Sunday, April 25, 2010

Day of Service

This last Saturday was our churches day of service. It may be more, but I know that the eastern region of the US is trying to do a huge day of service annually, where we get out in the community and do for others. We really want to work with other denominations and serve others. We're encouraged to do this any time, you don't need a specific day. Yet, it is nice to know that church members are all out there in their communities the same day trying to help others.

We worked with a Baptist church in the area and did a whole bunch of different things from going and visiting in an old folks home, to building ramps for those who need them for their homes, to doing lawn work and mulching for those that are a little older and have the desire, but not the strength to do so.

I am not trying to toot my own horn, Hey look at me. But, I am proud to live among such people that would do for others and not want something out of it. That is getting more rare these days. We can all say we're Christians, but are actions scream what our heart feels. I am thankful for all those that put their hard work in organizing it and for those that wanted to bring a little light of Christ to brighten up someones day.

I love my Savior and I hope that I can follow Him and be more mindful to serve others.

If you build it, it will grow



The garden is happening. Don rented a tiller, yes mom a tiller I live in the east now, on Thursday and tilled our little garden boxes. Then Friday after work he and Holly started to build boxes. She was a proud little helper. Holding screws and helping to carry in boards.

On Saturday he and Holly finished the boxes, We now have 8 4X4 beautiful boxes in our backyard. I have to shovel the dirt in them if it would just not rain for a day or two.
I can't wait to start planting!









Blogging is dangerous!

This is the last of the material I had, to make Holly her little shirts. On this one I tried to actually follow the instructions and make the top part more like a band, I added ribbon ( and tried to put it in the seam) and I put on 2, yes 2 pockets OOOOOOO!

While this has been good practise for me and I will be adventuring on making my own shirt, when you blog these things you open yourself up to people thinking you actually know what you are talking about. Ha-Ha. A certain friend, Thanks Alice, who may I add was deflecting her own talents, suggested I be one of the ladies to demo a sewing project for our next enrichment meeting. Well honestly, I don't mind showing them, but at the same time I know nothing and can't answer any sewing questions. So, hopefully all will go well. It's only one night, right?

My back porch garden





A couple of blogs ago I talked about going and buying plants, here are some pictures of said plants. I have some other hanging basket holders that need hanging baskets in them that come off of our porch, but that is for a future purchase.
I am so proud of the red pansies, I transferred those from the boxes by our door and they didn't die, YEAH!. The blue container that looks empty has Gerber daisy's that have not shown yet and the orange pot has some mail ordered stuff that I was suppose to plant a year ago, but never got to it. I just tried, we'll see if anything happens. I love flowers.

Click!

I have been trying to explain, demonstrate, push and encourage Josh into swinging by himself. I just thought he should know by 5 yrs old, and 6 is creeping up on us, how to swing by himself. You know you think that the basic concept is easy, but I guess it is one of those riding on a bike kinda things, once you get the feel it just CLICKS. He was doing this keep my body stiff and rock back and forth on the seat kinda thing. This week he gets home from school and he is swinging. So it was probably some kid from school that taught him, but I laid a lot of ground work and Josh practiced. Yeah, HE FINALLY GETS IT!

Sunday, April 18, 2010

My garden

Have you ever been so excited about something you can hardly sleep the night before? I was so excited, because this last Saturday we were going to put in my very first garden, in my very first house. We were going to till the dirt and build boxes 5 6X6 boxes. I have my plans drawn up where things are going to be planted. I have some of my seeds started and ready to plant. I am WAY EXCITED!!!

Friday I ask Don what time do you want to get the tiller. he says noon. In my head I am screaming "NOON, NOON Are you kidding me?". I know we have some other stuff to do so I settle down and call all around to find where we can rent one. (My bishop was even willing to let us borrow his, but it was broken)

It's Saturday before noon. I call Home Depot (first come first serve) to see if there is one in stock. After calling 3 different stores I finally find one. We drive out there and discover we had no idea how big it was going to be and we only had our cars. The helpful man behind the counter said we could rent one of their trucks, but that means we would have to till are never been tilled boxes in 45 minutes, to get the truck back in time. UGHHH!! You know honestly I wanted to throw a child's fit right there in the store. I had built this up so much and waited and now someone came along and popped my bubble. I did kinda act like a child. I finally got over it when I went to the garden center of the store and drooled over all the plants.

So final wrap up. Brought the kids home feed and put them down for a nap. Went out to shop on my own. Spent an hour at the fabric store and only spending 5 dollars; went to 2 different garden centers and spent more than 4 times that at those place; came home and planted flowers and Don is going to borrow a truck from work so we can till some time this week. I hope.

Tough Week for Don

Two Stories:

This week I was doing school work with Holly. I was letting her pick a vocab. card and then having her practising sounding it out so she could read it. The first one was red. RRREEEDDD. She got it quite fast the next one was for. That took a little more work. The last one was has. HH AA SSS. HHHAAASS. "Has, mommy, has, like has been, Daddy is a has been." (She meant husband, it was something we had talked about earlier when she wanted Uncle Mike to be her brother).

