Enjoying our garden!

Well this year we finally planted a garden and it is doing pretty good! Everything is growing and we finally were able to cut some lettuce and put it in a salad for dinner yesterday. It was so yummy! Some of our friends brought us over some peas (we don't have any pods on ours yet) and we were able to put those in the salad too. It was so great. We can't wait for everything to continue growing...there is just something awesome about eating what you planted and grew! The kids are loving the garden too and get so excited to see thing growing bigger.

These are our tomatoes, peppers and corn

This is a pictures of our potatoes, carrots, and lettuce

These are our onions, more peppers (our green onions didn't work...so we planted more pepper plants a friend gave us), and then our peas!

Our raspberries are doing well and our strawberries are doing ok only 5 plants survived. Our peach tree is looking good and our watermelon plant and cucumber plant are looking good too. It is fun to be more self sufficient.

Here is the lettuce from the garden

Here is our yummy salad! We can't wait for the rest of the stuff from our garden.

Four-Wheeling Fun

We went four-wheeling back in May with some of our great friends and we had a blast! It was so much fun! I had never really been four-wheeling before and we were so excited! We had a wonderful day! Thanks for inviting us to come!

Here is a picture of the kids!

Gotta Dance Sumer Recital

Katelyn and Mayli had their summer dance recital on Saturday. They both did a great job and of course looked so cute! Mayli's dance outfit was an apron with a matching headband. Her class danced to "Recipe for Love". Katelyn had a cute blue tutu and a blue sparklely scarf. Her class danced to "Give Said the Little Stream". Both girls did a great job.

Mayli

Katelyn

Mayli's Class dancing

Katleyn's Class Dancing

Here are some video's of their dances.

Mayli's Dance

Katelyn's Dance

They both did a fantastic job! We sure had a great year in dance! Great job Kate and May!

A bit of Randomness...Time to catch up!

Wow has it already been almost 3 weeks since I last posted! Lots of things have been happening so I'm going to sum it up pretty quick...I hope. Some exciting news is Mike and I get to go on Trek with our ward! I'm so excited! Thanks Mommy for coming down to watch the kids in a few weeks! :) Last night (Wednesday) we got to have a meeting for Trek and got to practice our square dancing! We really had so much fun! I was laughing the whole time...nothing is better than seeing a whole bunch of youth who 'don't want to touch each other' (riiiiight...) and a whole bunch of old people square dancing! It was awesome! I'm so excited to go...we leave on my birthday! I can't wait!

More exciting news!!! Maddie is walking! Well sort of anyway...she still has to have more practice but she is getting there she took her first step on Friday June 5th! She had to show off for her Aunt Kenzie who was holding her and she walked to Mommy! Yipee! Here is a little video!

The girls had their 6 month cleaning at the dentist in May and the girls have my teeth because both Katy and Mayli had cavities! Mayli didn't even have to be numbed and she did awesome when she got her cavities filled. She was a great helper! I was so proud of her! Kate on the other hand really has my teeth and she had to go and get put under so they could numb her and put in her fillings. So Monday June 15th we hopped in the car at 5:45 am to head to the dentist. She did awesome too and didn't cry a bit. She did great! I was really proud of her. I have a couple pictures of her that day.

Katelyn at the dentist office before they put her under

Katelyn looking at where her IV was

Other exciting new is Madilyn took 2nd place in the baby finals for the baby contest for Pony Express days! Yay! She did awesome and was so very cute! We got a great prize full of baby stuff. Once I get the picture of her that Carma Gray took I'll post it...it was absolutely adorable!

My family came down and visited at the begining of June because my little niece Ashlee was blessed. It was so fun to see everyone. We love when they come and visit and are so sad when they have to leave.

We also had family pictures taken with Mike's family! Here they are!

All of us

Our little Family

The grandkids and Papa and Grandma...this one was a little hard to get everyone to look at the camera! :)

The girls! :)

The boys! :)

I think that sums it up! What a good month it has been thus far! Can't wait for the rest of it! :)

Good Times!

So May has been so fun and I finally just got the pictures tonight so I decided to blog about them finally. On May 1st I got to go to BYU Women's Conference! It was so awesome and I will now make it a yearly tradition! We had a blast...it was so much fun! It was spiritually uplifting and I learned so much! We had a great time. Here are some pictures:

Here is us in the Marriott Center.

Krista, Rachel, Jennifer, me, and Natalie

And here we are by the super cool popcorn tree!

Rachel, Jennifer, me, Krista, and Natalie
We had so much fun and learned alot! It was a great day.

