Just Another Day in Paradise

Well, almost. Besides the fact that my poor camera is on the fritz and that I cannot take pictures right now. I had a picture perfect day.

Send me to Moss Green House any day of the week and it will be a good day! First of all, I was able to snag an internet deal for a 30.00 gift card for 15.00 ((SCORE)). I ventured off BY MYSELF today. I honestly did not know what to do. I think I walked around the whole time talking to myself, due to the lack of children.

I was able to get a raspberry bush ((Hyperventilating,Ecstatic,Overjoyed and Jumping with Joy)

Holly hocks ---- my absolute FAVORITE flower in the whole world!

And a bunch of other flowers, whose names are too long and confusing for me to remember, but they are pretty! I got them all planted tonight and I hope they stick around.

On the topic of gardening, I weeded my garden today. WHAT A CHORE. I forgot how huge it was. And MAN how fast can weeds grow?? But while I weeded, I got a chance to look at every thing. I have peas already and tomatoes, and hot peppers!  I just love my gardens!

A Little Early

Is it just me or is the yard work and garden prep starting earlier this year? I swear I did not have to mow the lawn until the end of May the past 2 years. I broke out my push mower today and had to hack down the jungle we call a lawn. I did weed eating too. I normally love yard work and such, but this year.. I am not ready to be worrying about it already. I thought I still had time.

We are planning out our garden plot and will be doing that soon. We are going to build raised garden beds in the back yard. Our first step is killing off the grass, then onto building the boxes and planting. I am holding off on planting until the first week in June though. I will NOT re buy plants again this year. I should have listened to my Grandma when she told me to never plant before Memorial Day- ( your garden at least).

Our plans for this coming week are buying a new hose, weed killer, grass killer, grass seed, lawn fertilizer, seeds, and a new mower.. I HOPE.

Good bye winter. I don't know what happened to you or why you did not make a big fuss over snow and cold days this year, but I can honestly say I will miss you! My allergies have started already; at 4am mind you. NOT FUN. I am cleaning all the vents today, changing the air filters, washing curtains and window sills, washing base boards. Fun stuff I tell you.

I really am already looking forward to fall. I am not much of a summer person by any means!

Cool Websites-- 4 Weeks of Freedom List, Updates, and the Power of YES

First of all, I am alive... barley. I honestly think math is going to kill me, but so far I am surviving. These last two weeks of summer school have been awful.

That aside, I have found a fabulous site that has so many yummy recipes and the pictures are so pretty! Check it out! I am catching the canning bug bad this year! I have my list and all my jars, lids, rings and towels out and ready to go! Peaches, pears, pickles, salsa, spaghetti sauce, and jams! Oh so much fun! I am already starting to freeze zucchini that I tend to sneak into many meals with out the picky husband and children knowing! Ha ha ha!!

So my 4 weeks of freedom list is all the things I want to do once summer school is out.

In no particular order here is what I have:

Watch as much Gilmore Girls as possible
Canning
Making and Freezing soups for the winter
Freezing veggies
Gardening
READING!!  
Going to the library
Rearranging the kitchen
Cleaning the computer desk
Get 2 kids ready for school (YIKES!)
PAYING OFF AN ENORMOUS AMOUNT OF DEBT.. can you say awesomeness!!???
Road trip to Boise
Getting ready for fall semester

I am looking forward to fall. It is truly my favorite season of the year and I look forward to it the moment winter hits! I love making pumpkin bread, homemade cider, soups, apple pie, raking leaves.. ahhhh I can't wait!

Life has been upside down crazy busy. Church is always busy, and I hate to say I have fallen short lately as school has taken up a lot of my time. One of my dearest friends who was my first visiting teaching when we joined the church, and never missed a month of visiting, never forgot a birthday  of anyone in our family, always remembered what was important to us and even came to the Temple with us for the first time on her birthday, passed away on Tuesday.  She was only 77, and I say only because she was so spunky, spry and witty. I suppose it was her time. I have been having a hard time with it, harder than I thought I would. I tried going to the funeral today, but couldn't even bring myself to do that. Maybe I will go by myself soon and take some flowers to her . I think it is harder because it has almost been a year since Trenton's little friend Zach passed away tragically last year. ughh.. death is hard on the living.

On a more upbeat note... Mr. Ben is 99% out of diapers! WOO HOO!! He has taken a little longer than the other 2 boys, but each child is different and he has taken to the idea very well the past few months and we are so close to freedom!!!

Rex and I have tried taking on a little bit of a new approach to parenting the past few weeks. A while back I read an article about parents having a harder time saying yes than saying no to their children at times.  This really struck a chord with me, and made a lot of sense. the boys often ask if they can play with the hose and get each other wet, my first response without thinking, is no. It's messy, it's wet, they could fight and get mad at each other.... but really, would it be that big of a problem? True, it might be a bit of a headache for me, but really what is the harm? Saying yes really is harder than saying no a lot of the time. It is so easy to tell the boys no, its fast and effective and saves me hassle from messes and arguments. But saying yes... gives the boys more to do, a bit of slack on the tight leash Rex and I have at times. now don't get me wrong, we are not going around saying yes to their every whim, there are still rules and boundaries, and things that just are not acceptable. "Mom can I have ice cream for dinner.." NO, But if I hear, " Mom can we paint with watercolors outside and make our own lunch to have a picnic and play in the sprinkler?" Yes... It has been a good experience so far :)

So, one more week of math tests and paper writing and I will post lots of pictures and updates!

