Our "Garden"

I use the quotes because it really feels like we're just making it up as we go along. I will be pleasantly surprised if anything besides weeds grow in our "garden". We got a late start and didn't get around to planting anything until halfway through July. We anticipated this and so only planted things that do well in the heat and have a short germination. We'll see how it goes.

Of course we had the boys help pull the weeds that had regrown since we tilled it, during which we had the inevitable conversation about the relationship between work and play. Then we turned on the irrigation to make trenches for the water.


We decided to plant cucumbers, green beans, and peas. I put them in alphabetical order from East to West so I would remember where we planted them. There were a lot of seeds for the beans so we ended up planting two rows.


Then the boys helped water the seeds. The dirt seems so dry, but the weeds don't seem to have a problem growing so maybe our vegetables will be okay.

Not a bad first start to our garden. I think this will be good practice for next year. Hopefully, we'll be more on top of it.

Summerhays Summer Music Jam Camp

I think that's the official name, but around here we call it Music Camp. I signed Nathaniel up for it at the beginning of the summer. I'm so glad he was able to do it. The funnest part of playing an instrument, I think, is playing with other people. This was an opportunity to play with other budding musicians.

He rehearsed twice a week at ten in the morning, thankfully. Had it been any earlier I'm not sure what I would have done. It ran for 5 weeks and at the end of the last week there was a concert. The funny thing about the group was that they had no violins. Three basses, three cellos, and three violas. That is unusual. So the teachers had to play the violin parts. Nathaniel did a great job.


You can see the top of Nathaniel's head in the front on the left. I came early and I still had to sit in the back.

When the rehearsals first started we would all go and drop him off, then come home and eat breakfast, then go back to get him. Since Summerhays music is about 15 minutes away, it added up to an hour in the car. I decided that was too much work. So I found a park close by and we played there until Nathaniel's class was over.


It was a nice park. It had big trees on the East side so a lot of the playground was still in the shade at that time of day.


Jonathan was brave and went down the big slide by himself with very little coaxing from me.


Brigham stuck to the smaller slide. I had to help him get started at first, but eventually he would go down on his own.

So I'm glad Nathaniel did Music Camp this summer, I hope we can do it again next year.

Some random moments

I'm getting behind in my blogging again. Perhaps it has something to do with getting a new hard drive and spending the last few days putting everything back in order. Maybe...

Although, I don't know if my excuse holds up since these pictures were taken several weeks ago.

Some of Brigham:


This was too funny. He just could not wake up, even when we took him out of the car and pushed him around in the cart. He could never quite find a comfy spot and so his head kept rolling forward and back.


I got a kick out of this one. I've never seen him put his hands in his pockets before, but I think it makes him look cool.

One of the boys:


This is their new favorite thing to do at the store. It's actually kind of handy. If I forget something or Jaaromy wants to grab something a little out of the way, we just ask one of the boys to come with us and they are more than happy to put the item in their cart.

Some of Sydney:


We've had Sydney over several times while her mom rests from being pregnant with twin boys. It's been fun. The boys love having a "little sister" and I think she enjoyed having "big brothers".


Especially Nathaniel. She would drag him all over to play with her. It was especially cute when he chased her down the hall.




Sometimes it's the random moments that are the best.

New Spice

I sure hope everyone has seen this video.

Nathaniel's Birthday

So Nathaniel is 10, that's double digits! He's been anxiously awaiting his birthday all summer. He couldn't wait to be 10.

