Being productive

This was my plane jane door before

                                                    This is it after!

                 I find that in these pictures and certain light you may not be able to
                   tell but it is purple. Not the Joker's suit purple but eggplant-ish?

      And here is the monster, or I should say one of the monsters.

            These 2 Cherry tomato plants are being held up by  8 tomato cages.

          We also have another tomato plant that is producing a lot of normal

            size tomatoes, but it is not this big. The other day I picked 67 cherry tomotoes and 14 regular! Wow what a year for tomatoes. The other veggies are doing great too! Our othe rmonster is the Yellow squash spilling out onto the lawn.

So far in the last week I have made salsa almost entirely from fresh garden produce. I've made apricot jam, and apricot syrup, 3 loaves of zucchini bread and one banana. And I have put up frozen fresh green beans, and shredded zucchini. Spending that much time in the kitchen means that the rest of the housemay need my attention now, gotta run!

Come on Baby you can do it!

Help me cheer her on! I can't believe Maren is almost a year old and isn't doing this stuff yet! But I will say she sure is cute! We have a lot of practicing to get to. These shots were taken while I helped her get to each step. I'm thinking it will be awhile before she walks. . . We haven't even lowered her crib because she doesn't sit herself up.



1st Bike Parade

Garrett has always wanted to decorate his bike for a parade and he got his chance! Ou ward party was a breakfast and kid's bike parade. So the kids were way excited!

                         Embrie wore the hat she'd made with Gandma Peggy

. . . after camping

The day that we left the camp ground we drove down to grandpa and grandma Callahan's house for one more night's stay and to do some fishing that Garrett has been begging to do for quite some time.

We had no luck the first time. Man I tell ya! with 2 babies 4 kids and 3 adults we just didn't have the numbers for a successful kids fishing trip. poles and lines were tangled faster than we could handle. There were a few bites but no good catches. So the next morning, Garrett, Grandpa and Dad headed out alone to see if they'd have more luck.

                                                      and they did!
Embrie was a little sad that they boys were leaving to go fishing without her, but Grandma cheered her up with a craft idea. She helped Embrie make a cute hat.

          She picked out the colors and flower and buttons and beads she wanted.

                                She even got to use the hot glue gun herself

 Later that day we headed down to a shared garden and picked some vegetables.

I'd say we had a pretty fun week!

The great outdoors

We went camping with the Callahan side of the family at Price Rec.

This was Embrie's and Maren's first real camping trip. How terrible is that? that Embrie is 3 1/2 and this is her first camping trip other than the backyard! And so you know it's been that long since Garrett has been too! Yikes! we need to do this more often, like Embrie said when I asked her if we should to it again, "we should to it lots of times!"

 One of the first things we did was take a hike. Me and these 4 cute rug rats hit the trail.

mostly in search of these little lizards (of which 3 were caught and only one got away)

                                             climbed some rocks

                                                  played in the dirt

                                                played some games

                                                           hung out

ate great camping food

or in some cases our normal every day food

                      All the siblings from Left: Melissa, Brad, Shane, Cory

                                               looking dirty and devious

                                                 Chillin' with Grandma! 

       Everyone did great in the tent over night. Basically the whole trip went really well! 



Bunkbed Luv and Disneyland

We got bunkbeds a couple months ago (hand-me-down bunks) and I decided to paint them white to match the dresser that I painted white that will eventually go in the girl's bedroom when they're ready to share. I know the paintin of the beds has nothing to do with this post except for me to say that it took me a really long time and I thought it would never end, whew ok got that off my chest...

Obviously the kids LOVE them! They are sooo excited. And what do you know? ever since we got them the kids have not had a problem going to sleep without fighting or playing! (the consequence of not being able to sleep in the bunk bed is strongly convincing.) So it's been a week and they are doing well. Here's to hoping no one gets injured...

Child Labor? No. Here Garrett and Embrie are washing the marker off their walls, the marker now visible since we rearranged the rooms for the bunkbeds. This is one of the chores I gave them since they've been asking for chores . . . now you say would kids ask for chores? 

 to earn money for Disneyland suvenirs of course! Well I don't exactly have the      "go-ahead" on booking our trip to Disneyland yet, but trust me its in the works, between me and the kids we'll get dad cornered and some how convince him, he did say that they could start saving and earning money for it. So they decorated a jar to keep track.

 I'll keep you posted on our efforts.

4th of July 2012

We celebrated our freedom by going to the Cabin!

Everyone was excited but it seemed that Embrie just couldn't wait. All day she said, are we going to the cabin now? are we on our way? is this the way to the cabin? Are we at the cabin yet? Then that night while she was taking a bath she said, "mom can we come here again?" Of course! We spent just one night but we had lots of fun taking walks and looking for animal tracks and flowers, and going up and down the trail to the pond.

Then we headed to Huntsville in the afternoon for the 4th of July celebration. The kids played at the park, and on some bouncy slides, and got their faces painted. Garrett got a skull with flames and Embrie got an angry bird.



They had live preformers and in the evening a family dance party.

Watching the fireworks later was fun, Maren was a little nervous at first. She was clinging to me pretty tight. She didn't seem to mind the sound as much as the lights, but she calmed down and eventually just cuddled in my lap.