Evil Garden

So we have had some fun with the garden this year and most of our experiences have been good, but Saturday night we were reminded of how you just can't tame the wild. Drew was watering and I was picking weeds and the kids were doing what they usually do. This consisted of walking through other people's gardens and picking the leaves off of flowers. T-ray was wandering a bit and he was in a weed patch when he fell down. He usually whines/cries when he falls, but this was a particularly loud cry. At first I just told him to get up and "come here". But he wasn't listening. So as I approached him I saw what had happened and I felt horrible. He had fallen into a burr patch. For those of you who are not familiar, here is a picture (not the least bit exaggerated by the way).

So since I had no gloves on hand I got to pick these little suckers out one by one with my fingers. He had 4-5 in the palms of each hand and several on his arms and legs. I felt so bad cause every time that I pulled one out he would start to bleed, then as I shook it off my hand I would start to bleed. It was sad. But hey, the carrots are looking good. Thats worth it, right?

and should we die....all is well

You know its been a great day when you are sitting down for prayer with the family and you look over at your 1 year old and think, "that hole in his head is healing nicely" and then you look at your two year old and think, "no wonder she has been complaining about her head hurting, there is a gigantic goose egg above her eye," and then you close your eyes and your husband starts the prayer out with, "Thank Thee that our house did not burn down..." and he is being completely sincere. All is well in Zion folks!

I finally decided

Well, I finally decided! Decided what you might ask. I have finally decided what I will do if/when I win a million dollars. Let me tell you how I got to that decision and then I will share my master plan. So I had a good friend that I look up to stop by last night and my house was a pig sty. I knew all day that I needed to pick up, but I forgot about spring cleaning this year and the thought of what really needed to get done in the house was too overwhelming so I did nothing. I had a good speech ready for Drew too, you know, about what it is that I had been doing all day since it clearly was not cleaning the house. (I should note here that Drew NEVER bugs me about the house. He is actually very understanding but it is my own conscience that makes me feel guilty at the end of the day when Drew has worked hard and comes home and trips his way back to the bathroom. And yes, I know that I work hard too) ANYWAYS, So this friend came over and I of course started with my usual, "please excuse my house I was doing this and that and blah blah blah..." Then she was like, "don't worry about it" and she really looked like she wasn't concerned. She sat down, we chatted and she left. This should have been a good thing, right? Well, I got thinking about it, and it hit me, "Oh my goodness, she was not stunned AT ALL about the state of my house which must mean that....my friends are used to seeing my pig sty." (another note, I am sure that this friend was NOT thinking this, but it was the fuel that I needed). SO, since Drew has weekend class this weekend, I had all day today to change my ways. Which, it took, ALL DAY to change my ways. I even scrubbed the base boards and cleaned the blinds. I am exhausted. NOW, this brings me to my million dollar dilemma. At first I thought, wouldn't it be nice to have a maid who keeps your house clean. But that idea quickly died for several reasons.

1. My house only stays clean for moments because my children think it is the funniest thing to walk behind me and undo things I do. Granted my house looks better, but after only an hour, the sink has dishes again. The table is dirty. The toy bins have been emptied, and the sliding glass door has little hand prints.

2. I would like to think that I can manage a house on my own. There is a certain pride that comes from being a stay at home mom, and accomplishing (if only momentarily) stay at home tasks.

So here is what I have decided. I want a guest house. Only WE would be the guests. The kids and I would play and eat at the guest house all day, and when it was almost time for Drew (or anyone else) to come home, we would run over to the clean, bright, sunny, happy, good-smelling home! Then I wouldn't have to have a heart attack every time that the kids played with their toys or dumped the gold fish on the floor, or pulled the bedding off of ALL of the beds (weird huh!).

There you have it. Bring on the million, I am ready!

$300 tantrum

I know that this has never happened to anyone else, but T-Ray, (yes T-Ray) threw a fit that cost us about 300 dollars. Let me explain. We have been doing lots of fun stuff lately and we recently went camping. We decided to go on a 2 1/2 mile hike with the kiddos (which Brook walked almost 2 miles of it!). When we were done we took a family pic at the view point which was a 100 mile panorama of the continental divide. When we went to put the kids in the car, T-Ray had had enough. He was stiffening his body and screaming. Naturally Drew put the camera on the roof of the car so he could focus both hand on the task. You know where this is going right? We got in, drove away, and never saw our precious camera again. So since I take forever to download pics we lost some important occasion memories. Here I will try to re-create them.

I took a cake decorating class this last month which was awesome. It culminated with me making T-Ray's first birthday cake. We will pretend that it looked something like this. Also, imagine my sweet little guy shoving lemon cake with lemon curd filling into his sweet 1 year old mouth.

Pretend this is our cute family enjoying the 4th of July weekend up at Cold Creek campground just outside of Golden Gate Canyon State park.

Imagine this is us on our hike, only T-ray was in a baby hiking carrier, and it was about 4 times steeper, and 30 times more beautiful.

This pic is not too far from the truth. It rained a lot!!!! Fortunately it let up for the good parts, food, set-up, hikes, and smores.

Now pretend that this is us watching the fireworks at Coors Stadium after the ball game to end a great 3rd of July celebration.

You can also imagine how cute Drew was on father's day, and all of my cute pictures from our trips to St George and Idaho and a way cute video of Brooklyn explaining what camping is all about. Sad sad, wo is me and my memories. :(