My Strawberry

This year is the first year we've attempted to plant and care for a garden, so far so good. Early this spring Kylie, Grandma Payne and I went to nursery to buy some herbs and vegetables to plant in the garden. I told Kylie she could pick something that she could take care of in the garden. After telling her such phrases as "no, that's too hot, you won't eat it" to "what is that?" Kylie decided that a strawberry plant would be hers to nurture and watch grow. Returning home we planted the plants with such care paying special attention to the placement of the strawberry plant.

My days after work consisted of racing Kylie out the back door, to our little haven to see what has happened in the past day. On one of these occasions into the garden, Kylie spotted one little green berry growing on her plant, she couldn't contain her excitement "Dad, I have a STRAWBERRY!!!!", so then the cycle started.

Every day she would caress that strawberry, speak soft, sweet words of encouragement to her little green berry. Eventually, that strawberry grew bigger and bigger till it was about the size of her thumb, except one dramatic change excited her even more "Dad, its PINK!!!” I can now see her mouth starting to water just imagining the sweet flavor of a strawberry.

Finally, her little green berry matured into a red, plump juicy strawberry, I told Kylie one more day and that berry is hers, she wasn't too happy but understood none the less.

The very next day, it was strawberry eating time, I came home from work with Kylie in tow, let the dogs out while Kylie was getting the shears out of the drawer so she could snip her treasure off the vine. We both stepped outside, and all of a sudden I heard the little angry voice yell "Sid, get out of the garden". As I look up, I see Kylie running toward the garden as fast as she can, but I also see that Sid is chewing furiously on something, my heart sinks, I know EXACTLY what has happened. Before I could say anything, Kylie in the most disappointed voices says "SID! That was MY straaawwbeeerrrry"

Thank goodness for the little girl in the tennis shoes.

Today was pajama day at Ky's school. She gets so excited about pajama day.. I guess I would too, after all, you get to wear your PJ's all day. Well, Ky got some new slippers about a week ago. They are pink with the words "Girls Rock" on them, very cute and she loves them. Well, she was so excited to wear her new slippers to school today and had them on all morning. I made her change out of them into tennis shoes so that she didn't get the slippers dirty outside. I told her she could put them back on at school.

Well, we got all the way to school (about 5 miles from home) when Kylie realized she had left her slippers sitting on the chair at home. She immediately burst into tears. I was already late for work and could not return home to get the slippers. I tried to explain this to her but she still cried all the way into school. As we walked down the hall everyone noticed her little red, teary eyed face. I felt like the worst mom in history.

Walking into the class room all the little girls had their fluffy princess slippers, their Hanna Montana slippers and even their cheetah looking slippers.. except for one other little girl. Holly happened to be wearing the EXACT same tennis shoes that Kylie was wearing. As I hugged Kylie and told her I loved her and goodbye, I asked her if she was going to be okay today. She said that she would be fine if she could just stand by Holly today, to which her teacher approved.

As I drove to work I thanked whatever powers were watching over me today for the little girl wearing the tennis shoes.

Anyone have about 40 minutes?

As 5 year olds do, ours has a unique way of understanding everything perfectly...

Kylie joins us in the kitchen to spark up conversation about her new finding of the "clock" in the bathroom.

"Hey Mom, you know that clock on the floor in your bathroom?"

"Um, yeah."

"Well I am forty minutes!"

Oh, how would it be to not have to worry about any extra "minutes" you might have?

The Goof Troop

Yup, here I am with Kylie; what a goofy lookin pair. Laurie always gets mad cause I can't do a real smile for a picture, this pretty much sums up our life; what is life, without the fun? This picture was taken at Disneyland California Adventure, we suprised Kylie with a trip there for her 5th birthday. We told her before we left on the airplane that we were going to get her birthday present, and it started with a 'D', she assumed it was a dog.... haha, little did she know.

Intro

Well, here we go. Let me introduce the 2 of the most important people in my life. My gorgeous wife Laurie, and our beautiful, 5 year old daughter Kylie. We all have life stories about trials, tribulations and triumphs; I want to share ours. Stories go unnoticed unless they are told, this is my medium to tell ours. I've been inspired by my family to do this, lets hope its successful.