Beautiful Girls

I love these two pics of my girls. I also love sepia coloring, so that's why they're not full color.

Oh What Do You Do in Primary?

For those of you who found some confusion about what I need help with in Primary, I am the Primary chorister. So all activities are based around music...

Blog Giveaway!

I've never won anything. But I thought this was worth a shot and perhaps someone I know will win it (though I not-so-secretly want it to be me...)

http://makeitandloveit.blogspot.com/2009/06/sponsor-and-giveaway-time-again_22.html

I Need Ideas!

Help! The Young Women in our ward need a service project and they will be helping me get things ready for use in Primary for singing time, like visual aids, object lessons, musical instruments, games, and any thing else I can think of. The problem is, I need ideas. I want them to be really helpful and to not be done in 20 minutes, but I also don't want to waste time, money, and energy on things that aren't great.

So, I'm looking for ideas of games that are great for learning new songs, reviewing old songs, or singing favorite songs. Or visual aids to help teach words or review. Or other activities to get the kids engaged. Or great ways to make musical instruments or anything else that they can use during the music. Once a month, we have a special Sunday where we sing their favorite songs, play games with the music, and let them get really involved. But I need more ideas.

If you have any ideas to pass along (be specific), please let me know!

New and Improved

Remember that mei tai carrier I posted a few weeks ago? Well, from that, I had a friend ask me to make her one. But we redesigned it and I changed a TON about how I was making them and made her one I was SO excited about. From that, another friend decided to have me make her one, which she is loving with her newborn. Because I didn't really like my first one now, I decided to make ME another one. So, I've now made 3 in this new pattern and LOVE it. It is getting easier to do each time and I love how comfortable and cute they are.

This is the first one I made with the new design. I loved the fabric she chose.

Thanks Paisley (and Jill) for modeling! I love how it fits so well.

Here's the second one with its owner, baby Bryce (and Emily). She likes the behind the back tying better than under the legs with him so small.This is my latest that I made for me (though I'm going to post it for sale on etsy).

I love how versatile the styles can be, because you can choose any fabric you want! I went to Joann's and found fabric after fabric that I would LOVE to make these in!

Anyway, I love making these. I could make one every day and love it. At least for now.

I am really excited that my etsy website is starting to have business. I have had orders from 3 people in the last 3 weeks that ordered off my site (rather than talking to me first and me posting a listing for them). Each order was for something different, like for a block set (yeah!), a baby quilt, and a hooded towel. I even sold that first carrier I made (from the first design) on Saturday, much to my surprise. It's fun to hear back from these people and to know they love what I've made.

Square Foot Gardening

A few weeks ago, we got an email from a family in our ward who was unexpectedly moving that they were trying to sell their booming square foot garden they had just planted. I begged, but was rejected. Imagine my surprise when, several weeks later, I stopped by their yard sale and found out it was still available. This time, I got to see it in person, and begged again. This time, Braden agreed. So we paid for it and came back that night to move it. Much to our dismay, it was not truly moveable...

Instead, we had to cut out each square foot and transfer it to our house, reposition it in the box, and hope we didn't kill it. Instead of it being a quick process, it turned into 2 hours for Braden and our friend, John, to get the whole thing resituated.

I woke up Saturday morning with dread in my heart for what I would find outside and just about cried when I saw the damage. There were 3 HUGE tomato plants (2 Roma and 1 cherry) that were covered in big, green tomatoes. They were now shriveled, limp, dry, and quite dead. The big zucchini was a matted mess, completely lifeless. The watermelon vines looked pathetically sad. And the cucumber vines were no better. In fact, the one that was quite difficult to maneuver was a pile of crumbled leaves. The corn stalks had all fallen over, snapped in half, or just layed down from the shock of it all. Even the marigolds were shriveled. It was SO sad!

We had to ask for some of our money back and thankfully got it from these dear people. They were heartbroken, too, at the loss of their garden. But at least now we knew, you can't move a square foot garden that way. We'll never try that again.

This morning, the girls and I spent 2 hours pruning, digging, dunging, watering, and tenderly caring for these plants that are on the brink of death. I don't know if any of them will revive. But we'll try to care for them as best we can for the next week to see how they will do.

Here's how they look after all our work this morning:

In the buckets are a navel orange tree, red grapefruit tree, and two bell pepper plants.
This box has 10 squares of corn, 4 squares of marigolds (supposedly to keep bugs away) and 2 watermelon squares...those are the sad looking dead things there in the front.

This box has 3 squares with tomatoes (in the cages), 1 potato, 2 strawberry, 2 cucumber, 1 blackberry (which is long dead, I think), 2 jalapeno, and 4 marigold. Do not be deceived by the green. These poor plants may either be on the way up or the way down...

