Making Wishes

This Mother's Day Jeremy and the kids became my wish makers :).  They created a genie lamp out of a watering can with their names on it and a little saying on the bottom.  Then they each inserted 3 golden tickets and said "Your wish is my command!" Jeremy even made tie-dye shirts with the kids for them to wear while granting my wishes.  It was so cute! I loved it so much.  

My wish makers! 

(Jeremy even made a shirt for Craig but Craig was down for a nap :)

I am carefully deciding how I am using all these wishes... I have to make sure they're good wishes!  So far I've used two and they have come quite in handy! 

Thank you so much you guys! I sure love you!

HE'S ONE!!  

Isn't crazy how fast time flies.  Just a year ago this guy was just barely 7 lbs and and still living in snooze land.  By golly not any more! He's a 21 lb speedster and all smiles :).  We just can't get enough of this kid!

His little character is coming out more and more, haha... this is him "cheesing" for the camera :)

I was wondering if he'd enjoy ripping apart wrapping paper, but he wanted nothing to do with it... just wanted to play with his new toy.

He was unsure about diving into his cake... burning his little finger on the candle didn't help any way :(

But he quickly learned how tasty this pile of  food was!

Particularly the frosting :)

Num Num!

We did a double celebration with this hunk of a cutie! Mic (My brother's boy) was born the day before (a year ahead).  So this crazy 2 year old was quite experienced on how to consume a personal size b-day cake properly!  Happy birthday Craig and Mic!!

THIS... I did not wish for though.  So while we were away one weekend, we got a phone call from a couple of our neighbors (I'm so grateful for awesome neighbors!).  From the multiple stories I was given, this is what we believe happened : At 4 am the police were in pursuit of a car theft.  They pulled down our street and stopped 2 houses down from our home.  2 guys rushed out of their cars in opposite direction.  One of them ran through our neighbors yard and up to our fence. He must have not been able to jump it, because he dropped his jacket and kicked in our fence and went on through.  During all this the police got out their dogs to sniff out the guys.  The one that went into our yard had jumped the other side of our fence and into our neighbors' backyard this time.  They saw the guy through their window and were watching the whole thing.  Well the dogs found the guy in the corner of their back yard and bit him good.  He started screaming 'like a girl', my neighbor said as he was snickering.  The other guy they lost track of, but... That was a little bit of crazy news, let me tell you! And I do have to say... I am glad we weren't home at the time.

Making Progress

This has been quite the project! Trying to make our garden look nice and be successful keeps me in constant motion.  A lot of sweat and achy muscles, but I have thoroughly enjoyed it!  The soil was so rocky and had been untouched for years, so that was difficult to work with.  But getting everything put together, figuring out how I wanted everything to look, laying it out, buying the seeds and plants, planting everything.  It's been kind of consuming actually.  But now that everything is put together I can relax a little, water, and watch things grow (crossing my fingers). 

Found these stepping stones out by our kennel run and knew they'd be much more useful here :)

They're growing!! Our green beans were first to pop up :). Naturally.

Now all we need to do is find the right kind of bark (or some kind of covering) to lay on top of our black top. Woohoo for gardening! You know what's kind of ironic though... I hated this kind of stuff as a kid.  Growing up our garden was ginormous! And all through the summer we were constantly outside maintaining it all.  But now I see why we did it.  And I hope I can make this fun for the kids.  (And having the planter boxes helps! Less space for weeds to grow!)  They are much better sports than I was.  Every morning they are out there looking for signs of growth and progression.  I love it.  

WHen they Get ahold of your Camera

Need I say more? ;)

Mrs. Fortune's Famous Fabulous Firsties

This is Alex and his awesome first grade teacher Mrs. Fortune :).  So tonight they had a little concert with the   "Cowboy Buck and Elizabeth (ventriloquist)".  It was a really cute concert and this year the first graders got to sing with them.  Alex's class sang a fun song with their own lyrics and Mrs. Fortune busted out in a solo act with her inflatable guitar.  It was so cute! I have a video but it won't let me download it.  Must be too long or something.  I was hooting and hollering while Mrs. Fortune jumped out... haha, it was rather cute :).

When Cowboy Buck announced his class he must of pronounced it wrong because Alex turns around and tells him that he wasn't saying it right.  So Buck gave him the microphone and told him to say it out loud to everyone.  So loud and clear he says, "Mrs. Fortune's Famous Fabulous Firsties!"

And Alex lost a tooth today at school!  I love it when the front teeth come out.  It always gives me a little laugh :). So cute

Today I hooked up the baby swing our friend gave us a long time ago, and Craig LOVES it.  He actually cried when I took him out the first time.  Had to put him back in right away.  Made me laugh and that's when I got the camera.  He was swinging for almost 30 minutes.  I even brought a book out while he chilled in there :). 

And it's that time of year! Jeremy put together some garden boxes and now we just need to work the soil and get some stuff planted.  

So I started digging. (Carson wanted to take some pics so I let him). This soil is some of the rockiest I have EVER worked with! 

Craig joined us outside... and he LOVED it, of course :)

Eeeew!! Dirt... they always have to taste it

I can't wait until the whole garden is put together :)

New Tricks

He's walking! And the fun thing now is, that he's starting to prefer it over crawling.  Which is perfect timing, because I love going to the park with the kids.  But I don't like it when I have a baby wanting to crawl everywhere.  YEAH CRAIG!

It had to go

It had been 2 years since the last cut.  It was time.

Wonderful :), now Craig won't be holding on to it like a rope.

Conference

We don't have cable, so every conference we all crowd in our room to watch conference on the computer.  It's cozy :).  What a blessing it is to have the words of our prophets and apostles so available and in our own homes!!  I love conference and look forward to it every time.

To help our kids look forward to it and enjoy conference we motivate them with fun snacks.  My friend gave me this idea last year.  For each session we pick a few key words for them to listen for.  And when they do hear it, they get to grab the specific snack or candy in that bowl.  It's so fun for them and surprisingly they get more out of conference then we realize!