Snapshot Saturday

I know that I posted these on our family blog, but they were cute enough to share again.  And I wanted to add to James' post a couple of others to show off his work!  Enjoy and don't forget to check out our blog for even more pictures!

Lots of herbs making our deck look beautiful!

The other window box James built!

Jacob showing off the peaches on the tree!

Just hanging out watching the chickens!  Entertainment and food (eventually).

Feeding the chickens clover.  It is great fun for all!

Photo Friday!

I did this today. I am proud of them. 

Once those plants fill in, the back of our house will be 3% less ugly. :)

A Thursday Photo Friday

We'll be in the car all day tomorrow, so I knew I wouldn't get to it. We're accompanying Justin on a business trip in San Diego. He's going for work, and we're going for the beach :).

Justin suggested I teach the girls how to pick up lots of the
helicopter seeds from our yard and dump them off the deck
to watch them twirl to the ground. It was a huge hit.

She's so proud of her handiwork.

Snapshot Sunday

I am home and doing well, but sleeping at night is apparently something we aren't doing, so I'm a little off.  Here are a couple of new photos for you.  James and the boys did some great planting over the weekend but we forgot to take pictures of the 70 tomato plants, 50 pepper plants and much more!!!!  We'll work on that.  :)

Simon sleeping at the hospital.  I was a little bored (in a good way), so why not take a picture!

Snuggling on the couch at home!

Snuggle time with daddy before church this morning!  

Photo Friday

This was the girls' reaction to the surprise Justin brought home from his trip
 this week. He bought them Amish aprons (he was in Pennsylvania). Priceless.

The aquarium...gotta love the year pass. This is an otter.

Vida decided this was a great toy to give Ava.

Jaime feels really grown up when I hand her Ava and let go.

This is from her morning nap before we headed off for our playdate.

Snapshot Saturday

I've decided that farming life will never be dull which will be good for all of these boys! Someone from James' work had some chickens and got in a little over their heads, so they called and asked if we wanted their 6 chickens.  They are of similar age to our hens, so we thought it would be a great idea.  They had a real mixed bag, so good luck trying to figure out what kind of chickens they are!  :)

There are three different breeds.  They are pretty fun looking!

The new chickens are in a dog kennel in the coop to get to know our existing hens.  We'll see how well they get along later.

Then, today James got to plant his new Hydrangeas in the front beds.  He was excited to work on a project that he wanted to work on and not just one that had to be done because it was urgent.  Joshua helped plant them and then all of the boys pitched in to add the mulch.

And as a perk to helping out Michael got to drive the truck back to the driveway and park it.  He did a great job!  He is just growing up way too quickly!

Michael was very excited to drive the truck and did an excellent job!

Michael and James had mowed the lawn by hand with our push mower last week.  It took them about 3 days to work on it.  They enjoyed it, but our neighbor volunteered to mow it again this summer in exchange for our clover.  James was torn, but I think he will enjoy having a little extra time to work on the gardens.  

And finally we still have soccer.  Jacob loves soccer and did a great job today.  He didn't score but he had a perfect assist and did a great job as goalie!  He is really good at drop kicks.  I think Michael and Joshua have trained him well!

Jacob is in the green/yellow shirt getting ready to deliver a great drop kick!

And there is a fun little update from us!  

Saturday Snapshot

I figure since this did not happen until today I could not have put it in for Photo Friday. 

So we have been debating for some time how to manage our garden with our time and our age.  We had to factor in that the yard is infested with moles so most plants would be dinner for others beside us.  In our Spring clean up and landscaping we took the water feature our of the front, took the rocks from the back putting them in the bottom and, oh can I really admit this, bought soil.  AAGH!  None-the-less, we planted tomatoes, herbs, cucumbers and squash.  it is small but mom can access to care for and harvest and we are looking forward to the fruits of our labors. 

Photo Friday - Hidtorical Edition

OK, so I have been feeling guilty for not posting.  I looked through the phone and decided I need to take more pictures to share.  So, here are some....

Treats with Grandma and Grandpa in January.  Oh, were they good! And the treats were good too.

 

While visiting in March Michael, Joshua and Jacob joined Grandpa at the Bishop's Storehouse and helped a great deal.   

 

More Storehouse

 Actually quite a story for this.  We ended up replacing all of the center tiles in the chapel because of a leak in the water heater in another part of the building.  Had to remove the pews, repaint the speakers and the cleanup...

 

 Installation of my new desk.  Yes, it takes up the entire room.

This is where I run my business.  I do like the commute!

Photo Friday

Apparently we didn't do anything exciting this week. So, just some cute pictures.

This is Jaime's idea of a flower on Ava's head.

Crashing Mom and Dad's bed this morning.

For discussion

For the Family Reunion, we are planning some "structured discussion" topics to help us get to know one another better and talk about things that are super important, if not super popular or comfortable.

I also thought it might be fun to gather our thoughts about some ideas before we meet. I thought about starting an online discussion board on a different site so that we didn't have to have discussion right here on the blog. What do you think about that? It would probably require your registration. Let me know what you think.

Our weeklong project

A couple of weeks ago, we had our landscape "boys" (a couple of young men from the ward) take out  several of the shrubs from the front yard and the pond--you know the one Hyrum fell headfirst into while they were here.  Then, later, dad and I took out another shrub, bought some new plants and lots of mulch.  Here is the finished product.  We are happy, the landlord is happy and everyone who sees it comments on it.

We started out with 10 bags of mulch which wasn't quite enough.  In all we put 20 bags of mulch around these few plants and planted lots of bulbs around the plow.  Here is the finished product!

We will be glad when our little shrubs get bigger.

Snapshot Sunday

Touching the stingrays at the aquarium...that we now have
a year pass to.

Bored this morning. We have church at 1pm right now!

Does anyone have ANY idea what we are doing? I'll give you a hint, it's an
experiment from a science book.

Snapshot Saturday

Yep, I'm totally turning this into a thing.  But I can't really do that because then it will get moved to Sunday, so I must still aim for Friday!

Jacob watering some new bushes.  Hopefully the deer will leave these alone because they are outside the fence.

Joshua the great onion planter

In go the butternut! 

Hyrum loves to carry around food and show you his cheesy face.  He is really good at getting his own bowl, though, and that is nice.

Jacob is trying to play goalie but struggles to stay out of the action.