Now that summer is officially over (for the kids) I can do sort of a re-cap, So here goes.


Garden is doing fantastic!!! Cucumbers are endless. They're the "skinless" kind. But taste just as good.


Beans are doing the best! Every week I'm getting a bigger bowl full than this one. So I have blanched and frozen till they are all done, and then I'm going to go crazy with making dilly beans. I'm still looking for a good recipie if any of you out there have one.





We've had some unusual rain storms this summer and the gutters have flooded PLENTY. On this particular day, Dylan ventured out to play in the water. The other two quickly followed suit.

You can't tell, but for some reason they only wanted to wear jackets and underwear. Whatever works, I suppose.

Mykael started Junior High! And for Gym class she needed clothes. SO I took her to D.I. (equivalent to a second hand store) to find something that would work. Requirements were white t-shirt with name on it and shorts. We found two white shirts for $2.00, the running skirt for $3.00 and the pants for $2.00. I wanted to do something cute with her name but didn't want to go overboard, but didn't want to go with the traditional magic marker. Walmart had these iron-on letters for $1.00. She didn't know if it had to be first and last name so I put both. First name on the front. Last name on the back butt area. I thought it was cute. And she even went along with the sparkles on the gray set.

Jade and Ash had thier first day yesterday and looked mighty fine I must say.

Pictures that Mykael took. I like what she sees through the lens.

This is my favorite. I like the focus on the yellow flowers in the background. But I doubt thats what she was going for, it just happened.

This is Aspen. And this is how she sleeps at night.

I found this chrysalis a little over two weeks ago. I've researched to find out what it's going to be but I'm still unsure. I thought it was a moth but moths have "cacoons" that look like white wrapped sacs, and this looks a like butterfly "chrysalis". BUT...moths take up to 8 weeks to change where as butterflys only 2. This little guy is still wrapped all up nice and cozy. Or maybe it's dead. I don't know.

An elderly lady in my ward had a birthday recently and it was suggested that a cake be made for her. I of course jumped on that and this is what I came up with. I REALLY wanted to play with the flowers, so I borrowed a friends fondant tools and had a blast. Cute stuff.

It's just now starting...

....To look like what it's supposed to look like. And I'm starting to get excited for how it's turning out. I've spent many hours on it lately.

Can you tell?
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And I've finished a project (IN ONE DAY!) for the love season.

Just a door hanger deco. And I LOVE how it turned out!

Cute stuff!
What have you been working on lately?

Rainbows

Once a month I teach Eli's preschool class. This month we are learning about different kinds of weather. Rain, thunder and lightning, wind, rainbows, rain.....etc.

I was lucky enough to get rainbows. I say that now, but I was NOT looking forward to teaching it. For some reason, I felt that it wasn't going to be very fun teaching how to mix colors and stuff like that. But I took the time to have a great lesson and the kids loved it.

These were the snacks. Rainbow jello  with ALL six colors. Took about 30 min per color to set up. So this project is SUPER time consuming, but super rewarding. It made A LOT of jello cups and it was the biggest hit among children AND adults. I had a blast eating it. The colors look so cool when you spoon them out. Hold it up to the sun or a light. It's so pretty! If you want exact measurements for this recipie...Just ask and I'll email it to ya.
I don't have a picture, but for the color mixing portion of the lesson I came up with 6 of these plastic cups filled with about 1/2 c water. In three separate cups I took my handy dandy food coloring drops and made red, blue, and yellow water. Mix it really well. To make the secondary colors take two of the colors and pour simultaneously into a clear cup of water. MAGIC! The water turns. I was so proud of myself for coming up with it. At midnight. The night before I was to teach.Try it. You're kids will love it! And the jello too!

I am probably just as sick of the snow around here like some of you may be, but I just had to post these. This is what I woke up to at 3am. (I do that sometimes) SO pretty! But OH so damaging! Luckily not to me personally or my property.

Way to go, Spring! You sure showed Winter!

Anybody up for a game of BBall?

Those "bushes" there under the trees, not bushes at all....poor trees got a mandatory trimming.

I think the 3+power outages in the night (3am) were a result of this:

This snow was WET and it was warming up FAST! Therefore, it melted as fast as it came!

Spring, now that you've had your fun, I'd like my green grass, budding trees, and flowers back!!

My little mini pumpkin patch

So, You know how Jared planted all those "melons" in the spring? Well, we really didn't get very many melons, BUT got PLENTY of gourds, pumpkins, squash, and whatever else is in 'that family'.

