Harvest Time

My garden has grown, been taken over by weeds at least twice, been weeded and watered on a semi-regular basis, and produced much. I have over 40 cups of zucchini in the freezer, have made eight loaves of zuccini bread, given 20 zucchinis away, and have a ton more growing. (Moral of that story: only plant two zucchini plants instead of 6 to 10.) Here is some more zucchini that needs to be grated or cooked.



On Saturday, I harvested all of the carrots I planted, and yes, that is a five gallon bucket full of carrots. I also harvested the rest of the onions (another 5 pounds) and a few more zucchini. The people in our old ward smile and shake their heads when I show up with zucchini to give away, but at least I am able to share the fruits of my labor and now that they will be well used.

We are also starting to get tomatoes and we will be able to have corn next week. The pumpkins that are taking over the garden have about two dozen pumpkins actually growing (some are as big as basketballs and still green) and about that many more blossoms. I even found a couple of watermelon growing today. There are even a few peppers growing.

Everything I planted has grown and the only thing that has yet to produce vegetables are the cucumber plants. I feel greatly blessed to have so much growing and for the opportunity to grow a gardent. This year's success gives me the encouragement to try again next summer. Thank you, Michael for watching the children so that I could take care of the garden.

Ice Cream Quiz

So, I took the ice cream quiz that I found on Amme's blog. The most interesting thing was that we had the same flavor come up. Don't let my mother-in-law know!

You're Coffee.Compared to other ice creams, coffee ice cream has a strong flavor, and it's packed with caffeinated sweetness. You're like that, too! You're always busy, and determined to stay focused as you move from one task to the next. You get frustrated when other people slow you down or hold you back, but when you're in control, you can find ways around any obstacle.

Deer

This post is for my Dad because he can look out his front door and see this every day. On Sunday we looked our our bedroom window and saw two bucks in the field behind our house. For living in the city, I would say that is not bad. But, deep down I am a country girl and I enjoy the more rural parts of our country (especially those with mountains and trees) although I greatly appreciate being within minutes of the grocery store as well. We have the same view, Dad!

Library Picnic

To end the summer reading program, the library had a picnic in the park complete with an inflatible slide and caterpillar, Presto the Magician, and popsicles. Mom even took Bekah down the huge inflatable slide. It was a great ending to the fun summer story time "Catch the Reading Bug." We have great librarians.



It's a spider [ant]!

What's this, Mom?

Eating lunch and waiting for the magic show to start.

Presto the Magician performing magic bug tricks.

Can I go up there? Will he pick me?

Blog Technilogical Updates

Yesterday, blogger updated something. Today I only get feeds when I click on the links to friends' blogs on my website. Not cool. I like to see everyone's cute backgrounds and sidebars. The Blog List was great for a while because it told me when people updated their websites. It saved me the time of clicking on everyone's blog on a daily basis because I could see how long it had been since they posted something new. This change to feeds is frustrating and saddening. I guess I'm back to checking blogs manuallly. Too bad, maybe the old feature will come back so I can enjoy everyone's creativity and keep updated on when they post. I am grateful that blogging is free, sometimes the updates are just frustrating.

Crawling

Bekah crawls very well up and down the stairs. She will not crawl across the floor, she prefers to scoot on her butt. We have starting calling her our little butt scooter, but this video shows her climbing up the stairs at the playground.

Before and After: Front or Living Room

I have been posting a lot of before and afters for those of you who only saw our house before or after. It is also fun to see th finished product after you put so much work into something. This is the last before and after until we get to improvements in the yard, which will probably be when we put up a fence next summer. You can look down into the living room from the family room because the wall does not fully divide these two rooms. One of the pictures is looking down into the living room from over the wall in family room. Our biggest change to this room was that we put curtains up which helps keep the daytime heat out of this room much better than naked windows.

Dancing Bekah

Bekah loves to dance. She even likes to hold my hand and dance around the house. She says "dan" and reaches for my hand when she wants to dance while Mommy holds her. I finally got her to do it for the camera. Our camera doesn't have sound so the video only shows Bekah moving.

