Lately

Our garden ended up being a dream come true this year.  I'm so glad we put it in right away so we could enjoy it this summer.  

Here's a shot of it when it was really starting to produce:

Here's one Joe took:

Joe and I have wanted to have a huge garden for about as long as we've been married.  We've tried a couple of times but with renting often, moving so much, and killing a lot of plants, it hasn't worked so well.  This was going to be the place where we finally made our dream a reality.  And it worked!  We did pay a good amount for the soil and compost to fill those boxes but it sure ended up being worth it.  Everything grew so well!  

I think there is no better way to get kids to eat well than to have a garden.  I was amazed at the things my kids were eating just because they could pick it fresh while they were playing. I remember Nate one time picking some red lettuce and just eating it.  Eli is pretty picky but even he would eat the snap peas all the time.  They were delicious.  We all loved the corn and enjoyed that for a few dinners.  The watermelon ended up being pretty delicious too.  

Some of them weren't quite as sweet as really good ones from the store but after a few days in the fridge it would actually get a lot yummier.  

We all loved the cherry and roma tomatoes and we still have tons growing.  The cucumbers were a hit, too.  They were the smaller, pickling kind and they were delicious!  I don't really like cucumbers that much but these were good.  Eli loved those too.  Our kale is been the longest lasting, hardiest crop.  Sadly, I don't really know how to do much with kale except make kale chips (which we did a lot), saute it in some coconut oil, or put it in a couple of recipes I have.  Our pumpkins are looking awesome!  We'll have enough for all of us to carve them here in a little bit.  Gardens are the best.  Now we just need to put in some fruit trees and we'll be set.

The kids and I made some marshmallow/toothpick creations.  I wanted to test out making some at school.  They loved it!  We hadn't done that since the girls were tiny.  I don't know why I waited so long.  Here are some of their creations.  We had some neighbor girls over to build them, too.

Elizabeth made this awesome one that needed to be propped up.  She named it The Burrow--as in the Weasley's house:

Eli has become quite the little puzzle maker.  He started out doing these 24-piece puzzles:

Now he can do this 60-piece one all by himself!

Being silly:

I thought that was pretty impressive for a 2 year-old.

Speaking of that silly guy:

I have endless Eli selfies on my phone.

He and Nate also steal my phone to take pictures of me:

Cooking and grading papers.  That pretty much sums up my life right now.

We decided to go to the local county fair one night on a whim.  Well, I basically dragged Joe there in the name of a "fun family activity".  Not long into our time there I whispered to Joe that I thought we had made an enormous mistake.  We basically spent as much money as we would have going to an amusement park, and all for some county fair!  I don't get how people spend that much money.  It was not worth it to me.  We got out of there as quick as our kids would let us.  The few pictures I got were of the petting zoo area:

The kids did like getting to milk a cow for the first time.
Joe got this picture of a huge pig:

Sometimes my kids play together so nicely that I take a picture of it.

This was a Sunday lunch picnic:

This was over by the duck pond near our house:

I love that my kids can entertain themselves with a few rocks and some grass.

One Saturday morning we made some blue crepes in honor of our BYU cougars:

 Sadly, they lost terribly that day.

At the beginning of the summer, we got a flier from a nice older woman in our neighborhood.  She is retired but she used to teach gifted/talented classes.  She wanted to do an opera for children by children and was putting it all on for free!  My girls were thrilled and they had a great time.  Sadly, the woman has parkinson's and with that and with some scheduling craziness with families going out of town, they weren't able to finish it.  She agreed to let the kids perform it still (in its rough version) to parents and family members.  It was so great.  We loved watching it--"Trouble on Candy Isle".  The kids helped write the story, all the music, made all the sets, and performed it all.  These kids were singing all by themselves up on stage!  I was so impressed.  I would have never done that when I was their age.  There were some hilarious parts, especially with one boy who was wearing a big inflatable suit (he was a gummy bear).  

We mostly got video but here's a couple of pictures:

We had our second bone break in the family and it happened to Elizabeth again:

She was walking in the street holding one of our plasma cars and basically tripped over it and used her arm to break her fall.  Both her forearm bones buckled.  They splinted it and then four days later re-set it.  Then a week later she got her cast.  I'll have to get a picture of that up soon.  She's handled it all like a trooper and luckily hasn't had any pain since they re-set it.  

