Sadie's 3

Three!

So often I think about the future.  

When such and such happens and when so and so is this age.  

Then it happens and I'm caught off guard.  It happens so fast!

 How is Sadie three?

I'm not sure either.

But she is. 

We had a small family birthday party for her on Sunday the 8th.

 Kinsley waiting for the party to begin and wishing she had one of the balloons on the canopy. 

We also blew up balloons and put them in the trampoline enclosure. 

 Sadie had so much fun jumping in it with balloons.

 Doesn't that look like fun!

I might need to do it again after I have Hyrum just for fun! 

 Lately, anytime we have a party Novalee gets herself all dolled up.  

I wasn't ever really like that but I love that she is so girly.  

I love that all our girls are so different.

 Uncle Jeremy was in town from Rexburg.  On Saturday he came to Sky High with us.  I think Sadie holds him in a special place in her heart now. :)

 Papa Larry with Kinsley.

Oh Jared.  We love you!  It's okay, your birthday is just a couple months away.

 Could she be any prettier? 

 Sadie picked out her own birthday cake this year.  

Mainly because I had no desire to make one...someday.

 Things are getting messy 'round here.

 Efforts to get a decent shot of my family.  

I tried.

I really did.

No hope AND they were warned I was going to take a picture.

 Holy Mess Monster!

 "What the problem is?"

 Present time!

 Jared and Novalee were so helpful!

 Novalee has a really cool talent of getting anyone excited about anything.  She really just gets into it, even if it's not her thing.  She definitely had Sadie so excited about every birthday present she got.

 Little thief sneaking in while Sadie is distracted. 

 Ummm, we've had this Mickey toy for over a year taking up space.  I'm so glad we finally got to give it to her and she still liked it.  Sometimes I get things way, WAY too early.

 Kinsley liked it too.

On Sadie's actual birthday the 9th, Wes got a present too.

Welcome to the family Trooper! 

Gardening

We finally had room to start a garden this year! I was so excited about fresh veggies and getting to can for the first time.

In the spring we did a family home evening where we sang. "The Prophet Said to Plant a Garden" and then we dug up a plot in our yard as a family.  When we started digging I didn't think we were going to get very far but we actually finished it that night!  Go Family!

Looks like fun, right?  We had fun!

 Here it is early on in the spring, hence Novalee in her sweatshirt in the kiddie pool.  :)

Making progress.  We never really thought it would grow so well.  The unexperienced (us) had doubts anythign would grow.  We started our tomatoes from seed early, early in the spring inside and they really didn't look like they were going to make it but they just shot up as soon as they were planted outside.  

 Well I didn't grow this butterfly nor is it in our garden but it was so pretty in our neighbors.  

I love where we live!

 

Our first carrots!  

 The neighbors have many sunflowers and over the years birds have spread the seeds all around.  We had a few spring up randomly.  They are pretty cool.

 I grew potatoes from rotten ones that I didn't cook soon enough and they started to sprout.  I just buried them and they grew!  

My first canning experience, GREEN BEANS!  My sister basically did it for me since I had no idea what I was doing.  5 quarts that is all I got from our beans...maybe next year I will pay better attention to the package and I won't buy bush beans.

 We have two blackberry bushes in our yard that have been here for years.  It was so awesome to be able to just pick blackberries from our backyard all summer long. I canned a few pints of blackberry jam and some blackberry syrup. 

Our conjoined cucumber. 

 Being without experience on gardening we weren't sure that anything would make it so we didn't thin anything out as it grew.  So we had cucumbers and currently tomatoes coming out of our ears.  This was just one of the many, many cucumber harvest.  I currently have several bags of them in the garage that will probably go bad.  Next year we will know better.

We also canned three quarts of salsa.  Not much I know but I didn't have gloves for the peppers and worried about blistering my hands.

