Swimming

We have been doing TONS of swimming at seven peaks. I don't my camera with us though, because there are so many people and I don't want to have any valuables with me. We went swimming with Ben's sister though at her complex pool and had it to ourselves. It was a lot of fun.

I worked with Prairie to learn how to swim, she really warmed up to using a floaty ring, and by the end was letting me pull her around and she was kicking.


Autumn was too nervous to get all the way in the water, because it was 4 ft deep, which is a little too deep for her to walk around on her own. So we were having noodle fights, where we would fill the noodles up with water and then blow it out at each other. We were laughing so hard pegging each other in the face with water, it was such a blast.

Autumn in new swimming suit

Emily helping Prairie swim in her floaty ring

Autumn sitting on the stairs

I don't really expect everyone to watch this video, but I was getting in trouble with Jennie that I haven't been posting, or putting up videos. But if you do watch it, I apologize for the random guy that is taped in the pool, Laura thought he was hot and thought it needed to be documented.


This is a picture of me and the girls on the way to seven peaks one day. Prairie had had pigtails in, and then Autumn wanted some just like her. Then Autumn thought we all needed to have matching hair, so I was the obliging mom and put pigtails in also. My neighbor saw us when we were about about to leave, and she thought we looked cute, and was nice enough to take a couple of pictures of us. Thanks so much Tisha

Autumn, Emily and Prairie with matching hair (Prairie had just had a haircut, I cut off a little more than 3 inches)

More Maryland Time

So my dad still uses dial up internet and it was really painful to upload pictures while I was there, and since I got home I was cleaning my disaster zone apartment and going swimming a lot with the girls. We have been loving our seven peaks passes.

So here are some highlights of what we did in Maryland that I actually took pictures of:



When I began running it wasn't raining, but 1 mile into my run it began raining, and it was pouring, so I ran 2 miles through sopping pouring rain, Jennie would be proud. I was just worried about my ipod.


Prairie watching tv at my dad's house, my daughters loved cable and being able to watch Spongebob and lots of other kids shows. She found this little keychain electronic game, and Prairie started calling it her ipod.


We went to pick your farm in Maryland that is like 20 minute drive from my dad's house. I remember going there as a kid to get our pumpkins. The girls had a really good time berry picking. I gave Autumn a couple of choices of what we could do that day, and she really wanted to go to the farm. We got some edible pea pods, and they were sooo delicious, and we got strawberries. Prairie ate tons more than she picked, she was completely covered. Autumn picked a few, but then she didn't want her hands to get dirty, so she had me pick her strawberries and fill up her basket.

the girls at the strawberry field

Autumn with her pickins

Prairie with the stem leftover from the strawberry that she just ate

Prairie picking and eating the strawberries immediately

Autumn

Maryland Time

So I am out in Maryland for 9 days. About a month ago me and my dad were talking about when he should come out to Utah to visit next. We set a weekend and then my sister informed my dad that she was coming out to Maryland, and my dad said that wasn't enough time for him between his visit out to Utah and her coming, so then I suggested that we come out to Maryland, and he was game for it, so me and the girls flew out on Saturday and we get to stay for 9 days. Ben is working two weeks of 4 days of 10 hours so that he can come out this coming weekend and not have to take any vacation. So I would have to say that the big downer to having a real job is the whole vacation thing, but I'm not complaining because I love Ben having a full time job.

So we are hanging out. The weather is pretty miserable, very hot and very humid. I have decided that I am officially in love with Utah, the weather is soooo wonderful. My dad has a pool in his neighborhood, but I am not all that motivated to go because it is sooo humid, but I am sure we will go.

Also for anyone that knows my dad, he has had a piano box in his front room for almost 9 years, but it would be nice to have a couch or futon in the front room to sit on. So he said I could go out and pick out a futon for the front room. Yesterday I ventured out to a Futon store with both of the girls in tow and picked out a frame, cushion, and cover for my dad. I threw out all the styrofoam from the piano box, now I need to break down the box and recycle it on Friday. Anyway I am pretty excited for the futon. Next up is to convince my dad to get update his mid 80's tv and get a wii, sounds like fun, right?

