Happy Birthday, TIM!

June 17th we celebrated Tim's birthday.  For his birthday we got Alexa braces.

Is she cute, or what?  She looks so much older now.

After braces, after dinner, after Young Women's and just before bedtime we celebrated the birthday.

Our awesome neighbor's came over.  It was also our friend, Blake's birthday that same day so we all got together for some pound cake, sorbet, and nice visiting.

    'Til next year, Tim.  I know you won't forget because the girl's keep reminding you, it will be the big 4-0!

McKenna turns 3

We are so lucky to have my parents serving a mission just 3 hours from us.  They are working on a camp that the church owns.  The camp site is great but the accomodations have been lacking.  Until now.  My parents are there helping update the place, the lodge, the lake, the grounds, you name it.  It is looking great.  I don't think they could have a better set of missionaries than my parents. 

So are you wondering what this has to do with McKenna turning 3?  My sister, her family and ours, went out to celebrate the birthdays.  McKenna and her cousin, Nate share their special day together.  It was our first time out to see the place.  We sure had a great time.  Although, it will be A LOT nicer when the new cabins get put up with the A/C in them.

Alexa and Grandpa driving the tractor.  (Little did Grandpa know that Alexa would be hitting him up to let her drive it all on her own.)

Don't know what this is about.

It wouldn't be a party without Tim cooking the food.  He was loving the industrial kitchen with it's gazillion burners and the giant old walk in cooler (it was all wood.)  The birthday dinner was, of course, yummy thanks to Tim and mom for supplying the ingredients. 

A few of the party goers - Uncle Andrew and Grandpa.

Livie and the Birthday girl.

McKenna got that b-day hat at nursery and wanted to make sure and where it on her birthday.

She has the best nursery leaders and she absolutely adores them.

The birthday boy and girl

After the dinner and presents we came outside to have cake and ice cream, along with snow cones and fudge bars and whatever else the kids could get away with eating while at Grandma's.  Alexa did admit that she had a bad stomach ache the whole next day. 

On Monday we pulled out the canoes and played all day.

Alexa convinced Grandpa to let her drive the tractor on her own. 

(I knew he'd give in - it's hard to say no to this girl.)

We had to leave first and this is what we saw as we drove away.  You can't get the full effect unless you were sitting in your car backing out and driving away - they stood like this the whole time.

(You know I couldn't pass up this blog opportunity.)

We went back a month later and the place looks even BETTER!  Can't wait to go again.

Thanks for the fun.

Maya LOVES Performing

I'm sure I've mentioned that I have this VERY confident little girl.  She loves life and wants to experience it without any concern of what people think or say.  I can tell that she actually ENJOYS being in front of people.  She DOES NOT get that from her mom.  I do however remember an older brother of mine once say how he loves a captive audience. (And his name isn't Dave.)  Maybe that's where she gets it from.  Here is Maya at her dance recital. 

Maya is the bottom left.  Is she cute or what?

Maya told me after the recital that she didn't want to do it again.  After seeing her up on stage enjoying herself, I was surprised and asked why.  She said that she didn't like waiting around for her turn.  Just like I said, this girl doesn't want to be sitting around, she wants to experience life.

Now, if I can get my computer working correctly (i've been trying for a week now) I'll upload her 1st grade school play that she was in.  Hopefully I can get it to work soon.

A Kodak Moment

One of the blessings in my life is that when my children play, they play WELL together.  We can go for hours without fighting.  I'm not saying fighting never happens I am just recognizing that they do get along more than they don't.  Especially when they can pretend play.  Like right now, for example, McKenna is napping, Alexa is at Girl's Camp, and Olivia and Maya have been playing play dough for the past 45 minutes without a hint of disagreement.  Just lots of planning and pretending.  Love it.  Ok, All that just to show these pictures.  One day I found Maya and McKenna playing photographer.  Notice there is no camera.  They just got out the trip pod and made the "click" sound for the camera.  I thought it was too cute and had to take some real pictures of their pretend play.

Sewing the Seeds of Love

After 2 years of debating where the garden should go we finally have agreed (that's where the love part comes in - compromising.)  Here are a few photos of our experiences and a little of our harvest.

We decided to put it in front of our little "forest".  Here's where the comrpomise comes in - Tim wanted to cut 2 of the trees down and I didn't.  Well, I gave in.  Here he is chopping at the stump trying to remove it.  He spent probably a good 2-3 hours on each one.

I think at this point he was wishing he didn't get his way.

And here's what happens when you spend your day in the garden and not taking care of kids.  They run around like chickens with their heads cut off and hair flying everywhere.

The beginning of our planting.

Can this girl get any cuter?  She was loving running through the dirt.

The beginning of my daily ritual.  I am addicted.  I can't get enough of this garden.  I am out there every day sometimes 3 times a day. 

After a few drops of water and lots of sunshine. . .

Our first zucchini. 

 We have been eating it and giving it away like crazy.  Along with our cucumbers.

Yummy!  Grilled squash and zucchini - straight from the garden (well, after we washed it, of course.)

One day we came out and found this GIANT zucchini.  Thanks to my mom's suggestion and Tim's skills in the kitchen, we had a giant zucchini boat.  It was DELICIOUS.The girls loved it also which is always a plus.

We grew some pickling cucumbers just to try our hand at making some bread and butter pickles.

They turned out so yummy.  I also just learned a tip that if we plant some now they will be ready in the fall and be crispier pickles because they would have the colder nights while growing.  We might try it out.  If we do, don't be surprised if you get some pickles for Christmas.

We have tons of tomatoes growing, we're just waiting for them to turn red.  Bless their hearts, I'm afraid they're not getting enough sun.  (That last line was for you, Mare.)