Reading and Writing

We like to start young at our house. :)

Views from the Kitchen

As the mother of all these children, I spend excessive amounts of time in my kitchen dirtying dishes and then cleaning those dishes. I thought I'd let you into my life to check out the view from where I stand. It's a beautiful sight.

Not all Work

Spring time is not all work. We also are loving playing outside. We pretended we were camping this weekend. I cooked outside in the dutch ovens and Randy slept in the tent with Colin, Robyn, and Grace. Caden was kinda grumpy over his newest tooth so he and I slept in the house.

Spring Time!

I love spring time! This year is even better than last year - the kids are actually getting helpful! Fabulous!
The kids each have their own gardens this year. Colin planted strawberries and celery. Robyn planted corn and beans. And Grace planted every seed packet she could get a hold of. At least we squared her garden before she started planting so it is a little bit organized. She has a few squares of onions, some of carrots, some of radishes, a pumpkin, some beets, and several squares of lettuce. She has a LOT of thinning to do, but planting sure was fun! Randy is growing the tomatoes and peppers this year and I am growing broccoli, cabbage, peas, cucumbers, sunflowers, herbs, and potatoes.
The trees are doing well. We have tons of almonds, peaches, nectarines, plums, and a few cherries, apples, and pears. The grapes are growing like crazy and the strawberries are looking good. Hopefully the raspberries grow berries this year. I think I over fertilized them last year so all we got was leaves.

My Baby?

Do you see this boy?!!
He is walking all over the place just like a real kid. Today he decided to kick it up a notch and carry the broom all over the house.
Luckily the broom is big and not so easily lost as the other things he likes to carry all over the house, such as - the toothpaste, my deodorant, hair combs, the recorder.... He sure makes life exciting. :)

Painting

We are going to have to rethink how we do things around here now that Caden is a "big Boy."

Sand Dunes

Last week my Mom surprised us with a visit. We had a blast playing with Grandma. We took her to the sand dunes one day and to the park the next.
These are pictures we took at the sand dunes.

So Big!

Darn kids, they grow WAY to fast!


This boy just walked six steps! We were all sitting on the floor, just finishing up our nightly scripture study, when Caden let go of me and walked toward Robyn. I think it scared him when we all freaked out on him. He won't do it again for a picture. I have been telling him for weeks that he can't start walking before Ella does. We checked Katie's blog today and saw this post. I guess Caden took that as an ok to try. Darn kid, he's not even 10 months yet!
(Christina, maybe you better get some freezer meals all ready for this stage.)

Yesterday, Caden opened the bathroom drawer, took out Randy's comb and combed his hair.
Today, he picked up the telephone and held it to his ear. Later, he put a lego in his mouth and when I asked him what was in his mouth and he took it out and threw it on the floor.
I cannot believe how fast they learn!

The weather was AWESOME this weekend. Robyn is my outside girl and she is teaching Caden to be an outside boy. They played and played together. It was so fun to watch. I love it that Robyn is such a great babysitter. She takes good care of her baby brother.

Who does THIS boy remind you of?

I think he looks like Uncle Brad, but apparently he got some of his talents from Uncle Darron. GROSS! He also got his love of my cooking from Uncle Darron - if he could he'd "go to Big J's" every night.

Over the river and through the woods

We went to "Grandma Murfy's" house last weekend for a visit. My mother is called Grandma Murfy because she has an adorable little shih tzu named Murfy. My Dad recently got a new chocolate lab puppy which they named Molly Brown. I asked the kids if they were going to start calling my Dad "Grandpa Molly" in light of the new puppy. Colin said, "No, we'll call him Grandpa Brown."

This is a picture of Caden with Molly Brown. Caden prefers Molly in her kennel. She is kind of a crazy little puppy - all legs, tail, and mouth.


We had a lovely visit. It was lots of fun. Grandpa took the kids and Randy to the river to chase geese. Grandma let them get out her kite. Robyn got to ride the horse with Uncle Brad. I worked on learning to ride Uncle Mike's Unicycle. We played with Garrett and Sydney on the rope swing in the barn and in the bounce house. And of course we played with Molly Brown a lot.