long because I'm taking sudafed to help me breathe and can't sleep until it wears off and then after a few hours I wake up needing to clear my head so I can breathe again. So not fun. Being sick when it's so nice out is the worst. Especially when the nice weather is few and far between and it's a 3-day weekend. Boo!

I'm so thankful for Mike for being the best Dad ever to our girls and pumping up 2 big blow up pools and all their floaty things, and getting ice-cream and dinner for us so at least their weekend has been fun, and I didn't have to cook. Always something to be thankful for. Hope these allergies don't become a regular thing or we may have to move from this place.

It seems like lately the only time I blog is when I'm not feeling so great so I don't feel like doing much else. I guess I am a holiday or sick day blogger. Blogging has been near the bottom of my to do list, but I definitely want to record our family memories. We enjoy going back and seeing the pictures and videos, and it helps us to remember things that have happened when I've written something down. Been meaning to blog about my baby girl turning 5 and about our tulips finally blooming, and now they are fading and I still haven't yet. Since flowers are an easy topic I'll start with that. Look I even took some pictures of stages of growth - I was so excited to see these sprouting up! I'd been waiting all winter for them :)

Our first bloomers

 Cute girl riding her bike

 replacing some dead plants that didn't survive the hard winter

 cute girls painting her toenails

 the new plants on the other side of the driveway

 cute girl playing in the hose rain on a warmer spring day

 little artist at work

 Lily and the girl next door trying out the tool we borrowed from a neighbor to get dead grass and moss out of the yard. It was back breaking work, but our yard needed it. It's crazy how much stuff we were able to pull out - our grass looked like it could breathe again.

 When I was going through my photos and came to this one I thought: Whoa, it's a little me!

 Mini teenager here.

We found a barrel for flowers and Mike rigged up a little sprinkler inside to water them. Nice to have something a little higher in that spot by the stairs, we couldn't plant a tree because of pipes. Wish they made bigger barrels! I love all the beautiful flowers.

 Sierra posing with the flowers, for a second...

It was hard to get a nice picture of the tulips & spring blossoms because they weren't very thick across and so didn't stand out so well against the fence going straight across. They look so beautiful in person, but you can hardly even see them in this picture with Sierra.

 Tried to get some on my phone with the girls per my mom's request and this is what I got ;)

 Figured out we had to go from the side to get the best effect.

 Mike's camera takes such vibrant pictures. I love these he took.

 The girls playing by our one little apple tree. Lily made a swing for Sierra's little doll.

 I love these two best of all the flowers in our garden ;)

These smiles cheer me right up even when I'm feeling pretty miserable :)