The New Comfort Item

Bekah has discovered colored pencils. She has yet to discover how the write and she does not eat them like she does crayons. She even packs handfuls of colored pencils around the house, we are finding them everywhere! Today when I went to lay her down for a nap she had her usual handful of colored pencils when I went to lay her down. I took the colored pencils away, turned on her music, laid her down, and left the room. Bekah proceeded to howl and scream at the top of her lungs for the next ten minutes. When I went back to check on her she was quite upset but obviously still tired. I got her up, gave her a hug, found the two dullest colored pencils I could find, and laid her back down. She promptly snuggled under her blanket with a colored pencil in each hand. Apparently, colored pencils are the new comfort item at our house. Aren't children unique?

Before and After: Master Bedroom & Bathroom

The before picture I have for our master bedroom isn't as good as some of the other pictures I have, but here is the one I do have. These before and after pictures are mostly to show how we painted in this room. We painted brown halfway up the wall and I had questions on whether or not it went with our dark brown furniture. We tested the color out before we painted and we think the color compliments our furniture nicely.

The master bathroom is a golden yellow color and I was asked if I was planning on painting the bathroom. My response was that we would probably paint it eventually, but I wanted to see how my current bathroom colors looked first. We decided that the maroon, navy blue, and sunflower yellow looked just fine with the golden color.

Before and After: Family Room

Our family room is quite large, and because our house has only three bedrooms I decided to divide this room into three different areas to use the open space more effectively. The first picture is a visual of the layout from the last owners. This picture was taken from the stairs that go in and out of the room.

This is the front left side of the family room where we watch videos and visit with company.

In the back right corner, I set up my craft table, etc. The photo frame makes a great room divider so that you see the pictures instead of all of my craft stuff.

In the front right corner, we have the children's toys and small table. This way they can have toys in the family room without the toys being the center of attention. We are still working on the concept of toys in one spot.

Scheduling Blog Posts

I am so bright some times! I have some pictures that I wanted to post but I didn't want to post them all at the same time in 3 or 4 separate posts. Then I rememberd the under "Edit Posts" it mentioned that you have drafts, published posts, and scheduled posts. So being the bright person that I am I clicked on "Post Options" to see if that was where I could schedule posts and low and behold all I had to do was change the date and time of the post to schedule it in the future.

I wish I had figured this out sooner, but since I know it now I will probably being using it more frequently. And, no, I will not be getting up to blog first thing in the morning, I just have my posts scheduled for first thing in the morning. So for those of you who are brighter than I am you can smile and shake your head. For those of you who are on the same technilogical level you now have some new information available to you. Happy blogging!

It's Sunday!

It's Sunday afternoon, and instead of just starting church we are done with church for the day. This morning our alarm clock woke us up with "It's Sunday!' at the top of his lungs bright and early at 6:30 a.m. You would have thought that it was Christmas. Benjamin sure loves nursery and seeing people at church.

We went to our new ward today. It is the same size as our last ward but because the church we go to is so old it looks like the ward is bigger. They didn't make chapel buildings as spacious back in the 70s as the do now. Everyone was polite and friendly, but living in Utah I don't expect people to be as overtly friendly as they are in places where the church membership is much smaller. With so many members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Utah people don't feel like part of the minority or need to identify closely with someone new in the ward. After living so long out of state it is still something I have to get used to every time we relocate in a different part of Utah.

As for being part of the minority, some people refer to it as 'living in the mission field.' I absolutely hate this phrase. Last time I checked the still had missions in Utah and people are baptized here on a regular basis. So that means that living in Utah means you are living in Utah. I don't here the general authorities get up in General Conference and say every member a missionary except those living in Utah. If I remember correctly, we are often reminded that there are just as many opportunities for missionary work here in our state as there are in other parts of the country or world. Thus, I say that I spent a lot of my growing up years where members of the church were in the minority because that is the actual fact.

When people say that the 'lived in the mission field' I picture people living in the middle of a field of wheat with nothing around them for miles whereas the people who live in Utah live in the middle of a city. I never felt isolated from the church when I lived out of state, just lonely. I was lonely for people who shared my beliefs and attended the same religious activities that I did. I rarely lacked friends who shared my same values to some extent or people that I could get along with, I just didn't have an abundance of friends who attended the same church I did and shared the same beliefs about God. I'm sure I did my fair share of missionary work by the example I gave others more than overtly trying to hand out Book of Mormons and giving referrals to the missionaries. I did my best to be open to opportunities to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with those around me.