Then a couple weeks ago Roberts Arts & Crafts store was having customer appreciation week and on Friday they had a promotion going on that the 1st 100 people through the door on Friday morning got a $25 gift card! HELLO FREE MONEY for CRAFTS!!!! :) How could we go wrong? So me, Rachel, and Natalie decided we just had to go. So we all hopped in the car at 4:45 am ready to go get our gift cards! We got there and we were numbers 9, 10, and 11. SWEET!!! We were so excited! There was even a sweet guy that spent the night to be 1st in line to get his wife a gift card! How sweet huh? By 7:30 am there were tons of people showing up and this one lady came up and was determined to push through everyone to get that gift card because the ad said, 'the first 1oo people through the door not the 1st 100 people in line.' But all was well and we did get our gift cards it was so worth it! We had a great time! :) Here are some pictures of our awesome adventure!

Natalie, Rachel, and me...we were so excited!!!!

This is the line...if you count the people...technically we should have been 7, 8, and 9 but some people were saving spots for others.

This is the sweet man who stayed in front of Roberts all night to make sure he got that gift card. As soon as they opened the doors and gave him the gift card he was off to head home. It was so cute!

This is us getting ready to head in!

And the last one of us...mind you we had litterally rolled out of bed right before we came! We had a blast!

Why my house is messy...

I got home from a busy day of running errands and looked at the house and just sighed...it was a mess. I thought to my self as I started cleaning things up...why...why is my house so messy. I had just spent Monday night cleaning until 1 am and the house was spotless. Am I such an awful homemaker that I cannot even keep up the house's cleanliness for 3 days! I kept thinking about this as I was doing the dishes. And this is what happened while I was loading the dishwasher.


Hmmm...maybe it's the fact that I have to load the dishwasher about 10 times because my little helper is being 'so helpful' and enjoys it so much. :) Then that got me thinking...usually about 5 minutes after I clean up a room and head to the next...the room I just cleaned has stuff all over the floor again. Or the window I just washed looks so pretty and tempting...and their little fingers make prints all over it within minutes. Or the fact that when I try to throw away a broken toy or put some toy they no longer use in the basement...some how it always ends up back upstairs. Or maybe it could be that as soon as I fold all the clothes the baby thinks its fun to see them fly everywhere. Or maybe the fact is that drama is always happening like today when Minnie's bow fell off and it was the end of the world and it had to be sewn back on right away because she just wasn't as pretty without it on. Or it could be that as soon as I start cleaning someone wants a story read to them or help doing a puzzle (the puzzles that I've already put away 10 times today). But you know what...it's ok that my house is messy cuz my kids are happy. And as those who have come before me have said...enjoy this stage because one day you will miss it.

I came across a poem that my grandma cross-stitched for my mom when all 8 of us kids were home. (Our house wasn't always clean...but boy were we so very happy!) My mom let me take it to my house.

My House

Some houses try to hide the fact

That children shelter there

Ours boasts of it quite openly

The signs are everywhere.

For smears are on the windows

Little smudges on the door

I should apologize I guess

For toys strewn on the floor

But I sat down with the children

And we played and laughed and read

And if the furniture doesn't shine

Their eyes will shine instead

For when at times I'm forced to choose

The one job or the other

I want to be a housewife...

But first I'll be a mother.

I'm so grateful for my children and the joy they bring to my life...especially my biggest kid...Mike (hahahaa...love you honey)! :) And although some days my house is clean and most days its a mess its ok because my kids are happy and one day I will miss the mess! Enjoy life and love it!

Kate's Preschool Graduation

Katelyn had her pre-school graduation on Thursday, May 21st. It was so cute! Miss Karen, Kate's teacher, is amazing! It was so much fun! The kids were so cute all dressed up in graduation gowns and everything! The ceremony started at 6:30 and the kids sang songs for us. Then they each got their diplomas. The did the 3 year-old class 1st and then did the 4 year-old class girls and then the boys. Katelyn was almost forgotten but her teacher realized it right away and only 1 boy got called before her. They sang a song in Samoan and sang a couple other songs and it was all done. They had a luau after and we had a lot of fun. We then headed home and had a little party for Kate here at the house. Katelyn chose the food so we had goldfish crackers, oreos, string cheese, and fruit snacks. And we had a pink drink. It was so cute! She had a great time and enjoyed all the little gifts she received! Here are pictures!

Katelyn dressed up all pretty for graduation...she picked out her own outfit

Katelyn so cute in her graduation cap and gown

Kate and some of the girls from her class

The set up of the graduation

Kate and her teacher Miss Karen...Katelyn loves her!

The graduate! So cute!

Kate and her sisters, Maddie and Mayli

The family (Maddie was too busy crawling take a picture)

Mommy and Kate

We had visitors from Morgan and Provo! Kate was so excited!

Uncle Thomas and the girls

Aunt Amanda and the girls

Uncle Matt and the girls

Katelyn with her flowers from Papa and Grandma Wright. She got so many great gifts! :) It was a fantastic day we had so much fun! :)