I cut my families hair. Dons isn't hard and I figured for the kids if I started young enough by the time they cared I be able to do a decent job. I cut Don's hair Saturday night after the kids went to bed, it was getting pretty shabby looking. We were sitting in sacrament today and Don was kinda leaning over to pray. Josh looked at him and said, "Daddy, you have hardly any hair left!".

So to sum up Dons week, his daughter thinks he 's a has been and his son pointed out that he is going bald, TOUGH WEEK!

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Copycat, Thanks Lori

Shirt number one is the pink one above, and shirt number 2 is the red below.


I got this pattern off of Lori C. blog. I am practicing on Holly's size before I do one for me. I am thinking of adding on another little pocket on this one.

PEEPS!







THe first time my kids have ever had Peeps. They loved them. Yuck! These pics are for my mom and my uncle the peepsters. These peeps aren't packing.

Easter Pics




Holly's new Easter outfit.


She is excited!



























I didn't get home until 9pm the night before Easter. Needless to say we did not have dyed eggs. But the Easter Bunny (daddy) did get chocolate and his lovely wife had a plethrah of plastic eggs. So ahuntin' they did go.








Sunday, April 11, 2010

Lifetime

I need to update my biggest loser sidebar, but I just wanted to announce that I reached lifetime at Weight Watchers. I have lost 43 pounds and I want to do 7 more, but I no longer have to pay yeah!
Thank you everyone for your support it really helps. My hope is 50 pounds by June.

I Finished!


This last Saturday, I ran the "Run for the Schools, 5k! I actually finished and didn't need oxygen at the end. I did it in 35 minutes and 9 seconds. I didn't run the whole thing there were ALOT of HILLS. I speed walked part of it. But all in all I jogged at least 2/3 if not more.

In the first picture I'm the one in the navy beanie. This is us waiting to start. Don tried to get a picture of me after the first turn but only got the back of my head. The second picture is self explanatory. The third picture of me is after the race, don't I look pretty. And the forth picture is me doing a 3 and a 5 with my hands for thirty-five and not realizing I did it backwards.
For my next goal I would like to do another 5K, but jog the whole thing and drop about 5 minutes off my time. I want to do this some time in the fall.

Trip to California, in Spring












Eating out, eating out, and eating out some more!



Oma trying to teach Josh how to whistle with his fingers.








Holly building houses and towers with domino's. She is wearing the princess outfit, including the cape and purple shoes, the only thing that is missing the crown. All got from Tu-tu. She took us to a toy store that my uncle works at and bought Josh and Holly outfits. Josh is a knight including; shield, sword, cape, mail, and hat thingy (not a crown).












Swimming at the indoor pool at Oma's hotel (sorry the pictures aren't the best).











Tu-tu and I playing gin. ( I think she let me win).
We also got to see 2 of my uncles on my moms side and my aunts of course that was fun. When my Uncle Rob (or as Holly calls him Uncle Roc) he was surprised at how much she weighs. Holly looked at him and wanted to know what was that under his nose, he has a mustache. Uncle George and Aunt Denise were surprised to see us and my kids ran all over their house looking at everything. They have a lot of really cool art. We also saw a family that we were friends with when I lived in San Mateo. Their little boy I used to baby sit is now a police man with the San Diego Police Department and now sports a mustache.
All in all it was a good trip, we saw a lot of family, My youngest cousin is now taller and she is going to college. We were all really spoiled by family, grandparents (my parents came down) and great-grandparents. The kids loved having a tv in their room and pretty free to be loud ( my grandma is losing her hearing). Thank you Tu-tu for the trip, All my relatives that ate with us and spoiled us, my mom for being with us the whole week and my dad for driving down so many times, it was great!

Projects and punishments


Don has started to run new pipe in the basement, to get ready for enclosing another section. He only got to do some, because we ran out of money. Same goes for the framing. I must say that he did it faster than I thought he could.


One day Don and I were actually punishing the kids. They had gone out front without asking permission first. To some of you, you might think big deal. You would change your mind if you saw how fast people drive on our street that is a 35 mile an hour road. So after talking until we were blue in the face, I suggested they go in the backyard and pick up sticks, rocks that they had put through out the lawn, etc. Don and I did a project too. We cleared off the many many planters that were on out porch. Hung some of the hanging baskets and put some pots on our front porch. Now to get plants for all of them.
As for the children and there punishment, I don't think it sunk in. The next Monday, Josh was playing in the backyard, I was out front by our neighbors hanging laundry (I wanted to try it, I had never done it before) I came back in through the garage. A little while later, I went back up stairs and saw a little boy running up to my door. I thought that's odd. It was Josh! He wanted to go say hi to our neighbor and he didn't go through the front door, so he thought it was okay. Argghhh.

It actually fits


Well on this path to weight lose I have picked different goals, one of them being this shirt. My ward had a Swap night and I saw and loved this shirt. I thought maybe I could fit in that when I get to my ultimate goal. (the shirt being 4 sizes smaller than what I was when I started). For giggles I decided to try it on. The zipper actually zipped and I fit it. Wahooooo! I didn't realize it, but it is a petite. I then looked in my closet for some pants to go with it. I thought that these would be fine, but they are a little to big. Don says they are not flattering on the rear, a bit saggy. Time for some new clothes.