I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the good things it brings into my life. Today is also Fast Sunday. This does not mean it is a quick Sunday or that this Sunday will pass any faster than the last few Sundays. This means that throughtout the church, around the world, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have the opportunity to fast for two consecutive meals in an effort to be more spiritually in tune. During our church services we also have a testimony meeting instead of assigned speakers. This provides the opportunity for members of the congregation to share their testimonies about Gospel principles as they feel prompted to do so. We do this on the first Sunday of every month and it is a great time for spiritual growth and pondering.

Benjamin's idea of pondering and spiritual growth are a little different than my own. On the way home from church he asked if he could watch a Sunday movie when we got home. I appreciate the fact that he knows we don't watch regular movies on Sunday, but I'm not quite sure that he understands why. On Sunday we let him watch movies about Christ, His death and resurrection, the prophet Joseph Smith, and the pioneers. Sometimes we even have good Gospel discussions about the principles taught in these videos. I am grateful to the people who spend their time putting together these things for use in our homes.

Being at home in the middle of the afternoon on a Sunday just feels weird. I don't know what to do with the rest of my day. I missed going to choir this morning. That usually starts my Sunday off nicely with the Spiritual music and getting to interact with other members of our ward not to mention the fact that Mom usually gets a break from her two busy children for an hour. I love to sing. I am not the greatest singer in the world and I am usually just a little off, but I love to sing. I love music and songs, especially uplifitng and inspirational music.

I am grateful for our hymns and those who share their talents of writing, leading, and playing music with all of us. If I get nothing else out of church, I usually get the hymns we sing. It is hard to be able to follow a lesson or a talk given at church when you are in and out or referring children for the majority of the time, but I do get the words and the feeling of the music out of our church meetings. It has even turned into a bit of a test for me because I sing hymns and primary songs to my children when we are at church to get them to take their naps. (This is before they are old enough to go to nursery.) I get tired of singing the same few songs to my children when I know that there are a lot of wonderful songs we sing. I have started challenging myself to remember and learn more of our beautiful and sacred music so that I can share it with my children and learn new principles each week.

Today is Sunday. It is a time for reflection on and contemplation of the word of God as taught in the holy scriptures and through our living prophet, President Thomas S. Monson. It is a time to take a break from our daily cares and concerns and focus more on our families and our spirituality. How would we learn and grow as individuals if we didn't take some time out for self reflection and growth? I am grateful for Sundays that prepare me to face the week ahead of me.

Swimming in our Backyard

Yesterday I cleaned the garage and finally got the children's pool out for them to play in. This morning Dad took the children out to play in the pool and he took his camera out with them. We have to little water dogs on our hands. Bekah and Benjamin love to take baths, run through the sprinkler, and play in the pool. They had so much fun this morning that they didn't want to go inside even when they were both freezing.

Pictures are a Blessing

Does anyone else have a relative that insists on taking pictures of everything every time you get together? One of these blessed people is Michael's Grandma H. She takes pictures all of the time and we often don't appreciate. However, I am very grateful for her insistence today.

Back in November our laptop was stolen out of our car. The laptop had all of our pictures from last summer on it that we thought we had backed up with the rest of our pictures. Unfortunately, when we checked the back up none of the pictures from the summer were there. This didn't seem to be a huge deal because I had emailed several of those pictures to friends and family and we hadn't done anything overly significant, we thought.

Then I realized that all of the pictures of Bekah's baby blessing were on that computer. Now they were all gone. I emailed everyone I could think of who was there to see if they had taken pictures of Bekah in her blessing dress and our family that day and no one had. A couple of months ago it occurred to me that Grandma H., who is insistent about taking pictures, had been there. (It was actually after our niece was blessed around Easter time that this occurred to me because Grandma was taking a lot of pictures of Victoria and McKayla.) I didn't get a chance to talk to Grandma until a couple of weeks ago at Alisabeth's bridal shower and I finally remembered to ask if she had any pictures of Bekah's blessing. She said she didn't think she had any, except at the luncheon but that she would look.

Yesterday I got a card from Grandma and Grandpa H. congratulating us on our new house with some pictures inside. Low and behold, there were two pictures of Bekah in her blessing dress. One of her with Michael and I and one with Michael's Aunt Cyndi holding her. I was so appreciative that I almost started crying on the spot. There were some other fun pictures in the letter, but the one from Bekah's blessing I was the most grateful for. I am so glad that I have some visual documentation of that special even in her life that words do not do justice to my feelings.