The blue bins transfered just fine. Unfortunately, we bought the garden for the boxes, not for these two bins. They're filled with things we don't necessarily need in the same way. This one has mint, cilantro, basil, chives, green onion, and supposedly thyme, but I can't figure out if that's the big one on the bottom right. The diagram was incorrect for what was in that corner.

This bin has marigolds, romaine lettuce, cucumber, peas, onion, and 3 sweet pumpkins (for pies and such). The pumpkin is out of control. The peas are not doing well, the lettuce seems barren, and I don't know much about onion.

We don't really like cucumbers, but I did experiment with making homemade pickles and canning them and they turned out great! So, if we produce any cucumbers and you want either cucumbers or pickles, we just might have plenty.

Here's our little raspberry patch. It is dormant right now and all the green you see is new growth, which we're excited for. We're hoping it will flower and give us a second crop this year, but for now, we're just glad its surviving the summer.

Speaking of summer, May was a bad month. 2 full weeks over 100 degrees. Well, June blessed us with 1 week in the hundreds and then 16 full days in the 90s! It was WONDERFUL! Unfortunately, that ended last weekend and we're supposed to be up to 110 by Thursday. Still, I am so grateful for a mild June. The monsoons should be starting soon, which definitely makes July a little more exciting.

Get Out AZ

I've decided that I need to give this area a chance. We live so far from anything that besides swimming pools, which are only open from May to October, there's very little to do. So I decided that we would try new free things around the Phoenix area on our family date nights.

Our first family adventure was inspired by Keara who, after reading a book with a train in it one day, told me she really wanted to go on a train. So we planned an adventure to take the LightRail in Mesa. We took it to Tempe Town Lake, which we had never been to before. The train stop was about 2 city blocks from the park, but the walk was beautiful. Not to mention the weather was perfect.
This park has a splash pad that is free for anyone with water shooting up from the ground, these little whales to ride on that spray water from their mouths, and a playground with water all over the place so the slides are really water slides. Keara thought the whales were awesome.

Taryn was a little hesitant at first...

but then decided she loved it too! She's getting more and more daring and climbs up on everything herself. I like her riding style.

They LOVED the "train", as evidenced by their big smiles.

The next weekend, we decided to try "Second Friday" in Mesa on Main Street. It's a monthly event where local businesses will give away discounted product, bands will play, freebies will be given out, etc. It sounded like it could be fun.

We inadvertantly parked quite a bit away, but enjoyed seeing the statues along the way. I think it ended up being a big highlight of the night for Keara. As per my family's tradition, we posed with the statues.

Here's a preggo and dark hair shot for anyone who was wondering...Not like you can really see the belly...The best part of the night was going to the museum of contemporary art. There was a gala going on inside and yet they were letting anyone else in for free. I felt a little out of place with 2 toddlers, a stroller, and jeans, walking amidst all these museum connoisseurs who were all dressed nicely, but oh well. The coolest thing they had was this water feature that had a path down the center with blue glass beads under a glass panel, with light shining above it. Water filled that path and all sorts of people were walking on it. Probably not what it was intended for, but we decided to let the girls have fun too.

Otherwise, the event was REALLY lame. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone and we won't be doing it again. Keara kept waiting for the fun part, but it never came. At least we tried!

Hiatus

I've been on a blogging hiatus because I haven't had time. So here are some pics of the last little while to catch up:

Part I: WEEKENDS AWAY

We were able to go camping with some friends over Memorial Day weekend. It was up north, past Strawberry, in a little secluded spot in the woods. Unfortunately, it rained hard that weekend. BUT, we were blessed that it was dry the entire time we were there (which was only about 18 hours) besides the storm that came in while we were asleep. The girls did NOT sleep well, but at least they had a great time the next day in the wagon and playing in the dirt.

As soon as we put Taryn in her carseat, she fell asleep. We literally hadn't pulled away. Keara followed suit soon after. We then went to Braden's parents house because it was so nearby, took long naps, and had a great dinner with his brother's family. It was a good weekend. Memorial Day was then spent working in the yard, moving rock, and planting a worthless flower garden that did nothing.

The next weekend, our good friends, the Reidheads, came to Queen Creek for the day. It was SO great to have them here! We went to a big pool and enjoyed the 98 degree weather, commenting on how strange it was that even with it being that hot, we were cold in the water! Keara, of course, loved having Kloey here. She has missed her SO much.

