This and That

Charlotte recently learned from her friend Jane at church how to make an origami boat/sailor hat. She was so excited about it that she and Alice made several. Then they worked together to make a really BIG one by taping regular paper together 5 x 5 and then carefully folding. They were pretty proud of themselves. I've never seen one that big!

I got busy last week on doing yard work again. It's hard to get to everything that needs attention around here, with so much going on. This time I worked on the back corner of our yard. The vines that I pulled out of the trees a couple months ago were just piled up in the corner and I decided it was time to get rid of them. I dragged them over behind the gate where the truck is parked. Then since the ground was moist and good for pulling weeds, I went to town pulling weeds out in that corner. Part of my motivation for doing this was because we want to put a shed back there. The weeds came out pretty easily. There were just a lot of them in that corner. My arms were very sore and tired that night. 

This area was mostly covered in weeds. I didn't get a before shot but you can see that bucket is full. I think that was the 2nd bucket full. The first got dumped into the big trash can already.

There were a few along the fence behind where Milo is. This is after I pulled them out.

I didn't get every single weed but just about. It's definitely rewarding to see how much better it looks afterwards.

I also decided it was time to trim this tree near the pool. Last year I had to keep ducking around it when cleaning the pool. That won't be a problem now.

This was a bush I trimmed way down earlier this spring. I was worried about how it would do but it is filling in nicely and I love how it looks now.

I'm never going to be able to keep up with all the yard work that has to be done but we're making progress a little at a time. And it feels good when we do. Last Saturday I had the boys load up all those branches and vines and bags of leaves, grass, etc. and haul them off to the dump. We had a truckload full.

I am pretty excited to see my orchid that I got for Valentines with some new buds on it! It looks like one of them will bloom any day now. I had no idea that it could keep growing. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it after all the original petals fell off but now I can't wait to see the new blossoms. 

We recently tried quiche since we hadn't had it in a long time. It got eaten pretty quickly so I thought everyone liked them. Since I had leftover ham, I went to the store and bought two more pie shells to make more. Well, I learned that most of the kids didn't actually like the quiche, so I held off from baking another one. But since we did have the pie crust already and we also had a can of pumpkin in the pantry, I decided to have Charlotte do some baking after school one day because she loves pumpkin pie. I forgot to get an after picture, but she enjoyed making it. She even asked if she could have the first slice since she was the one that made it (with mom's help). Of course I let her have the first slice! Pumpkin pie is good any time of the year!

Mixing up the pie filling.

On Tuesday this week I went to a Relief Society activity that was from 10:30-12:00 called Time Out Tuesday. It was Cinco de Mayo themed, and they had a salsa and guacamole competition. We also played Family Feud with Cinco de Mayo questions. I decided to enter the guacamole contest because I already found a good recipe I liked a while ago. I was a judge in the contest but did not even take my own because we were not allowed to vote for our own. There were 4 very different salsas and then 5 guacamole entries. I tied for 1st place with Bonnie Smith on the guacamole. She let me have the prize because she had already won a prize earlier for something else. The prize was two bowls used for salsa and guacamole. How appropriate!

They had mini sombreros at the party, so I brought some home for the girls. They put one on Milo too. He did not like it!

My prize!

Two nights ago, Charlotte decided she wanted to try a new hairstyle and I let her practice on me. It was putting a regular ponytail in and then splitting it several times. Alice liked it so she wanted me to do it on her the next morning. I made the suggestion to just split it into two and then braid it. She liked that idea. 

Charlotte braided the one on the left while I did the one on the right since we were short on time. It looked pretty cute. She added her big pink bow before going to school.

I braid a small section in the front and pull it around to the front to help keep these hairs from falling out of the ponytail.

We also had another activity day this last Monday and I was still in charge since Sister Gale is still out of town. She'll be back either Sunday or Monday. She's been gone a long time. It will be good to have her back and working together! Our theme this week was "Planting Seeds of Faith". It was an idea I found online when looking for ideas. Thank goodness for other people's ideas that help me out! We talked about Alma in the Book of Mormon talking to the poor people about faith and comparing it to a seed. Then they planted their own flower seeds. I had 5 different flowers to choose from and let them each pick two. We labeled their cups with their name and type of flower and then filled it will soil and then they planted the seeds. I sure hope they have success in growing them! I also gave them pudding cups to be their "mud" and Oreos to be the "dirt" and some gummy worms to go in their cups. They really liked that. At the very end we played "Do You Love Your Neighbor?" and they love that game! We hadn't played it since I taught it to them back in February.

I didn't mention anything about Mother's Day in this post because I figured I'll make a separate post for that.  It's been a fun and busy last couple of weeks. Jack also started his driver's education class yesterday and he got his driving permit last Wednesday. I'm not sure I'm ready for this again! We still need to get Garrett his license. Exciting and scary at the same time. 😂