A garden story

We moved to Orem in 2011. In our rental, there was a beautiful garden! Everything was all ready to go, so we took advantage of it!

It was so much fun! And we got lots out of it!

These pictures are from our first harvest. During our 2nd year living there, we decided to plant turnips, just to see if they would grow. They, in fact, did grow. We were so happy with our turnips! Then Chris tried to make turnip soup. It was awful. After the first bite, we both decided that turnips were definitely not something we would try ever again.
So, in our minds, this gardening thing was no big deal! If you just plant things and water them, they grow, and then you harvest and eat and it's fabulous!
Then we moved to Idaho Falls, and were very sad to find that our yard had a lot of shade during the day, making it difficult to plant a garden. I tried doing a window sill garden for my herbs. It didn't work that well. But then, the city of Idaho Falls came to our door and said that we needed to have our apple trees trimmed in order to make way for the power line. I asked them to trim really far, because I hated that apple tree. I'm not sure if it was one apple tree or two, but at any rate, it had two trunks and looked terrible. They asked if they should remove it. So, low and behold, part of our yard now gets sun!!

Chris took a day off of school to make us a garden.

And Chris and his helpers made this:

And then we started planting! We thought that it would be fabulous like our last garden in Orem. However, we had a water problem last year. This happened basically because we have no experience in actually making a garden, and my parents were on their mission in Cincinnati, so they couldn't help. Thus, we were on our own!

However, the "expert" has helped (A TON!!) and, after I worked for about 7 hours this past weekend, along with some boys down the street (because of this) and now our garden now looks like this:

I never thought I would be so excited about dirt! Yay! So my dad will come help with our finishing touches next week, and we will plant! Davis is very excited and really really wants to plant cherry tomatoes, because he thinks it's so fun to eat them off the vine! I can't disagree with that!
Anyway, I have learned that, although gardening is hard an tiring, it is a lot of fun, especially when you have kids to do it with you. I also think it's a wonderful thing to teach kids how to do! We're excited for our harvest!

Bedroom remodel

I decided that with some of my birthday and Christmas money, I was going to redo our bedroom! It's been a fun project.

Before:

After:

I (meaning we) got new curtains, painted an accent wall blue, and moved the desk upstairs that was in the basement. It was a fun project! We really love our new bedroom!

Reagan is THREE!

 

Honestly, I will greatly miss Reagan being two. She has been the most delightful two-year-old ever known! But, alas, she turned three!
We had a party for her on Sunday night, and then spent today opening her presents from Mom and Dad and grandparents. It was a ton of fun.
Here is some of the Sunday fun:

 All of her party food was pink, of course.

 Including the traditional elephant cake, made by mom.

 "Thanks, Great Grandpa."

 Ready to blow out the candle.

 Unwrapping gifts.

 The picture taking fail of blowing out the candle.

And this morning:

 Princess dress up clothes

Getting help unwrapping gifts from her brother early in the morning, before Daddy went to work. Brothers are great!
We got a gift back in October of a play kitchen. We got a little distracted, and didn't try to assemble it before the weekend before her birthday, and found that there were no instructions included, and none available on the internet. We emailed everyone we could think of, and I had three emails in my inbox on Monday morning with instructions of how to put the kitchen together. So, the kitchen did not come until later the night of her birthday, which was totally okay with her. She was delighted to get it!

 Playing with it while being dressed as Belle, because of course we have to do that!

Anyway, it's quite the detailed kitchen.

Things I want to remember about Reagan when she turned 3:
1. She is such a GIRL! She tells me several times a day that her favorite colors are pink and purple. She loves anything princess and girl.
2. She loves to sing. Every night before bed, she sings me several songs, usually, "Incy Wincy Spider," "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," and "I am a Child of God" to name a few.
3. She LOVES her brother, and protects him just as much as he protects her. She is fiercely loyal to him.
4. She loves to say prayers, and sometimes forgets whether she should "bless the food" or not. Often, she asks me during the prayer. And there are often addendums after her prayers, because she forgets to say certain things.
5. She is SO BIG. She is pretty much Davis's age. Just ask her. She can do ANYTHING by herself!

Davis is FIVE!!

Davis turned FIVE this week! Holy smokes! It's hard to believe that he's really been in our family for five years . . . part of me thinks it's been an eternity that he's been here, and part of me feels like it started yesterday!
We had a very fun little superhero birthday with his friends on Saturday.

 They had several games in the "super hero training," including push-ups, sit-ups, and burpees. Then we went downstairs and shot silly string at a poster that had spiders on it. We also did a pin-the-dot on the Batman insignia, and a target practice as well. The kids thought the games were great.

Blowing out candles on the birthday cupcake. This was actually the only time that he blew out the candles. #momfail. Oh, well.

Then, on Sunday, we had a party with family

He opened his presents, and then we all had ice cream and cake, which was great fun. We had mint ice cream, chosen because he wanted the green one.

On Monday, we had to make a trip to Utah to get both of our fingerprints taken. So, after we got home, we opened presents, and then took the kids to Reed's Dairy and they had ice cream for dinner. Another #momfail. But when it's your birthday, it's okay, right?

Eating lunch in Odgden

Opening his presents from us, including a tool chest that now resides in his bedroom. Along with his legos, his bedroom is now a more popular place than the family room!!

Things I want to remember about Davis turning five:
1. He is still such a nice boy. He always tries to be kind to everyone, especially Reagan.
2. He loves to play pretend. From one moment to the next, he might go from PJ Masks to Batman to Spiderman to Thomas the Train. And every time I try to call him by whatever he is pretending to be, he says, "Mom! I'm just pretending!!" I always say, "Oh, thanks. I get mixed up."
3. Most of his games with Reagan are just one telling the other one what to say. Sometimes they try to tell me what to say too. It never works.
4. Davis is FASCINATED with numbers and letters and EVERYTHING!! He loves to tell me what he has learned in preschool and try to figure out how it works in real life.
5. Davis still loves to sing. He has brought several new songs that he has learned in primary and preschool home with him. They are always fabulous songs!

We love this little boy and can't wait to see what he will turn out to be in his life!

Fathers' Day 2017

We have the best daddy at our house! Everyone loves our daddy. He is definitely the favorite parent.

This is one of my favorite pictures lately. Chris stayed home on a Monday to build a garden for me (because we lost our apple tree, which was fabulous!) These kids wanted to go outside with their daddy. They saw that he put on his boots and his gloves, so they got their winter boots and winter gloves and went out to "help" him. They love their daddy! Basically, Davis does whatever daddy does, and Reagan does whatever Davis does, so it's a winning combination!

For Fathers' Day, these were our celebrations:

Daddy got a new Star Wars shirt (because he needed a new one. . . like a hole in the head) and a pair of work shoes, and hugs from his kids! Because Daddy likes to smoke (the primary presidency says that Davis saying announced that in Primary when learning about the Word of Wisdom--great!), we let him make us some yummy meat for Fathers' Day too! Aren't we nice?!