More summer

Last week I had two very full days with births one after the other. Two very cute babies later and then I took a day to recover... My kids are awesome! taking care of each other and Liam and the house for me while I had two very long days.

Then we got to have a fun fourth of July with a visit with lots of friends at a Missionary homecoming, then we went to another friend's house and did BBQ and sparklers. Liam loved them! We got to spend time with two sets of twins - two different families - one set just turned 4 and the others are 6 months. It was a lot of people and We all had a great time! It was fun to get to know people a bit better.

On saturday we attended the Baptism of a sweet girl that has become a friend. The girls were called on to participate - "M" asked them last week to help with prayers and a talk. Rebekah gave a really great talk on the Holy Ghost. And the others said prayers in front a pretty large crowd. You might not think of my girls as shy, but they don't like to be in front of a crowd, so they did great and I was proud of them.

I've been eating tomatoes and zucchine, yellow squash and cucumber from my garden. This week we have noticed a couple of cantalope and pumpkins that have begun to grow. My corn has silks on it and is growing cobs. My carrotts look great fron the top... there are definitely too many too close together so I've started pulling a few here and there. The little carrots we've pulled are actually quite tasty and sweet. I can't wait for the others to grow (now that we've given them some room). Now I need some additional recipes for the harvest I'm going to get out of my garden.

Float like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee!

My garden is growing like gangbusters... I started my garden a bit late, but it is showing great promise. I have had a few tomatoes ripen so far, and they were very tasty. I have tons of green tomatoes that I don't know what I will ever do with them all when they ripen at the same time!!! The beans are growing and the vines are sretching all over the place. I have begun some 'organic' methods of keeping my vines reaching upward. I have thee tall trees in the back against the fence and there are a lot of dry branches, so I've been using them to stake up my garden plants. It might look a bit funny with all these branches sticking up out of my garden, but I am using what I have available and it seems to be helping. The corn is just about to send up tassels, and there are tons of flowers on my zucchine, squash and cucmbers, and a few small little squash beginning to grow. I'm a bit afraid of all the flowers and vines on the pumpkins... they are going to take over my yard, not to mention the garden!!! We certainly wont' have any need to go to a pumpkin patch this year! We may begin to chare admission to the neighborhood to come to our little pumpkin patch...

Yesterday I was out checking on the garden and the bees were busy pollinating and buzzing about... and eventually I began to feel my finger throb and looked at it and it was swollen and bruised. I guess I got stung by a bee. It was my first bee sting ever. I didn't see or feel a bee in my hand, but somehow... I managed to get stung on the inside of my little finger. It is still a bit swollen, and and it feels tight when I bend my finger. Sariah stepped on a bee earlier in the week, and it is still quite swollen and tender, and it is itching like crazy... does anyone have any suggestions? Of course it's friday, and now I'm sure I won't be able to get it seen until monday, if it is still bothering her then.

We have had a busy couple of weeks, and the three older girls are getting ready for grils camp. They will be going next week. It is Sariah's first year at camp, and Probably Rebekah's last year. I won't have three girls at camp again until it is Sariah, Hannah and Marissa. I hope they all have a wonderful experience... I loved girls camp when I was a youth.

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary...

I am not someone that anyone would describe as having a green thumb! I see people who enjoy working on their garden or their flowerbed's and they look fabulous! Each year as spring starts and the flowers begin to pop up from the ground and dot the earth everwhere I turn, I look at my yard and it is boring, boring, boring. The people who lived here before had shrubs, green shrubs... Big shrubs, little shrubs, all shrubs. I wanted some COLOR!!!!! So I began to pull some of the shrubs! I have had a little help, and of course the one's tht have previously died were a lot easier to pull out than the ones with strong root systems. But now we've transplanted a few things, and planted some others. I still have LOTS more to do, but I am pretty happy with what I've done so far. When it all starts growing well, and my yard is awash with Color!!!!

I made these step stones last Oct. with the kids (I only got three of them done, since the three big girls went somewhere that day... we'll have to get to them one day soon). So I decided to put them into my new flower gardens.

While Amanda and I were working, Liam got himself a can of Sgetio's (spageti-o's) from the garage shelves.l. I guess he got hungry.

My Garden is growing! Yippee! I'm so excited! I planted some stuff from starter plants, tomatoes, peppers, squash; but I planted several other things from seeds, and they are growing! yay! I have all these little green sprouts poking up! I can't wait to see what all really grows, and what kind of a harvest we have.