AND we canned two, yes TWO quarts of pasta sauce!  It took 22.5 pounds and hours and hours later to get those precious two quarts.  I was pretty disgusted after seeing how much work was involved to get so little canned.  Wes asked me last night if we should use one for dinner.  Heck no!  Those things are precious.  We are going to have to celebrate something special to crack those babies open.  

I'm kind of over the gardening thing this year which is good since really all we have growing right now are some tomatoes and some not so hopeful watermelons.  

This year we added grapes, an apple tree and a cherry tree to our yard.  I look forward to when we can enjoy eating apples, cherries and grapes from the yard.  Next year I want to add blueberry bushes and raspberry bushes.  We are quickly running out of yard.  

I wish we could buy property somewhere nearby, pick up our house and plop it down and go from there.  I would be sad if we ever moved from our house but I could deal with more land. 

Plus Wes wants cows, doesn't that seem odd.?  

Wes a cattle herder?  

 Maybe someday. 

 :)

Novalee's Growing Up

Novalee went to the girl scouts overnight camp in May.  It was her first overnighter without us.

   Weird. 

We probably worried more than she did.  

The next day I went to pick her up and she was having so much fun! 

Then in June she graduated Kindergarten.

 Sadie couldn't handle Novalee getting all the attention.  Sadie in in the process of pushing Novalee out of the picture.

 All better.

 I never really got one of her looking and smiling at me.  

She is so cute, serious and all.

 Kinsley liked all the songs they sang and danced a little.

 Still not smiling

 I wonder if she was just wondering when it would be over...

We are proud of our little girl!  She had a really good kindergarten year and she learned so much!

Zoo Trip in the Spring

We got a family membership to the Zoo this year and went for the first time in the spring.  And awesome enough, Wesley got to go with us.  We've gone several times since, well me and the kids and once more with Wesley but I don't think we ever remembered to bring the camera again.  :)

The last few times that we have went Novalee and Jared have wanted to spend all their savings at the Zoo store or on other things at the Zoo.  We are slowly collecting a lot of zoo memorabilia.  

 They are so cute!  

 Proof that Dad was there.  :)  (This must have been before we got our double stroller.)

 One of Jared's most favorite things to do at the Zoo is to take pictures of the animals.  I think he has been bummed the last few times that I've forgotten to bring the camera.  We have A LOT of animal pictures on my dumb phone AND on our SD card.  I think it is really neat he likes to take pictures so much.  He wants to be on the photography club at his school.  I'm not even a 100% sure if they have one but he said the 3rd and 4th graders do it, so I guess it just might happen this year.

 Our first visit to see the elephants since Lilly was born.  She was born on Jared's birthday.

 There she is.  She is was so cute.  I thought she would grow so fast but since we've come back the last few times she doesn't look that much bigger...

 Do you think Jared is suggesting the lions breath is stinky?

I really like the snakes at the zoo.  I think this is the python.  I want to make it sometime in time for feeding time.  I think it would be interesting to see.

Getting Ready for Halloween

I loved summer this year! But for whatever reason as soon as it rained this last week I was ready for fall.

We went to Goodwill (I know, I roll high class) and picked out costumes for the kids.  We bought lights for our front porch and I started searching Pinterest for ideas on DIY halloween craft ideas.

I found a door wreath I liked right away and set out to copy it.

Here is the actual one on pinterest: http://lemontreecreations.blogspot.com/2010/10/wreath-bewitched.html

Here's mine:

 Perhaps not as cute as the one on Pinterest, but I like it.  :)

I tried to use things I already had.  I didn't have a foam wreath to I used the rim of a recently emptied Red Vines Tub.  It seems to have worked just fine.

I did buy the tulle and green fabric and the sign.

I didn't think it would be super simple to paint a plaque with our name on it so I cheated and bought this "Happy Halloween" sign at the Dollar Store today and cut it down to size.  Maybe someday I will paint our name on a sign...but probably not.

Happy Halloween...in 1 and 1/2 months.  :)