April 2012 Summary

April blew by quick due to us being extremely busy in our household.  We had a couple birthdays, Easter, spring break, my dad from Vermont came to visit us, accomplished a lot of yard work, new church callings (hubby is a scout master assistant and second counselor to the young men while I teach 5-6 year old primary children), and our puppy Jagger kept me on my toes since he acts like a toddler eating/chewing everything in sight and occasionally has potty accidents in the house.

Big sister turned 13 years old on April 5th and had a birthday party with some friends!  I cannot believe that she is officially a teenager!

Her birthday theme was her favorite colors Orange, Purple, and Blue!

 The kids played the following games: darts with balloons on sheet rock, Goldfish catch, cartoon couples match game, truth and dare, bubble gum relay, etc. They ate pizza, bread sticks, cake, and ice cream.  The teenangers  appeared very happy and entertained.  Big sis even made a groovy play list on her iPod, which they jammed to during the party.

Our beautiful little sister turned nine years old on April 15th! She requested a very rich chocolate Reese's peanut butter cup cake.  We bought moose tracks ice cream, devil's food cake mix, chocolate frosting.  I did two round cakes and put ice cream in between the cakes. Then frosted it and crumbled Reese's cups all over... We stored it in the freezer.  YUM!  She loved her girly presents a pink fuzzy blanket, a purple kick ball, sock monkey slippers, fairy dolls, Strawberry Shortcake play set, and a purple Lego set.

Little Sis read to Grandpa Coleman while he was in town.  He visited for a couple days during the third week of April.  We had a lovely BBQ with my sister's family on a Sunday evening and hung out.  On another day, he and I went to my mother's grave and had lunch together.  Then we ate enchiladas at my place for dinner one evening and my sister stopped by after work.  It was a great experience for my girls to be reconnected with him since it has been over six years since he last came out.

Big Sis reading to Grandpa!

 Yard work and gardening is a lot of work!  I have already spent many hours weeding, ack! We trimmed rose bushes, thinned fruit trees, fertilized the lawn, chopped limps off our out of control English walnut tree, planted seedlings and flowers!  I absolutely love having a greenhouse!  It has been cool this spring and my plants survived thankfully.  I hope we have a successful harvest in the next couple months! 

I adore my little "puff ball" or "toasted marshmallow" bichon frise/poodle puppy! Jagger makes me laugh and smile everyday!  I enjoy taking him on walks, car rides, kissing him, and cuddling him. He is entertaining when he chases his tail, plays with his favorite squeaky lady bug toy by pushing it on our legs while we walk, and prances when he moves around the house.  He definitively has "The Moves Like Jagger!" John and I are determined to learn how to groom him (nails, haircut, etc) since taking him to the groomers costs a lot of bling bling! Isn't he the cutest puppy ever??? XOXOX

Our First Box Garden

Around spring time, we decided to build our first box garden.  We bought four cubic yards of dirt, which I hauled half of it from the front of the street with a wheeler barrow to the backyard ALL by myself!!! Gooooo me, right?!  John had to work after it got delivered to our house.  It took me all day and boy was I sore afterwards!  What a serious workout!

Box Garden Before/After, May 2011

 We planted a lot of starter plants such as tomatoes, cucumber, squash, zucchini, watermelon, onions, basil, chalets, green onion, green peppers, cabbage, strawberries, and broccoli.   From seeds, we planted green beans, peas, yellow tomatoes, carrots, parsnips, parsley, chives, cilantro, and radishes.  So far, we had some bad luck with parsnips and the watermelon everything else is thriving well.  We planted green beans in place of the parsnips!  The watermelon has a couple tiny green leaves that are not getting very big.  The girls have been very helpful in watering and weeding.

 June 2011

 

Leftover Scraps Project!

With some small pieces of wood, John was able to construct a small planter box for me.  He used some logs for the base.  I bought a couple flowers from  Walmart.  It is a little wobbly and it blow over from a serious summer rain storm, but I think it is cute!

 July 2011

In the long box on the left are cherry tomato plant, two rows of beans, one squash, one zucchini, and few pea plants.  Back box on the right contains two rows of radishes and one watermelon plant in the middle.

As for the front box on the right, it has strawberry plants, herbs, and yellow tomato plants.

Yes, we need to weed around the box garden...  In this long box, we have in the back two rows of onions, some chalets, and a green onion plant.  In the middle, are two tomato plants, four cabbage plants, one cucumber plant, and hidden pepper plants! In the front of the box there are two types of carrots growing.  

 

We have already picked some radishes, chalets, cabbage leaves, zucchini, tomatoes, broccoli, baby carrots, and squash!  It has been a lot of fun learning how to garden and I have been impressed with our efforts so far!

August's Summer Highlights

At the beginning of August, my girls spent a couple days at Granny and Grandpa's house. They loved helping grandpa in the garden, swinging, eating granny's home cooking, and riding the four wheelers! They always have a blast at Granny's house!









Since my brother Nate works for Coke, he got us some amazing discount Lagoon tickets. On August 14th (my 13th wedding anniversary), we got up early and drove up to Farmington. Since we have the motion sickness curse, we bought some chewable anti-motion sickness pills. The girls are not huge fans of roller coasters due to last year we forced them on the old white roller coaster, Spider, and Jet Star. My oldest daughter cried and screamed when she rode them. My youngest daughter had a love/hate experience. She claimed she liked the roller coasters but was laughing and crying at the same time while riding them! She begged us to take her on the wicked this year but she was not tall enough (darn). I absolutely love the wicked! It is one of my favorite rides at Lagoon. Maybe next year ha ha ha!!! So we took it easy this year riding the samurai, water rides, and dizzy rides. We were exhausted by the end of the day and enjoyed a 7 Eleven slurpee on the way home!







Sometime in the middle of August, John surprised the girls with a cool orange slip n slide! We have the perfect yard to place it on a hill. They played with it all day long! To our surprise, the darn thing only lasted 12 hours. The plastic slide ripped a huge hole in it! What a waste money but the kids sure had a lot of fun while it lasted.