Another week rolls by; how is half the year almost gone?!?!?!?!

This week I've spent several days planting and gardening. I put in a flower bed in my front yard, with the help of several friends and neighbors either helping dig up the grass, offering mulch and soil, weed reducing fabric, or edging they had extra's of, or just directing and supporting my (our) efforts. I think it looks quite nice. I was tired of everyone's houses/yards, having lots of colorful flowers and blooming trees, and my yard just had a lot of boring green shrubs! They planted larger shrubs and bushes, in front of shorter/smaller shrubs and bushes. This year with the drought, and the poor planting they did when they put the plants in years ago, probably when the house was built... they didn't dig big enough holes, and they didn't add top soil, so the roots are still - (after abt. 10 yrs), in a small little knotted bundle, and roots growing on top of the ground, three of my shrubs have died! so i'm getting rid of some of them, and i'm going to put in colorfu; flowering bushes. I also got most of my garden planted.

I spent several hours for several days this week working on, sewing, pioneer trek clothes. I spent 4 hours at the church with several other ladies yesterday, and between chasing Liam down, trying to keep him away from the sewing machines, and having him remove teh movies from the computer he was watching, so that I could start it over for him AGAIN over and over and over and over again... I didn't get a whole lot of sewing done! Today Amanda and I worked on it some more, and we now have all four Bonnets, almost finished, and we have two completed apron's with pockets, and part of another apron done. I may actually get these clothes done by the time they need them in less than a month now!

And tomorrow is Sariah's birthday and there is much to do to be ready for it. I hope the weather is good, since they are planning on sleeping in a tent in the backyard! After they go to the pool and swim. I certainly don't have enough room inside for the 14 or so girls she has invited!

Busy week

Last week I planned to make some freezer jam, with strawberries I ordered in bulk from a friend in a food co-op, (the farm called and said they didn't have enough ripe berries to fill the whole order so it would be another few days/or a week). :-)

We had our garden plot put in by our Scouts as a fundraiser. Brother H came and tilled the plot and the boys came and put cotton seed soil in our garden plot. (thank you so much for helping us, Brother H and Brother M, and the boy scouts!) I bought a bunch of seeds (the kids helped me pick out some of them). We'll see how it all goes. We are novices at this whole gardening thing... We are excited, but... I'm a little afraid of how much work it will be! I may have bitten off more than I can chew... literally. ;-) We have carrot seeds, and zuchine, crook neck squash and cucumber, and beans, and pumpkin and today I bought tomato plants. Little grape tomatoes, and Roma's. Yummy! I have other seeds as well but can't think of what at this moment.

Saturday, I got to help a mom at her wonderful VBAC birth! She already had three girls and now she has an adorable son! What fun!

This week was Stake Conference, I missed Sat night, since I was at a birth... Sunday the youth choir sang, so Rebekah and Amanda sat on the stand and sang, and attended two sessions (since our stake is so large and the building isn't, so we have to split the stake for conferences and do it twice).

This week Bill had signed us up for the transition assistance class, to help us plan and prepare for getting out of/retiring from the Army. He is down to just about a year left. With leave etc... he will be finished next year in mid April or the beginning of May. WOW!!! I can't believe that nearly 20 years have come and gone! The class is all day 8-4:30 daily from Mon-thurs. Although Thursday is Take your Child to work day, and Bill's office has activities planned so Bill is going to take them all to that (not Liam - who by Thursday will be MORE than happy to have me home - this is the most I've ever been away from him! Thank you Mrs. J. for helping us out and keeping Liam for us this week!!!). The class and lectures so far have been somewhat informative, moreso for Bill, but I did learn a few things. I hope the next couple of days are interesting at least.

Tonight after we got home, we spent several hours working on our little garden plot, mixing in the soil, and putting a little fence around it to keep the kids out of it I hope! At least when they are just running wild in the backyard, mostly just to show them for sure where it is at; like they don't know... however Liam thought playing in the DIRT was so much fun!!! I need something to help keep him out of it, when he's out there playing, so he doesn't pull up anything before it even has a chance to grow!

the kids mostly just played and jumped on the trampoline. Amanda helped lots. Bill worked really hard trying to get some posts up from the trees in our backyard, to use to hold the fence up around the garden. They were really hard to get out, with the growth from the tree over the years. Soon I'll start planting...

That's the latest from our little corner of the world.