Tea party for one!

Sunday morning I went down to the family room to get something and this is what I found:Kay was having her own tea party with the Cinderella tea set that Blondie got a number of years ago. It was cute watching her play and pretend there on her own! I especially liked how she set up all of the bowls and plates in a circle in front of her.

It's almost June and we have snow?!?

Well, yesterday we had a very late in the season snowstorm. It was raining a good portion of the night again and when I got up to get the kids up for school in the morning it was still raining lightly. I sat down at the computer to check my email and then happened to glance out the window again and it was SNOWING this time - big, wet snowflakes. We probably ended up getting about an inch of snow and Kay had some fun running around in it after running some errands that morning. It did end up getting fairly warm later in the afternoon, and by the end of the week twe are supposed to be getting close to 80 degrees. I have definitely been enjoying the cooler spring and I'm not looking forward to the hot temperatures!

First Strawberry

I finally picked our first strawberry the other day. It was a pretty good size one too. Unfortunately I think I should have waited a couple more days to pick it because it was a little sour. It looked a much darker red on the vine then it did once I picked it. Hopefully we will get more later on in the season.

Updates - 5/22/10

Yesterday I was able to plant some corn and watermelon before it started to rain (again). Last night it POURED most of the night so hopefully that helped the garden instead of hurt it. I was a little afraid of what the weather would be like for the soccer games today, but it was mostly sunny skies - a little on the chilly side for the spectators, but perfect temperature for the players. M&M's field was pretty wet with a few puddles here and there on it, but Luke's field was relatively dry. Both of the games had pretty evenly matched teams and they were exciting to watch - and both came off with wins today (Luke 4-2, M&M 2-1). Luke's team (which I am coaching) is still undefeated; M&M's team lost their first game last week, 0-1. It has been a fun season - only one game left to go!

DH got our peach tree planted today. Hopefully it will do well and grow quickly. It was way too wet in the garden to do any more planting today so the beans, onions and carrots will have to wait another couple of days. Amazingly we have some onions and carrots that survived from last year so I'm not in a huge rush to plant more right now.

I have been craving a lot of different foods today - fruit, hamburgers, and now homemade ice cream. Luckily I have had everything I needed to satisfy the cravings - we are about to try some homemade chocolate mint ice cream here in a few minutes.

:-P

Garden update - 5/20/10

After a couple of days of rain I was finally about to get out and plant a few more things in the garden yesterday. I was able to plant the rest of the potatoes and the cucumbers. I pulled some more weeds and got the rest of the garden ready so I can hopefully plant some more later on today. We are excited because we finally have a very large strawberry that is almost ripe on one of the strawberry plants that we planted last year - and there are several smaller ones that are growing as well. I made sure to put some netting on the plants a couple of days ago because I don't want the birds getting to them before we do!

I also bought a peach tree yesterday for DH to plant. It is an Early Elberta tree which we read good reviews on - and DH remembers his grandfather having them in his fruit orchard. Hopefully we will get some peaches from it before we move from this house...

My parents bought some peaches last year from a local Farmer's Market that I helped them can. I waited a while before finally opening one and trying them and my family absolutely loves them. They are some of the sweetest canned peaches that I have ever tasted. So we have definitely been craving peaches lately which is why we decided to plant our own tree. Hopefully in the fall I will get the chance to can some more peaches - and probably double what we did this year if I can manage.

Reach the Beach 2010

DH drove up to the Northwest again this year to participate in the Reach the Beach 100-mile bike ride with his dad and brother for the 4th time. He left Thursday, had a day to relax, participated in the bike ride on Saturday and then drove back home on Sunday.

It was kind of fun this year since we both finally have cell phones and DH was able to text me throughout the day of the ride letting me know how they were doing and then on the drive home as well so I could know when to expect him.

While he was gone we had lots of things to keep us busy. On Thursday M&M had soccer practice after school and then I had a cub scout roundtable to attend in the evening. Then on Friday the kids and I got some good work done in the garden and then Blondie had tumbling and I picked up pizza for dinner on the way home. Luke and I finished up mowing the back lawn before dinner and then we watched the movie The Princess and the Frog (none of us cared for it too much).

