Happy Birthday Garrett!!!

Happy Birthday to our little man!! The big 3!

It was a rough start...



But we're so glad you are with us now! You have indeed blessed our lives.

Temple Trip With My Boys

After I got Nikki on the bus to school today I took the boys to the temple to first get some new garments to send to my hubby. I decided that since we were there anyway that we should at least walk around the temple grounds and get a few pictures. Even though we didn't go inside it was still peaceful and a nice experience for them and me. And even on this hot day there was a nice wind that cooled us off. It was a lovely afternoon.

Can you tell I like to share pictures? :)

Our New Couch!

Okay, so it's not new but it looks practically new and it's new to us. My parents had someone in their ward that was getting a new couch and wanted to know if they knew anyone who needed this couch so my dad thought of me. And here are my kids modeling the couch for you.

So I did a little rearranging in the family room. Dad took away the small blue leather couch to give away to someone else and we moved the big leather blue couch in it's spot in front of the sliding glass door. And as you can see, the new green couch is up against the wall under the window (where the big blue couch used to be).

In the 7 years we've been married we still have not paid for a couch. They have all been given to us by various people. And we took them gratefully! We would never have had enough seats to watch movies on our big screen without them ;) lol Thank you Dad and Grandpa for bringing this one over on Friday!



And here are some pictures for Curtis and whoever else wants to enjoy them.

See how well Jack is sitting up now. He can sit for quite awhile now without falling over.

Me looking up at Jack through the crib bars. He was having fun blowing his lips together and you can see the drool coming down his chin.

He was trying to grab the camera. I loved the look on his face.

This was at Settlers Park on Saturday. I couldn't get Garrett to stop and pose for a picture so I caught him running. Turned out pretty cute anyway.

This one was so cute of Jack I put it as his new profile picture on the side bar of the blog.

Why We Will NOT Get A Cat

We went over to my sister Melissa's house this afternoon and this is what Nikki's eyes looked like when we got home. Melissa has a Siamese cat and Nikki loves kitties.

Needless to say, we won't ever be getting ourselves a cat. Now she'll just have to learn to not play with the cat when she goes over there or at least do not touch her eyes unless she has washed her hands (with soap).

Nap Hair and Bath Buddies

This is what Garrett's hair looked like after his nap today. He took a late nap and so he wasn't very happy when we woke him up to eat dinner. Can you tell? hehe

But he was still happy to be having chicken for dinner and he liked the rice as well.

Jack is trying to figure out how he can fit that ball into his mouth.

Garrett had fun taking a bath with Jack instead of Nikki. They were both having fun with the ball.

The Fruits of My Labor

It has been a very busy week! As you already know on Monday my grandma came over and helped me can my first batch of peaches. On Tuesday my dad went to the church orchard and brought me back a lot more peaches. So on Wednesday both my dad and my grandma came over and helped me can more peaches and make some peach jam. I also had the great blessing of being able to go down the street on Tuesday to pick some plums from a woman in our ward. I picked a whole bucket full. So on Thursday my mother in law came over and helped me make some plum jelly. I will also be making some fruit leather with some of it. Unfortunately I woke up with a sore throat on Thurs and by the end of the day was starting to get a runny & stuffy nose, ughh! I think my body was telling me that I wasn't getting enough sleep this week and working too hard. But I still made it over to my dad's Thurs night for the big BSU vs Oregon game. I kept debating on whether to leave early because the game didn't start until around 8. I stuck it out to the end and was glad to see our Broncos win! Unfortunately I got to bed at midnight and Jack woke me up at 5 am. Why doesn't he understand I need my sleep?

Since I am still sick today I decided not to go to the cabin this weekend and to try and take it easy, which is difficult to do sometimes.

I am also very excited about the fact that I am finally taking the steps to learn how to make my own baby food. The first food I tried was carrots and tonight I did zucchini. I'm so excited that I've figured this out and can't believe I didn't do this with the first two. It is so easy and is going to save us a lot of money!

This is on Wednesday when I was pouring peach jam into the jars. It's such a wonderful feeling to be able to do stuff like this. I feel kind of like a pioneer woman.....well, not really. Pioneer women had things much harder than I do.

There's my sweet grandma who came over on Monday and Wednesday to help me.

And my of course my awesome dad, who got my 2nd load of peaches for me and then came on Wednesday to help can them.

There's my wonderful mother in law who taught and assisted me with the plum jelly on Thursday.

Look at all those plums. Yum!

Garrett didn't like the peach jam but he LOVED the plum jelly!

The finished product of my plum jelly.

Total canned: 18 jars of plum jelly, 14 jars of peach jam, 21 quarts of canned peaches (And I'm not actually finished making the plum jelly yet so there will be about 4 or 5 more of those)





And here's a little tutorial on my baby food making process "Make Your Own Baby Food 101"

For zucchini, all you do is wash it off and then slice it up into thin slices and put them in a steam cooker.

Steam until tender and then place in the blender. (I'm a poet and didn't know it, hehe)

Puree it until smooth and then scoop into an ice tray and put in the freezer. (For zucchini you don't need to add water when in the blender but I did with the carrots, so you may have to add water to some things)

I did these carrots on Wednesday night. So after freezing in the ice cube tray I take them out and put them in freezer bags and back in the freezer until I need them.

I'm so proud of myself for finally doing this and I think I can say I'm done with buying baby food in jars. I'm loving my blender now. Yay!