Views from the Garden

Our garden has been producing so well, it's been such a rewarding experience. The lettuce finished up last week, it went to seed and then tasted nasty. We also ate the broccoli last weekend, so good, and only 1 nasty caterpillar. The tomatoes are doing well, and so tasty. I just can't believe how big they are, we've only got two plants, and they are HUGE. And I love the snap peas. I had no idea that they got so tall, they're about my height now!









We are starting to plan out our spring garden now. I'm looking forward to more lettuce, spinach too this time, cantilope, more tomatoes, zucchini, beans (wax and green), and maybe some sugar pumpkins or spaghetti squash.

One Word

A friend of mine who had surgery is a bit bored while recovering. I don't usually do these, but it's for Claudia.

ONE WORD:
Answer the questions using only one word.

Where is your cell phone? none
Your significant other? handy
Your hair? highlighted
Your mother? vibrant
Your father? jovial
Your favorite thing? wii
Your dream last night? forgotten
Your favorite drink? sonic
Your dream/goal? yard
What room are you in? office
Your hobby? scrapbooking
Your fear? laundry
Where do you want to be in 6 years? teaching
Where were you last night? couch
Something that you aren't? trendy
Muffins? blueberry
Wish list item? roses
Last thing you did? clean
What are you wearing? Limited
TV? old
Your pets? children
Friends? few
Your life? happy
Your mood? content
Missing someone? immensely
Drinking? cocoa
Smoking? tires
Your car? large
Something you're not wearing? shoes
Your favorite store? JoAnn's
Your favorite color? two
When is the last time you cried? reading
Who will resend this? uncertain
My favorite place to eat? home
Favorite place I'd like to be at right now? beach

An Impulse Buy Took Over Our Weekend

My poor husband, he sure loves me. Especially when I least deserve it, but I am so grateful that he does. Let me explain. On Friday I headed over to Costco (it's only 1/2 mile from here) to pick up my pictures and get some more cheese. I was doomed the moment I saw them, I just knew that I wanted them, CITRUS TREES!! And they were only $20 each, I couldn't pass it up, so I did't. I picked up 3 trees, a lemon, an orange, and a lime; they were in great shape, and a couple of years old- the lemon was 5' tall, and the orange and lime were 4.5'. I only had the girls with me, and so I could easily fold the back of the durango down and fit the tree in, no problem-I still need to vacuum out the back panel of my car.

I called Eric when I got home and told him I picked up something at Costco, could he please plant it for me over the weekend? He guessed that I had found a tree, I then corrected him: I had found 3 trees! He was happy when I told him, we've wanted to do this at some point this winter/spring. And he had a 3-day weekend ahead of him.

I just have to say, that I am totally clueless. It never occured to me just how much work digging three tree holes would be. Or the added time of re-laying sprinkler line for each tree (he's only gotten one line done), and mulching the trees. The digging was made worse by the fact that previous owners were a bunch of lazy bones. Instead of removing a small 5'x5' brick patio, they covered it with 6-8-inches of dirt. Whick meant that we had to remove the old, broken bricks and mortar. It wasn't hard, just a pain. The kids had fun though, they liked digging for buried treasure (bricks). Eric also had to remove 2 blue agave and some other huge spiky grass thing, the remaining agave and grass thing will eventually leave too.

It took up much of his 3-day weekend, but I am so happy with the end result. It will be another week before he can get the sprinkler laid and mulch down on the other two. So now, when ever I look upon my citrus (and with every sneeze during their blooom), I'll remember the love that my husband has for me (and I'll remember to be considerate what I impulse buy.)

Maddie's Check-up

Maddie had her 9 month check up yesterday (Davin had his 5 year too). And my, has she grown! Our little girl is just a hair under 20 lbs, and is 28 inches tall. She still has no teeth, which is odd to me since all of the others started getting theirs between 5 and 6 months of age, but that means that I will continue to nurse her for a bit longer. She is crazy mobile, crawling is alright for long distances, but she prefers to be UP. Walking, assisted, is her preferred method of movement. She's gotten to the point of taking a single step, pausing, and then sitting down. She can stand up on her own, but she has to be holding onto something, even if it's just a toy, or Davin's shoe. She's also crazy fast up the stairs (we've got the floor cushions in front of the stairs to block them from baby, but allow access for the older kids). I was washing dishes last week when I had noticed that it was a little too quiet, Maddie was gone. When I didn't find her in the bathroom garbage, I went to look on the landing, and from there I went upstairs. In less then 5 minutes she had gone from the family room, up the stairs, and into the boys room to eat legos. THAT's when the cushions went up, and so far so good.