What I learned from this experience is that pictures are a blessing. Even though we may not find the picture taking convenient at the time, having those pictures at a later date can be especially important. So next time you don't want your picture taken, or you think you have taken enough of your own, remember that sometimes those extra picture takers are an immense blessing. Thank you, Grandma H.!

This was right after sacrament meeting and Benjamin was in nursery. I made Bekah's blessing dress the summer after I graduated so that I would have it when I had a baby girl. It is all hand crocheted.

Cyndi is holding a sleeping Bekah at the luncheon we had afterwards. She was all worn out from her big day. Bekah has gotten so big I have a hard time remembering that she was ever that small.

Farm Country

This time we took Michael's parents and Katie to the farm. This is the conference barn next to Farm Country where they hold a variety of seminars, presentations, displays, etc. It is the biggest 'barn' I have ever seen and it is surrounded by a grape vineyard. Farm Country is great for the little kids and it was fun to ride on the carriage instead of a wagon this time (pictures to follow.) Thanks for being good sports and going with us.

Grandma & Grandpa on the carriage ride

Katie feeding the animals

Bekah checking things out

This little goats name is Josie. She is wearing a harness because she has to be taken care of by a human 'mother.' Apparently, her mother did not know how to take care of her and she got rather sick after she was born. Josie is doing better now, though she thinks one of the workers is her mom rather than a goat. Katie and Benjamin got to pet her just before we left.

Michael said this goat posed for him. It definitely looks that way!

Benjamin riding a pony. He thinks this makes him a real cowboy. :)

Katie was so excited to ride a horse that she was jumping up and down all the way from the entrance to the pony ride pavilion.

Here is the carriage we got to ride in. Usually, it is a long, open wagon, but we must of timed it just right to get to ride in this instead.

The llama thought Grandpa smelled good.

Mommy and Benjamin feeding the animals. He was a little hesitant to get too close to the animals after the cow tried to eat him last time.

Shopping

Before I married Michael I was not much of a shopper. My idea of shopping was to go to the store only when you needed something, and when you got there you went in, got what you needed, and left. The only time I would go to more than one store was when I was looking for the best price on a specific item that I knew multiple stores carried. Since then I have discovered the art of browsing and window shopping.

Now I think I like shopping too much. I still love to find good deals and the best price on something, but I spend more time browsing just to look at things. Going to the store to only get the things on my list is not interesting any more. I want to have time to look at some other things as well. I also find myself doing a lot of online browsing. Whether it is an online store for Target or the classified ads on a news website, I like to browse. I have also discovered that if I do my price comparisons online, than I save the travel time going to the different stores to make the comparisons. I have been able to save a lot of time and money with the internet.

Shopping with children can be interesting at times. When we go to a store that has a "car" cart, Benjamin insists on riding in one. The children have busy hands that like to reach out and touch things, sometimes for things we need although mostly for things we don't. Bekah loves to smile at people and Benjamin will ask complete strangers what their names are and what they are doing. I find myself trying to remember the three things I came in the store for while pushing a cart and carrying on a conversations about why this and why that with an inquisitive three year old. We also come prepared with snacks and drinks so that the children will not have the opportunity to ask Mom to buy things that were not on her list.

Children also limit the number of stores that are comfortable to go to because of getting in and out of the carseats. I think that strip malls were invented for mothers because you have a variety of stores that are close to each other that do not require getting in and out of the car multiple times. Our children have been very good sports with all of the shopping we have been doing lately. They even enjoy shopping more when Mom buys them something simple at the end of the shopping trip (usually candy or something from the dollar isle.)

Shopping seems to be what we work all day long to do. We can shop at the grocery store, the clothing store, the hardware store, the office supply store, etc. to buy all those things we think we need to make our lives easier or more beautiful. What would we do without shopping? We would have to produce everything ourselves. So instead of spending all day working for someone else, we would spend all day working for ourselves. I am certainly glad that I don't have to make everything for my family. I find enough challenges in trying to clothe, feed, and clean our family and home on a daily basis. It is fun to learn how to make and do new things, but I am certainly grateful for the variety of stores available that provide the things I do not have the time to create myself.

I like to shop, what more can I say.

Updates

Moving:

I am down to four boxes half filled with miscellaneous stuff, two boxes of pictures and decor, and making curtains for the back door. Not bad for having been in the house full time for a little over a week and having company for four days. The painting, packing, and heavy duty cleaning are all done. Now we are down to the everyday messes and life going on as usual. Hooray for being done with our move!

