Summer Fun, Something's begun!

Our first week of summer was filled with fun and excitement on all fronts.

Around the house, it was fun to watch American Home Renewal work hard replacing all our windows and our sliding patio door!

 Scaffolding had to be used to reach the upstairs window and trim. Jade was particularly tempted by the low bars and potential for climbing...

Goodbye old door!

Fun to see one by one the old windows go and the new slick windows go in!

And now there are bedroom windows that my kids can actually open! And they're up to code and fire safe and all that jazz...

But as any homeowner knows, one home improvement project begets another... so yes, as you can see, we now have a painting job to consider... yay...

For our Cub Scout, the first week of summer was filled with loads of learning and crafting and shooting at Cub Scout Day camp!

 Lawrence's den performing the classic "JC Penny" skit ("Where'd you get that jacket? ...shoes? ... watch?" etc. "From JC Penny." Last scout runs by wrapped in a towel. "Who are you?" "JC Penny!" haha...)

In spite of a rough beginning to the week with the scout trailer being burglarized, the leaders pulled off a great camp for the boys.  Lawrence was particularly proud of a wooden box that he made and the gold bead that he earned for making a bulls eye on the archery range! On the last day, I treated the kids to McDonalds for lunch and had a picnic lunch at the park before watching each den perform their skit. 

Back at home in our garden, we thinned out the carrots and enjoyed nibbling on the little ones, making room for bigger ones to grow.  We're trying some multi-colored fun this summer in the garden, including purple/white/yellow/orange carrots, green and gold beans, and yellow/red/purple beets. 

The only big downside to the week was that daddy was gone at Zion's camp all week.  He had a great time helping the boys do some climbing and serving with the youth, which is a good thing, but the evenings are always harder when daddy's not home... and clearly, my photography is not very good when daddy's not home... 

Week one of summer fun: done. 

just another week in Newark...

This was a somewhat uneventful week, but just a quick couple of thoughts...

"My" choir sang for the first time today for ward conference!  They were quite amazing! I had silly nightmares about the choir all last night (nobody showing up, the chapel being unrecognizable...) but nothing weird happened and my singers were all exquisite! They make it fun to be the choir director! 

This was our homeschool check-in week (it happens every other week) where we see Mrs. B. and turn in all the homework we've done and Dawna shares her favorite assignments.  Were were pleasantly surprised when we got there to see that Dawna had been chosen as Decoto's Student of the Month!--complete with certificate and a gift card to McDonalds!  All the kids come along with me when we go and Larry and Xochitl build with the amazing blocks they have there.  One of the High School students there asked Larry what he was building (in the picture below).  Larry said, "A BART station." The teenager said, "WOW! That is Magical!" Larry got a kick out of that! 

 Our winter garden is coming along nicely, notwithstanding the lack of rain... So far, we've harvested broccoli, cauliflower, kale, plenty of parsley and rosemary, and NEW this year: Romaine Lettuce!! It was an easy one to grow, as long as you keep the bugs off! We lost a couple heads early in the season to snails... gross... but we still have one big head to go! Our Brussels Sprouts are coming along nicely also--they look good now, but we'll have to wait and see on the flavor...

 And yes, these pictures are from Christmas... long time ago... but I just found them and had to share how much my mom is the Grandma Pajama Queen at Christmastime! It makes me wish I was a grandkid... Warm matchy pajamas... sigh...

Yeah... 27 Grand kids in one house... can we say crazy???

The Big Granddaughters: Balance, Grace, and Fuzzy socks...

The Little granddaughters...sweet, sassy, and Fuzzy socks...

Rob and Levi WISH they were so adorable!

The boys and their planes! 

Winter garden

Today we harvested the first batch of broccoli from our garden! Freshest Broccoli I've ever had! This variety, Green Comet Broccoli, is supposed to keep producing small florets on the side for a few weeks... We'll see how it goes!

In other small news of the week, I do NOT have gestational diabetes (yay!) and Dawna finished her second trimester with a great report card. I had my grades down for her, but Jon and Mr. P. both said I was being too hard on her, so they were adjusted. Larry is excited about playing piano and practices with me every day. Xochitl somehow learned her birthday (I've never quizzed her on it, but one day someone asked her and she just knew...) and will gladly tell you she's turning 3 on "April nineteenffffffff" to quote her exactly.

My Garden :)

Photosynthesis rocks my world! This is my first experience with a garden. I had very little faith at the beginning that anything would actually grow, but my faith is growing along with my little plants!! The Radishes were the first to come up. I was thrilled to see them all pretty in a row!



We also have little green beans, butternut squash, and cucumbers coming up... and the most exciting one to me are my little soy bean plants. I LOVE to eat soy beans steamed and lightly salted! Here's hoping for a good harvest! I would have two more soy bean plants, but some rambunctious squirrels nabbed two of them! I was so mad I could have chased their fluffy tails into the freeway! Grrr...



In other news, my kids are still the cutest around. Almost 2 and 3 months are the cutest ages in the world.