Grouchy

Pouting, stomping, and sticking my lip out as far as it will go. I planted my garden ( too early  I am sure and it is all my fault) and now.. it is a sad little garden. My cucumbers died, my watermelon died, my onions are doing okay.. and then to top it off one of the dogs got to the side yard and dug up my strawberries, jalapenos and peppers. So, basically, I have cilantro, dill, tomatoes and maybe some carrots and onions. I am making my trip back to Moss Greenhouse tomorrow and wait to plant until next week. Darn my impatience. Try try again I suppose.

I am in a cantankerous mood today. I don't want to do anything, I am mad about having o do laundry and so many other things that I HAVE to do, and I really don't want summer school to be starting so soon. The coupon craze has hit so hard in Jerome that you have to fight to get any extra Sunday papers, wither that or get up at 3am to get them first. The shelves are all cleaned out all the time, and the stores are getting cranky about everything. I have been keeping my shopping down to a minimum lately and just getting a few deals here and there until all these crazy people get tired of chasing every deal they see. I am glad people are finding smart ways to save money, but they need to realize that there are others of us who have been doing this for a while longer and that there are coupon rules we try to follow. 1. Don't clear shelves 2. treat your cashiers with respect 3. Stealing newspapers is wrong 4. YOU DON'T NEED EVERY SINGLE SALE THAT COMES OUT .
Thankfully I have a pretty good stock of things and I can afford to sit out a bit until the hysteria calms down.

Off to spread my abundance of sunshine with the world

5 grateful things ( I need this today)
Busy work*re-do's* Good kids* last week of school* reading

Garden Hault

I know, what is with this crazy lady and constant jabber of her silly garden? I LOVE MY GARDEN. I love gardening and canning. Simple as that.

We had a MASSIVE downpour the other day and rain off and on since. Thus making it hard to garden and very very muddy.

We got some great news that we can get FREE fill dirt from our 2nd counselor in our ward, and some one will haul it over too! BUT............. in order to expand our garden.. we need about 10+ more rail road ties than we thought and  those are not cheap or easy to come by. So I have flats of veggies waiting to be planted but I can't plant them until we get everything in place. Yikes. what to do what to do. Maybe plant them and them dig them up when we get everything and re plant??

2011 Garden List

The boys and I ventured to Moss's Green house this afternoon and we are ready to plant!! We have the start of our garden expansion going right now, but we are not sure if it will be ready in time to plant. So we got enough (probably more) for our small garden.

Red onions
Walla walla onions
Watermellon
Zucchini
Strawberries
Tomatoes
Cumbers
Cilantro
Jalepenos
Carrots
Bell Peppers
Dill

If we expand the garden in time, I am going back to get :

Lettuce
Radishes
Pumpkins
Corn
More tomatoes
Cantaloupe
Raspberry Bush


And we are also planting a new flower bed in the front of the house. So I got snap dragons, pansies, violas, petunias, chrysanthemums, marigolds and daisies.

I was excited to plant, but as soon as we got home a thunderstorm rolled in and we had a huge down pour. Maybe Monday for planting.  

I LOVE this time of year!!!

Sara the Party Planner, Nana's Amaryllis and Ben at 10 Months!

So, to say the least, this week has been super busy!! Two birthdays, Harry Potter Movie, A baby shower and a visit to Nana's. The week isn't even over yet!! I am pooped already!! So First off, I planned a baby shower for my friend Joscelyn, the day after her birthday. It was great fun. I made my first diaper cake, which was intimidating but fun! I have more pictures, I am just too lazy to upload all of them right now. My masterpiece!

Rex's mom airbrushing tattoos at the shower!

So today is Joscelyns husbands birthday (Doug) and we made a trip to Nana's, which is always tons of fun! She had to show me her amaryllis which is in bloom. Yes i know, a flower in bloom in the summer, not very shocking, but the amaryllis is a winter plant that normally is dormant during the summer. My green thumbed grandma managed to get hers to bloom in the dead of summer! Go figure, again! I think her thumb is neon green not just green!!! Speaking of which I really need to get updated pictures of my garden on here! I will try and do so tonight! I have a TON of summer squash, about 10 tomatoes , one pickling cucumber ( ready to be picked ) and my pumpkins are blooming! Everything is HUGE! I am very happy with how it is coming along!! But that is a whole other blog post.




Benjamin turned 10 months old yesterday! WOW! He is doing fantastic. crawling cruising, getting into everything, standing momentarily by himself, drinking from his sippy cup, feeding him self, eating everything and almost always smiling! he waves bye, waves hi, yells "DADADADA " when Rex walks in the door, and my not so favorite yells, "NO" very plainly when the boys or I try and take something away from him. Fun, no? He is a joy though, and for the most part is one happy baby! We love him to pieces. I do not know his length off hand, but he has gained another pound in the past two months! This kid is an eater! two more months of formula, two more months of formula.... I will be so glad when that is gone!!! I think he will be very easy to ween off the bottle though. He mostly uses his sippy cup, so that is good news! Then we ween the cup at two and potty train! I am really looking forward to potty training. I was thinking one night about how long I have been changing diapers since Trenton was born, and with each of the boys, and having a small break from diapers between each of them, I have only had 8 months off diaper duty in the past 6 years! CRAZY!! So I think potty training will come along quickly for Mr. Ben!

Well, I think that's about it. I will go take pictures now of my garden and try and get them up tonight!