Gardening:

I need to take some more pictures of how the garden is growing. The pumpkins and weeds are taking over because weeding has been sadly neglected with all of the moving that we have been doing the last couple of weeks. We have been eating onions, spinach, lettuce, and zucchini. (If anyone has some good zucchini recipes, let me know!) A few peas grew but the birds ate most of my seeds and we didn't get much. Hopefully, we will have cucumbers, corn, potatoes, watermelon, and bell peppers before the summer is over. The tomatoes and pumpkins are growing great! We spent a couple of hours over at the garden tonight watering and weeding. I would say that we got caught up on about 1/5 of it. I am grateful that we get to keep our garden even though we live across town.

Bekah:

Our little girl crawls proficiently up and down the stairs, but still insists on scooting across the room on her bum. Her vocabulary is growing to include words like "brover" and "g'n'pa" and "see that." She loves to play in the water: bath tub, pool, sprinklers, you name it. Her smile and laughter brighten our house every day. It is a joy to watch her play with and tease her brother. Today Bekah learned how to open the bottom of the entertainment center where we keep the VHSs and started resorting those for me like she does the DVDs every day. We are grateful to have her as a part of our family.

Benjamin:

Our son tells us that he is growing big "like a giant." He likes to watch this show called Word World where everything is made up of words, even the characters. One day the ant wanted to be a 'gi'ant and so they added the letters g and i to ant and the ant became very large. So now Benjamin thinks that in order to be big you have to be a gi-ant. His vocabulary is expanding as well, not so much in words as in phrases. Mom is having to watch what she says because Benjamin is starting to mimick her by saying "You've got to be kidding me!" or "That's wonderful!" or "You say d*** it when you are mad." Oops! Kids are too smart for their own good. (I am working on curbing that habit. I now know why our parents and leaders try to encourage us not to start bad habits because they are extremely hard to overcome once they become a part of your life. I have been trying to stop swearing for a decade now and do good most of the time.) He is a great helper and is learning to help himself. Benjamin's greatest accomplishment of late is learning to dress himself. He still needs lots of encouragement and a little supervision, but he does a great job of doing it by himself correctly.

Michael:

My husband is still as wonderful as ever. We butt heads every so often (a lot lately because of the moving stress) but that is because we are individuals not clones and we both have strong opinions and distinct ways of doing things. He is thoroughly enjoying his job and his work environmeny except for when I'm gone too long during naptime and the kids wake up. He has been a good sport about watching the kids while I did a lot of cleaning and moving.

Charlynn:

I have been busy with sifting and sorting, gardening and moving, trying to maintain some normalcy in the midst of chaos, and continuing to work on my other challenges. I spend a fair amount of time blogging and attempting to read. I even squeeze in time to myself once in a while and need to do so more often. After this last month, I think I am ready for a break. What that means I'm not exactly sure beyond sitting around doing nothing with no one demanding my time and attention every five minutes or so. I make a mental list of what I accomplished each day so that I don't concentrate on my to-do list so much. If the mental list isn't working than I try the pencil and paper method. That definitely helps me focus on the positive.Life is continuing to move forward.

I think that about covers it for now. We are still learning and growing each and every day.

Library Story Time

Our library has a great story time program. They have story time 4 times a day, 4 days a week. Each session they read three or four stories and have two or three activities, which is great for young children who have a hard time sitting still. Every week the children are sent home with homework, and Benjamin feels like he is going to school. Homework usually consists of a simple craft or coloring page to do at home. We love the library and are grateful for all the work these women put into making story time an enjoyable reality for the children.

Playing a musical instrument and parading around the library.

His latest homework assignment: a caterpillar hat.

Before and After: Benjamin's Room

Benjamin insisted that he wanted his own room in the new house. Since one room was already painted a pastel green we opted to give him the "white" room. We also decided to paint it and have Benjamin help us pick out the colors. He said that he wanted dark blue in his room. We compromised on that and painted the base boards dark blue and the walls a light blue green (more blue than green).

I tried really hard to get pictures of his room clean, but he is so talented at enjoying his room this was as clean as it got. We need to hang pictures on the wall, but since we have only been here for about 10 days I'd say we are doing pretty good. Benjamin even has a little reading corner in his room. The green crate is his bookshelf and he likes to sit in his Elmo chair and look at his books. Painting was more work than I thought it would be, but the result was definitely worth it.