As for Davin, he's as healthy as a horse. In fact, he IS a horse. 90-95% for weight (48.2 lbs), and 95%-off the chart for height (46.5 inches). Seriously, that kid is HUGE, but very sweet-when he wants to be. I have to go buy him new shoes today, they've gotten too small. I'm afraid that it won't be too much longer before we have an incident at the shoe store between Aidan and Davin similar to one memorable one years ago involving Dan and me. The shoe salesman gave Dan a pair of shoes a half size bigger because we were the same size, and Dan was upset that his little sister had feet as big as him.

(I just HAD to include this pic of my girls dancing together)

A hope for the new year...

Every year I make at least one new resolution, and every year I fail to keep most of them. Oh, I start out alright, like most of us do; but then the drive fizzles out sometime in March/April, and I have totally forgotten about them by mid-summer. Granted, by mid-summer cabin fever has set in and I am lucky to remember my own name. But, I have found that if I write them down, somewhere I will see them on a regular basis, I do better. So, I'll post them on my fridge, and on my sidebar, I should see them at least once a day (or more if I've got ice cream), and then remember what I wanted to do to improve myself.


(I'm writting down my fuller versions here, so I can remember them better)

• To workout more regularly (I don't get to push a 70 lb stroller while keeping up with a kid on a bike to and from school anymore-he is in 3rd grade now), I was happy when I was more mobile.


• To keep my scrapbook with no more than a four month backlog (I'm being realistic here, I'm only 9 months behind right now)


• To hold family and personal scripture reading more regularly


• To try one new receipe each week (I've got enough cookbooks, that shouldn't be too much trouble)


• To be more content with where I am in my life right now (I, far too often, think ahead: to when the kids are older, to when I am finally teaching, to when..., to when..., to when...; I need to enjoy the piles of toys and smudges on the TV screen more NOW)

Christmas Day, Part 2

After the kids opened all of our gifts to them, they had their big gift from Nana and Poppa to open. Instead of doing a seperate big gift/toy for each of our kids, they got them all one big thing to share: a super cool, rotating teeter totter. It has taken them some time to figure it out. But they love it now.

We began a new tradition this year. We've begun having a big Christmas Day dinner. Growing up, I remember several special, BIG meals/events: St Patrick's Day, Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year's Eve. We already do St Partick's Day (mmmm, corned beef) and Halloween here at home, with several of the others spent with Eric's family. So we did our own Christmas dinner of turkey, potatoes, cranberry salad, yams, and green beans, on china, in the dining room. It was fun, and I look forward to doing it again and again.

After dinner (we ate at 3 pm), we went over to Eric's parent's house for the rest of their gifts (the teeter-totter was already at our house). The kids had fun, got more legos, books, pots and pans, clothes, and candy. The adults had fun playing Rock Band for the wii-so much fun. It was a lovely day, enough new toys, and not too many tantrums.

A Rundown of Christmas

Well, here it is. Our long awaited, and much anticipated rundown of our Christmas festivities. Just be prepared, it was all pretty normal and uneventful, I hope you aren't too disappointed.

For us Christmas started on Monday, Eric had the whole week off (he celebrated by taking a much needed nap). It was nice to have him home to help wrangle our children, they all had the week off, and were all a bit crazy with Christmas coming. We spent the better part of our week doing nothing significant whatsoever. We did some food shopping, ate BK for lunch once, played outside, built wonderful Lego things, read, baked cookies, ate cookies, baked more cookies, ate more cookies, worked on projects (oh, wait, no we didn't, we totally neglected any and all real work).

Christmas Eve was fun, a bit long-but isn't it always too long when you have kids? After lunch we let the kids open our family gift-a new game to keep them occupied until the festivities later on. We went over to Eric's parent's house for dinner and the evening's entertainment. A new tradition was started this year-the family talent show. It went about as well as you would expect a show to go with 30 minutes of prep. And Eric's mom did the Christmas story in a fun way for the kids. She's got all of the Little People nativity sets, she took all of the pieces and divied them up into bags for all of the kids. As she told the story, the kids each took turns bringing the correct pieces up to the table with the buildings. The kids were captivated, and it worked beautifully. Afterwards we went home, opened Christmas pjs, pulled a carrot from the garden, and left it, along with the cookies, out for Santa.

Christmas Day went smoothly and was well enjoyed. We toned it down this year, and it was a great success. We had fewer tantrums from overloaded kids, and most importantly, they didn't even notice. They loved their gifts, and were able to really enjoy them. Santa left the boys a super cool Hot Wheels trick track set (along with some new cars in their stockings), Eme got a new fairy snap doll, and Maddie got Abby Caddaby. They all got new books, the boys got legos, Eme got an apron set, Maddie got bath toys. And for our grand finale-R/C's for the boys and even Eme!