Thursday, April 23, 2009

Going Green

We've been admonished by our Stake President to plant a garden. With a little pushing and shoving and a lot of tutelage from Jason, we finally set out to do it. This method is called square foot gardening (I think) and I am a huge fan! We had fun planting and playing in the soil and we even have little sprouts starting to come up. I'm so excited to see if we actually get anything to grow! Regardless, I feel a little bit more righteous for following counsel and a little bit safer for having some food.

Grammy sent us some really fun self-decorating pots and seeds for the little boys for Easter. They had so much fun putting them together--thanks Grammy! We'll let you know when we see some green!

Things I Learned In Boston

I got to spend a fabulous 4 days in Boston to help celebrate and cheer on my AMAZING brother-in-law, Jim, in accomplishing one of his life-long dreams--QUALIFYING AND RUNNING IN THE BOSTON MARATHON! For those of you who don't know, this is a MAJOR feat! Only the best of the best make it in and it is a worldwide race, not just national. Yes, Jim, I'm proud of you and I know you're loving all of my praise! By the way, he did amazing, finishing somewhere in the rank of 4,700 out of 26,000. Let me remind you, this is a world competition. Basically Jim is the 4,700th best runner ever in this galaxy! Jim, have I sung your praises enough??

Okay, there were some definite lessons that I learned during my sojourn in historical and beautiful Boston. They are as follows:

Lesson #1

Frankly, I look better with make-up. After coming home and looking at my pictures I realized I look pretty horrendous without make-up. I have made an effort ever since ( a whole 2 days!!) to wear it more often so my hubby still thinks I'm a hot mama!
Exhibit A: without make-up Exhibit B: with make-up (this is the USS Constitution--the longest running commissioned ship in the Navy--a.k.a. "Old Ironsides")

Lesson #2

People in Boston are RUDE! I mean the people from the city, not those visiting. Love the city, hate the people! We were purposely mis-directed MANY times, I was personally sworn at several times for pushing a stroller on the sidewalk (for crying out loud, how do they think they got around when they were still in diapers), many a men watched idly as my sisters and I struggled to get all of our luggage, babies, and strollers on and off of buses (whatever happened to chivalry?), next to no one offered their seats on the subway when both Rachel and I were carrying babies ALL day long, and I could go on but I won't. I love southern people!
(This is at a DELICIOUS breakfast place in Boston. It was so good that we stood in line for nearly 45 minutes before eating. It was worth every second!)

Lesson #3

In the words of Claire, "I would look so hot if I lived in this city!" Here's why. They had this AMAZING farmer's market where there was gobs of fruits and veggies for next to nothing prices. I'm talking 3 lbs of yummy grapes for $1!!! AAHH!! I felt like I had died and gone to heaven. I would totally eat healthier in a city like this. Negative to farmer's market: I had the "F" word thrown at my many, many times for DARING to bring a stroller in--crazy Bostonians!


Lesson #4

If you take a child, it's not a vacation. I don't think I'll make that mistake again. Love you, Ethan!
(This is Ethan with his cute cousin Lauren)

Lesson #5

Some things just shouldn't be done with a baby in a sling. These pictures need no words.(This is at Harvard--they had tire swings set up all over the common. I thought it was a fabulous idea--too bad I couldn't fit my left thigh in it!)

Lesson # 6

Sisters and mom's are the best to vacation with! You can stay up all night and gab, cry because you had really crappy sleep, eat chocolate to your heart's delight, and walk around in your garments and care less. I had such a blast! (Jim and London, you were fun in your own way, too!)


Lesson # 7

This is the most important one so I saved it for last. If you have a dream, even if it seems unattainable and super human, go for it anyways! Jim really did inspire me with this one. I really, really am proud of all his work and determination. I never would have set my heights so high because it seemed impossible, but he set it high and then he accomplished his dream! I've learned that it's okay to dream big and hope that I'll be able to accomplish the dreams/goals I've set for myself.


I love me some Boston!

Things I Have to Worry About

I've decided there are a lot of things that I have to worry about that most mom's don't. This comes as a consequence of living in the country--which definitely has it's perks too! Okay, here's my list in no particular order:

A pool that is usually gated but now just in pieces. Could my children fall in there? You betcha!
This is about the 5th body of water that concerns me on this 52 acres. There are 2 lakes, a pool, a fountain that my kids love to try to climb in, and a stream. All of them scare me.
Trees. We have so many trees here! There are constantly things falling from the sky. This one fell not 20 feet from my kids bedroom. When there is wind out I get scared.

Not to mention rattle snakes, massive snapping turtles, a long steep driveway that has drawn a lot of blood from those knees, cars speeding around corners, on and on and on. Someone's looking out for us!

Jj Jellybeans; "Sheep Asleep"

We did crafts last week but I took a vacation (which I'll blog about next) so we took this week off.

Jj is for Jellybeans! I figured that we might as well put the real thing on there, right?? Most of them went in the mouth but lots made it to the paper.
For our book we did "Sheep Asleep" which is about 10 sheep and their nighttime routine to go to bed. I was going to do the cotton with sheep and then I looked outside and saw all of the beautiful trees so we decided to go GREEN! We picked the flowers and leaves and then used them for the sheep's fur and grass. I thought it ended up looking pretty cute.

Playing Catch Up

Okay, okay, okay. I am so far behind in blogging that I don't even know how to play catch up! I would just skip a lot of it but this is also a journal of sorts so I would feel really guilty. I mean, what if Lukey wanted to see a blog of him at Easter 2009 and I hadn't blogged it! What if???!! I will try my best to be brief.

Another one of our many Easter egg hunts. This one was really cool, however, because A.) it was free and B.) they had lot of cool stuff to do. The kids had tons of fun picking up eggs and there were even so many that several were left on the ground. That's what I call an egg hunt!This church had tons of awesome inflatable toys. Coop has no fear when it comes to these things. If we would have let him he would have stayed ALL day!

Live toys--no way!

Amazingly, we actually had two more Easter egg hunts on the actual Easter day. I am so tired of eggs! However, I will admit that I recycled all of the eggs! I only actually ended up stuffing 10 of them myself. The kids never caught on to the fact that they kept opening the same thing in all of their eggs! I wonder how many more years I'll be able to do that...




Yeah, you don't see me with an Easter basket because Jake forgot to get me one. It's a good thing he's so outstanding in many other ways to compensate for his forgetfulness!

Finally!!! Our last hunt. Yeah!


We tried, I'm not so sure we suceeded at getting an Easter family pic. You judge!

Okay, we're getting somewhere with these posts. I'll try another one.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Easter Egg Hunt's Begin

This is the first of 3 planned Easter Egg Hunts. What has become of our society? The boys had so much fun, though! The problem was that we left the candy out in the sun too long so it ended up being a HUGE mess! Oh well, all in the name of fun!



It took us mom's 20 times longer to take this picture than the first one with just the kids. Everyone had to look right and fought about where they were going to sit and then we had a 5 year old take all the pictures. I think she did a pretty good job! Aren't we just cute as buttons?

Spring is in the Air

Don't you love this time of year? You can finally go outside again if you're brave enough to ward off the wasps, pollen, etc. I love it when the azaleas start to bloom and the world turns green again. Plus, there's something so precious about little boys in short jammies.
We had some fun at Chuck E. Cheese. The one of Lukey and the mouse was literally 2 seconds before he burst out in hysterics with fear and launched himself across the table at me. It was pretty stinking funny.
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My parents are tearing out and replacing the concrete around the pool area. The boys have been faithfully watching the tractors and men working for days now. Here's Jake having a little fun in a Bobcat that certainly is not his. But they left the key in it--Not Guilty.