The next weekend, we went back to Braden's parents' house for a birthday weekend for his dad's 60th birthday. His sister, Laurie, and her daughter, Brie, even flew in for the weekend. It was great to be with them again. Brie is 11 days older than Taryn and Asia is a month older than Brie. This was the first time the 3 girls had been together. They were SO cute!
T is definitely the smallest of the crew, but I think it's quite possible all my children will be.
This was SO fun (at least to watch). Laurie had made a HUGE Twister board and everyone got down to play. How fun!
We did have an interesting experience while there with Taryn's allergies. At one point, either some sweetened condensed milk or heavy whipping cream got splattered on her face. There were about 6 dots of milk on her face, arm, and hair. Not a big deal. I washed it off but kept her with me. I was amazed to see that within 2 minutes, she was itching her arms, her face was covered in a rash, and hundred of tiny hives covered her face and arm. WOW! We gave her Benadryl and within 15 minutes, it was gone. But she sure is sensitive!

PART II: NEW TENANTS

The other night, I walked out into our garage to throw something away. As I opened the door to go back inside, something caught my eye up in the corner on top of a big roll of remnant carpet. It startled me to see a bird! She was just sitting there on top, minding her own business. I didn't take a picture then, but a few days later, Braden caught her on top of our water barrels.

She stayed about a week and has since moved on.

We also decided to get a new fish! We fish-sat our friend's betta a few weeks ago and decided it was time to get one again. Interestingly, these same friend's fish-sat Blue right before he died and he inspired them to get a betta. And now they were re-inspiring us. Blue died a long time ago and we decided to replace him for Keara's birthday, but didn't feel like it when that time came. So one family date night, we chose this guy.
Being so creative, we named him Big Red. At first, he didn't eat for 3 weeks. But we are happy to report that he is thriving and eating and enjoying life. He's almost as fun as Blue!

Disaster Miraculously Averted

Wow, we had a near disaster today. I walked up the stairs after getting the phone to find Keara standing with a pair of hair cutting scissors in her hair. I gasped and yelled "Oh NO!" which startled her so much she started sobbing (a very effective method to get her to NEVER do something again, like pick raspberries, we've discovered). I was envisioning having to shave my little girl's head of beautiful curls as I walked towards her. When I got to her, I thought she hadn't truly cut anything, but then I saw the hair on the floor and on her shirt. Thank goodness for curls! I could see where she cut but she had done it so gently that the curls hid it. However, she also cut part of her little pony tail so I won't know the full extent of the damage until we take her hair down.

I'm SO relieved that she didn't chop anything and I'm also relieved to know that I really don't need to worry about her ever attempting that again since I scared her so badly!

Thank You Pheobe!

A while back, as I posted then, we got an inflatable pool from our friend Pheobe. We used it in May when it was WAY too cold to swim (only in the 80s). But now that its been hot, we've used it multiple times this week. What a difference a nice soak in a pool does for the day. Taryn is not the biggest fan of swimming or baths or anything like that, especially if Keara is around. However, when I got in the pool WITH her, it changed her mind. These pics and video are from the second day of swimming when Taryn knew exactly what was going on. She was SO excited. I wish you could have seen her dance on the tarp. These two pictures are just still photos of her dancing all over the place. Fast forward the video to about the 30 second mark to see her really excited.

National Donut Day!

Happy National Donut Day! I'm sure most of you celebrated today in style. Actually, you probably didn't even know it was National Donut Day. If you read this before midnight, go to your local Krispy Kreme and ask for a free donut. They'll give you one...

Anyway, I have a major problem, as my mom would say. I love to bake, cook, and create. I love trying new recipes and making fun things. However, when it comes to sweets, I enjoy making it a lot more than I enjoy eating it. (That's not a problem in the eyes of those who we end up giving our treats to...well, not in their eyes, but maybe their hips.) I made brownies the other day so I could have some batter, but its now been almost a week and there's still 1/4 of the pan left...unheard of for my mom and sisters to let chocolate linger in a house.

But I really wanted to make donuts. So I got a recipe online that I really wanted to try. However, Braden has been BEGGING to make Cheryl Bluth's famous donuts for almost 5 years now, so I made those instead. (Point being, I still have a new recipe I need to try, which means we'll be making more donuts.) I borrowed a friend's deep fryer (makes it SO much easier!) and got to work.

Here's the end result! They were REALLY good last night and pretty good today.

What am I to do with all these donuts!? Fortunately, and unbeknownst to me, Braden had volunteered to take "breakfast" for his team at work today. So my creations had a home.

I'm still going to make the other kind, probably tonight or Monday. Who wants the leftovers?

My Latest Project

I wanted to make a mei tai carrier for our new baby, so I got online and found a few ideas of how to make it. I had made Braden a soccer net frame bag out of canvas which really inspired me. I love canvas! So I got fabric and started experimenting. I'm really pleased with how it turned out. Thanks to Jill and Paisley for modeling for me! It wasn't so easy to wear preggo...
If anyone wants one (or this one)...