On Saturday M&M and Luke had soccer games one right after the other and then we went home to clean up the house a little before going over to dinner at my parents' house that evening. After dinner I picked up the movie Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs for us to watch before bed - we all thought it was a cute movie.

Sunday morning I had choir practice before church and then I sang with the choir during Sacrament Meeting - thankfully Kay sat quietly with her siblings during the number and didn't cry when I left to go sing. After church I laid down for a bit with Kay and had the kids just get food for themselves for dinner. After that we went for a walk around the neighborhood because it was such beautiful weather! Then DH got home after most of the kids had gone to sleep.

Beautiful Sunday

The weather this past Sunday was absolutely beautiful! In the evening the kids and I went for a walk around the neighborhood. Afterwards we were sitting on the lawn and found a potato bug (roly poly) that we showed to Kay. She asked what it was and I told her it was a potato bug. After thinking about it for a minute she called it a "Potato head ladybug." It was cute because she was trying to associate the name with things that she knows and she knows what a potato head is and she knows what a ladybug is so she just put the two names together.

No planting today...

It has been raining on and off all day today so not a good day for planting in the garden. Hopefully tomorrow will be better... (Although I am not complaining about the rain - I love the rain - it is just hampering my efforts in the garden right now.)

Finally planting the garden...

So after my last post about getting the garden ready, we have had terrible weather for planting - it has been cold, rainy and very windy. The last couple of days have finally been nice and sunny and I have finally been able to go out and start getting some things planted. I finally planted my tomato plants on Saturday and then today the kids and I planted some broccoli, lettuce, potatoes and pumpkins. Hopefully if it doesn't rain too much tomorrow so I can get the rest of the vegetables planted. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

Pregnancy Update

Well, today I am officially 3/4 of the way done with my pregnancy, but unfortunately I have probably the hardest and most uncomfortable part ahead of me (not to mention the hottest since we are getting closer to summer now). The biggest difference with this pregnancy over my others is that I am just so tired all of the time. If I could, I would just lay in bed all day reading and/or sleeping and not do anything else. Unfortunately, that is not such a great thing to do when I have a husband and 5 other kids and a house to look after.

My feet and ankles are definitely noticing the extra pregnancy weight and not liking it at times. Last month when we went to the zoo and then I had to rush to clean my house in 2 hours the next morning and then had soccer games and Kitty's birthday the day after that, my feet/ankles were in so much pain for about a week after that. I felt like I had sprained and bruised both of my feet/ankles - it especially hurt to walk down the stairs (which is impossible to avoid in our house).

My feet/ankles are also not starting to like the warmer weather. Our church building is always super hot inside and I can just feel my feet expanding while I'm just sitting there for 3 hours through classes and Sacrament Meeting - not fun!!

There are times when I feel like this pregnancy is flying by and other times when it seems like it is crawling. And then there are times when I feel absolutely huge and other times when I think I look pretty small - especially for this being my 6th pregnancy. I finally broke down recently and updated some of my pregnancy wardrobe. So many of my pregnancy clothes are just plain out-of-date and frumpy looking, plus I wanted some more springy items to wear since my last couple of pregnancies were done by the middle of April. I have actually found some really comfortable maternity clothes this pregnancy and I love wearing them. I would definitely recommend pants and capris from Kohl's, T-shirts from J.C. Penney's, and skirts and shirts from Motherhood. Luckily I had some gift cards from each of these stores so I haven't actually had to spend much of our own money on the items. At the same time I have found some really ugly "new" maternity styles that I just can't imagine looking good or fitting well on any pregnant women - that would be just about any shirts from Kohl's and most of the jeans/capris at J.C. Penney's. I also wish it wasn't so hard to find some cute maternity skirts and dresses. Most stores hardly carry anything in skirts and dresses and those that do usually only have black or dark gray colors. Thankfully I found a couple of really cute skirts from Motherhood that are super comfortable - I just wish they weren't quite so expensive... I have found a couple of tutorials online about making maternity skirts, but so far I just haven't found the time to get to the fabric store to pick out some fabric and try making some.

Kid talk

On Saturday morning when Kay woke up I brought her into bed with me for a few minutes. DH was still sleeping beside us and just after we laid down he snored just a little. Kay looked at me with bright eyes and said, "Is it a cow?"

I couldn't quit laughing for several minutes after that...