A boy

My son is turning 8 today. This is a big day for him. He is a wonderful kid. Full of energy and excitement. He is soooo smart. He remembers almost everything. He wrestles with and bugs his sisters every chance he gets. And I love him lots. Happy birthday.

My first!

12 years ago my life changed forever. I had my first baby. I can't believe she is turning 12. She has become such a great young lady. She is such a helper and sweetheart. She is friendly with everyone and makes great efforts to be a good sister and daughter. I love her tons and think she's the best.

You are my sunshine

My little one is turning 5 today! I can't believe it. She is such a sweetie. I want to write a couple things about her here. I love that her favorite place to eat out is Panda Express. How many 4 and 5 year olds do you know that always ask for orange chicken? I also love how she calls alligators or crocodiles, crocogators.... She always asks to snuggle with me, and she gives the best hugs. On occasion she tells Dad that he is grounded (I have to try real hard not to laugh when she does). She is a bright sunshine in my life and I am so grateful for her!

My garden

here it is as a baby..

getting bigger hail damage, ready to start harvesting

Last summer (2008) I built boxes in my back yard with the good intention of having a garden, however it wasn't until this summer that I actually grew anything. It was a lot of fun, work and zucchini. We had a couple of huge hail storms that flattened a lot of the garden. Everything looked ruined, but it still came back. There are a lot of lessons to be learned from having a garden and I look forward to planting again next year!

Halloween

Halloween was a lot of fun this year! My youngest kept changing her mind on what she wanted to be for the day. She was a cat, then a bee, then a princess, then an M&M. We thought we had it down with the M, so I took the picture, then sprayed her hair green (because she needed green hair for the costume). Shortly after spraying her hair she went and changed back into the cat costume, so she was a cat with green hair.
And yes, that is snow in the background, it snowed for 2 days before Halloween, but we were lucky and had warm temperatures for the actual day. Most of the snow was melted by the end of the day.

missing in action

When summer break started I didn't think I would be gone from blogging for 2 months. We've had a fun full summer. I will start with the not so fun part. 3 of my children all had expensive happenings with their mouth. My son had an abscess and had to have his tooth pulled and then a space maintainer put in, my oldest daughter had a tooth that was chipped last year finally decide it was done and need a root canal and my second daughter had to have a giant cell granuloma removed from her mouth. (she has to have IV sedation for this process). This is the second time having it removed, hopefully this time it won't come back. Anyway I've been to the dentist/oral surgeon pretty much on a weekly basis all summer. My son did t-ball and had a blast and the kids all did swimming lessons. My oldest played flute in the summer band and has had fun participating in several concerts throughout the summer. My cousin T came for a visit and my cousin Kim. My sister was sealed to her husband and had her baby, who I threw a shower for. We went to a water park up in Denver and we went to the mining museum. Last week we went to a BYU-Idaho alumni ambassador conference, stopping on the way in Utah. We stayed with my cousin Kim and enjoyed a great visit. We had a lot of fun visiting with family and friends. We stayed with my good friend Robyn in Rexburg and went to the drive-in movie and the lake and managed to go to a few meetings in between. We finished our trip at Yellowstone. It has been a lot of fun!

Summer break !?!

School is almost out! My children will be out on Friday. I have mixed feelings about this. Getting up at 6:30 to get the kids ready to be on the bus at 7:25 is getting old, and so is making sure that homework is done, papers are finished, projects are done. Vacation and time with family is fun, but I'm dreading the I'M BORED! that starts about a week into summer break. We've planted a garden and I think the kids are excited about it and we've signed up the son to play t-ball. We're not planning any major "trips" this summer. I'll probably put the kids into swimming lessons, but I need more ideas! What do you do with your kids over summer to keep the I'm BORED's to a minimum?