This was ever AFTER I had given a bunch away.

Utah State Fair

Jared and I took the three little ones to the fair this morning. I'm such a fair junky it's ridiculous. Growing up our parents took us to the fair to see the tractors, animals, and of course the "commercial" building. We never really ventured over to the rides, (as a parent now, I think I've figured it out.

All those "carnies" pitching their best schpill on WHY we should pick their VERY overpriced-can't-win-for-the-life-of-you game which you keep forkin' over the doe just to prove them wrong! HA! Who's the one laughing now? Them of course!!!

Now I can't afford that $4.00 funnel cake I was SO craving when we first arrived. No, I'm not mad, just really REALLY bitter!)

Sorry, we got off on a tangent there....back to the 'family memories in the making'. Once through the gates, we happened upon a NEW (can you believe it, something NEW at the fair?) show/act/exhibit... whatever you want to call it. "Tigers from India". Actual bengal tigers ALL the way from.... you guessed it, Florida. WHA Wha wha. (FLORIDA? What's with the India?) I'm not going to ask, I'll just assume that they are there for the winter. Ya know, like all the other snow-birds. Right?)

It was cool to see that there are so many different colors of bengals.

And being a sucker for cats (you'll see in the next blog posting) that I wanted to run into that pen to cuddle, hug, ride, and feed those amazing beasts too.

Next, we decided to devulge our pallets into all that....greasy food. Jared had a hamburger, I had SUPER yummy pizza (I really wanted to go get another piece, I was having a continuous argument in my mind about should I? or shouldn't I?) and the kids...corn dogs. (Ok...so you're probably wondering what happened to the funnel cake I was going off about earlier, but to be honest, I have never had one...just used it as an example to make my point. It worked because everyone knows about those funnel cakes.) We did have kettle corn, (Insert Homer-Simpson-seeing a doughnut sound effect here...) ice cream, and fresh lemonade.

I finally made it to the crafts building and the first thing I noticed was three women making lace. (Be sure to double click on the pictures to get a closer look!)

I have never seen it done homemade the way that they were doing it. I was shocked to see how detail oriented it was. I've seen my mom crochet doilies but nothing like this. I HAD to take a few pictures just to show YOU, my blog stalkers, what they were doing. Talented, that's for sure.

This woman was so sweet while I bombarded her with questions.

When asked, "how long does it take you to do this?" She said, "Usually 1 inch per hour." WOW!!! I don't think I will EVER have that much patience. The particular piece she was working on, (I assumed it was a lace collar) she was hoping to have it finished by christmas. I thought that she had plenty of time, but her goal of one "loop" (in the picture above, a loop is one 'scallop') per week was far from being reached. She was still on the same "loop" three weeks later. (Maybe Christmas isn't so far away.) Hats off to these women for continuing an old tradition of hand woven lace.

After walking around for a while longer we were starting to feel the heat and sore feet and decided to call it quits. Good thing, the crowd started to become more congested as we pulled out of the parking lot. All in all, it was an ok visit. Next year, maybe we'll make it over to the animals.

Lavendar Days

Once a year in Mona Utah, they have "Lavendar Days". And every year during those days, we always seem to be driving by on our way, to or from, St. George. And every year i always tell myself, "Next year, i'll make sure i go." WELL... 'next year' finally came (3-4 years later) and we went as a family. I'm glad we all went because it was fun for everyone. I was thinking that it was one of those things that are more on the boutique-y side, but it wasn't quite that bad. There was a reptile show and HUGE water slide for the kids. Old western shoot-outs, and medevil sports (like jousting) and rides that were powered by man's own strength. AND of course lavendar for me! They even had lavendar icecream and lavendar lemonade and booths to make your own lavendar craft. I opted for one of the wreaths (which smells great!) and Mykael made a lavendar bottle of 'liquid' that could be used for cleaning, cooking, decoration or whatever you'd like. (It's acutally just white wine vinegar with fresh lavendar shoved down into it to bring out the essence of this great plant.)

One observation that we had as we were driving home from a fun-filled and relaxing day was that EVERYONE there was calm cool, and collected. Sometimes so much so that you would find people sleeping. Yes, sleeping...under tents, under trees, on chairs, in strollers (i'm sure the lavendar was affecting the infants also.) And anyone you came in contact with was really nice. Not like the typical attitude you'd get a a carnival or fair. AND everyone was happy. I am now a firm believer of the power of lavendar. I really slept great that night because i had that huge wreath above my bed.

(sorry for the blurry pic. Camera was acting up.)