One morning, Elizabeth had her appointment for her cast so she didn't go to school.  She was helping Natalie get ready for school and told her she'd make her lunch for her.  Later, when I was cleaning out Natalie's lunchbox I found this cute note:

She also orchestrated this heart attack we got on our bedroom door one day:

She is so thoughtful.

Lastly, she took this picture of a beautiful sunset one night.

Life is good.

Culture Night: Ireland

We had another culture night a while back.  We wanted to do it while Joelle and Randon were here.  Sadly, I didn't get a single picture.  But, I thought I'd report on it for memory's sake anyway.

I made this bread:

And we ate it with this delicious butter that my sister-in-law Melissa introduced me to at our last reunion:

They have it at our Costco!

We had beef stew for the main course.  Pretty simply meal but I thought it was fairly authentic (minus the Irish beer, I guess).

I can't remember the specifics on the reports but I know we learned about the Irish Potato famine, sports, animals, the Irish language, and watched some videos of Irish dancing and the Cranberries, just for fun.  It was a fun night!

Happy Birthday Nate!

We had another birthday around here.    

It's hard to believe that this guy is 6!

He had a good day.  His birthday was on a Monday but the kids actually had the day off of school so that was nice for them.  I did have to work in the afternoon but Marsha stayed home with them.  The girls woke up early with me to make the cinnamon rolls he requested and decorate the house.  They actually did pretty much all of the decorating while I cooked so that was nice.  Then we woke him up for breakfast. 

The kids had a fun day doing pretty much whatever they wanted.  I worked on his cake that morning.  We were looking up ideas for what he wanted on his cake and he found a picture of the Gryffindor seal and he somehow settled on that.  So, it was a tricky one but I did my best.  I had a problem with not all of it freezing, unfortunately, but it was still OK:

Nate wanted to write his own name and did a great job.

We had his requested beef stroganoff with rice for dinner.  Then it was presents time!  I can't find any of those pictures right now and I'm really hoping they aren't lost.  I need to check Joe's phone later.

Nate got a few things he asked for including a new car tracks set, two new Elephant & Piggie books, a candy-gram (Natalie made him a really cute one, with some help from Elizabeth), and a green lightsaber.  Elizabeth picked out a few things from the dollar section at Target and made him a fun little treasure hunt.  Eli was supposed to give Nate the lightsaber but cried the whole night about it being his.  Poor guy.  It reminded me of this post when Elizabeth was 7 and Nate was the two year-old.  I can't believe that was 4 years ago!

In just these last few weeks since Nate started kindergarten it seems like he has grown up a lot.  Now he is talking about kids in his class that have crushes (he won't admit to one :).  It's kind of terrifying to me thinking of him growing up and liking girls.  He is still my sweet little boy, though.  He always gives me big hugs and kisses when the school bus comes to pick him up.  He still loves to snuggle up and read stories or just relax.  He still sucks his thumb and doesn't seem to want to ever quit.  We're going to need to work on that soon.  He is so sweet and always making things for people.  Just recently he made Joe and I these cute signs and hung them up above our bed (someday I'll actually hang something up there--these are great for now).  

Nate still really loves Star Wars.  We're all excited for the new movie to come out.  He really loves Super Mario Bros. too and is better than me now.  He and Joe have almost beat the new version we have, plus they've beaten all three old versions.  He loves to ride around the plasma cars with Eli outside.  He still loves all sports.  He doesn't complain about watching BYU football like the girls do.  In fact, he is out golfing with Joe right now (another of his birthday presents).  He loves climbing poles and is kind of a monkey.  He told me proudly one day that he is one of the only kindergarteners that can go across a hard monkey bars set at the school.  He loves Wild Kratts, Odd Squad, Sesame Street, and will still happily watch The Backyardigans with Eli (we all will :).  He is a great eater and very rarely throws a fit about eating something.  He loves yogurt, oatmeal, ham sandwiches, pretty much all fruit, peppers, and beef.   He loves to read with me but can get along pretty well by himself now.  He got a flier at school that said if he read 20 books a month he would get a free pan pizza from Pizza Hut every month and at the end of the year he would get a free pass to a local water park.  That was enough to convince him!  He kept asking and asking me to read books and he got it all filled in by yesterday--the 9th!  :)  Nate has the BEST laugh when he really gets laughing.  It cracks us all up.  He can be so silly and does some awesome silly dances.  He is a wonderful brothers to his siblings.

We sure love our Nate!