Here is the piano box and some of the stuff that was in the piano box (like the broken chairs)

Here is the front room with the piano box (and while I was working on cleaning it out). Me and the girls kind of got the room really messy with all of our luggage and stuff.

Autumn's Invention

Autumn going down the slide and Prairie climbing up

Autumn is very creative, and I really enjoy seeing all that she creates in our home. Since we got our futon we really don't have room for the twin mattress that we kept in the sewing room, so it has been permanately on the stairs as a "slide" for the girls. Autumn was really creative, and strong, she took Prairie's toddler mattress, stipped it of the sheets and pushed to the top of the stairs all by herself. Now they have an entire flight of bed slides, or atleast until Prairie needs to take a nap or go to bed.

Garden Time

So we finally got our garden planted last tuesday! Seriously for a week every day that we were going to work on it, we would wake up and it was raining all day, so FINALLY it wasn't raining and we got the garden in. We planted 8 pepper plants, like 8 tomato plants, a cucumber, a pumpkin, a yellow squash, a butternut squash, and I think that is about it.

I bough some seeds for mammoth sunflowers, it might be too late, and I don't know if we get enough sun for them, but I think me and Autumn are still going to plant them and see what comes up.

The Pepper plants, 4 yellow on the left and 4 green on the right

this is the squash garden bed with zucchini, yellow squash, cucumber, pumpkin and butternut squash

here is a picture of the hanging flowers in full bloom and our apple tree, we are going to see if we can can some applesauce from this tree this year

another view of the hanging flowers

Autumn and I want to plant our sunflowers and maybe a couple of other things under where the hanging flowers are, but it is completely overgrown with weeds and other stuff, so for Family Home Evening this week we went out as a family and worked on clearing the area so hopefully by the end of the week and Autumn and I cam plant our seeds.

Here is the before view, very overgrown, and a big pile of rose clippings, hello thorns

Autumn trying to help out by clipping the hanging flowers

Autumn and Ben working hard in the plot, looked at how cleared out it is! The soil is beautiful because there was tons of decomposing leaves and plant material there

Here is all the stuff that we cleared out that didn't fit into our trash can

It had been overcast a little rainy that evening, but then the sun peeked its head out and here is what the mountain and our hanging flowers looked like

Autumn's Preschool graduation

So even though Autumn was only in preschool for a month and a half she got to participate in the graduation on Wednesday May 28th. It was really nice weather, it was outside out a pavilion at one of our churches. They had a 5 minute ceremony -- perfect length and then a potluck dinner.

Autumn's teacher owns a couple of 4 wheelers so after the dinner, they let different people drive them around, and they had a trailer hooked on for all the kids to ride in.

Autumn very shy at the graduation. It was all I could do to get her to sit with all the kids.

Autumn in her graduation hat chewing on a necklace

Autumn being presented with her diploma by her teacher

Autumn sitting with some of the girls from her class

Ben driving the four wheeler with all the kids

Autumn was too nervous to go without her family, so Ben offered to drive so Autumn would have an opportunity to ride

Prairie our fearless daughter got in with all the kids. She is wearing a green shirt and is pretty much in the middle of the all the kids

Pictures of the girls

The girls pretending to be asleep in their pretend house

The girls eating strawberry cake waffles with fresh starawberries and powdered sugar

The girls getting excited about going swimming

Very Excited

image take from Amazon.com

So I have been checking for weeks, okay fine I will admit it for months to see if Breaking Dawn was in our library catalog yet, so that I could be one of the first to reserve it, and I wouldn't have to buy it to read it the first day. I have been checking the library catalog almost daily sometimes more than daily since they announced the release date in February, now I can sigh a deep sigh of relief, because I didn't want to forget and be on a waiting list of 200+ people or something. So I am very excited.

Oh Edward how I love you, I can't wait! You know what I will be doing on August 2nd.