I asked him what he wanted for his birthday and he said he wanted Toy Story 3. Since it's still in theaters I suggested we go and see it for his birthday. He liked that idea. Unfortunately, Brigham wasn't so keen on the idea. He kept trying to wander around the theater and when we wouldn't let him he would whine. This is considered somewhat of a 'No-No' in movie theaters and so Jaaromy took him to the entrance hallway to strangle him keep him quiet. I suggested we get him some snacks(he didn't like the popcorn) but Jaaromy had already given him his phone to play with. Since this is also somewhat of a 'No-No' in movie theaters, I took him to the very back row to play with the phone while Jaaromy stayed with the boys closer to the middle. In hindsight, I think there are things that I would have done a little differently, but it was a desperate situation and we did our best in the moment. It worked out though, and the movie was wonderful. I cried. I wish I could have sat with the boys, Jaaromy said that Jonathan was really into it. Nathaniel was very emotionally involved as well, and needed time before he could talk about some of the more intense parts.

As a side note, Jaaromy and I saw Despicable Me on our date on Saturday and loved it. I cried watching that too. I highly recommend both movies.

After the movie we came home and sang Happy Birthday to Nathaniel and ate brownies.


Nathaniel doesn't really like when attention is focused on him, but I can assure you, he is smiling on the inside.


I had originally planned on getting him the Toy Story 3 game to continue with our Toy Story 3 theme, but since Jaaromy was in charge of picking it up at the store, he just couldn't bear to pay money for an inferior game so he got this one instead. I think the boys will like it just fine.

Sunday we celebrated birthday's with my family. Since it was also Andrew's welcome home we weren't exactly sure how it was going to work out. In the end we decided to do a smaller party at my mom's later at our regular dinner time. I knew not everyone would be able to come, but I think it worked out better this way. We weren't planning on eating dinner there but Rachel made some absolutely delicious meatballs and we had some potato salad and fruit from the welcome home. Since we had all eaten plenty at the welcome home, this was the perfect small dinner.


This is Nathaniel's present from Grandma Bonnie. This is exactly the kind of thing Nathaniel would like. I hope he enjoys it.


These are the same brownies that we sang to at our family party, just a day earlier. How fun to get to blow out candles twice!

Happy Birthday, Nathaniel!

Our Garden

Slowly but surely we are making progress on our garden. We neglected it for a long time and the weeds were everywhere. They were also getting really tall, which in a way, made it easier to pull them out. I didn't think to take a picture so I tried to recreate it for you.


This picture doesn't really do it justice. I don't have the patience to draw as many weeds as there actually were. It was bad. Plus, there were non-weeds that we didn't want as well. There were carrots that we didn't plant, onions(and other onion-like plants, not exactly sure what they were), and raspberries. The carrots were rubbery, and I don't like onions or raspberries. So we decided that it was better to just rip it all out.

So about two weeks ago I spent several days in a row pulling all the weeds. It was really hard work. I wanted to jump into our little pool so bad!


So many weeds. Since I did all the pulling, I had Jaaromy rake up the weeds. Then, with my dad's tiller, we tilled it all up. It actually looked like a decent garden. We were really impressed.


We even bought a few seeds to plant. Beans, peas, and cucumbers. They are all things that have a short germination since we're getting such a late start. It will be nice to have something growing that we actually want.

The backyard still needs a lot of work, but we are gradually making progress.

Time for the pool

So about two weeks ago the weather finally decided it would allow summer to come which means it was time to set up the pool. I had to buy a new pool because I accidentally ripped a hole in the old one. This one is better because it's bigger! But it doesn't have a cover like the last one did so we get a lot of floaties. It also doesn't have a drain so to clean it I have to let the air out of it and then empty it. It's not too bad because I have my dad's vacuum that also blows air so blowing it up only takes a minute or two.

The water was cold at first but the kids still liked it.


They were really nervous at first to get all the way in.



Just like last year, there were a lot of bees that liked to fly around the pool.

I asked Jonathan to smile for the camera and a bee fly by right at that moment and so he got nervous.


Brigham liked it, but he liked being able to climb in and out the most. Until he slipped and fell into the water, then I had to help him in after that.

We got in the next day too and after about a half an hour they were all sitting in the water. I decided to get in too so I think that helped them feel comfortable getting all the way in.

It's good to have a way to cool off in the summer time!