The Grass is Greener!

Figured since our grass is now covered with snow, maybe we should post a few pictures to actually show that it WAS green and growing!

These are the before pictures on the day my awesome family came and helped us level and plant.

I should have taken a picture of the weed garden we had...all those weeds are that HUGE pile in the middle.

And the after.... I think 2 weeks or so later. The rocks and dirt on the left are where we're going to expand the patio so we can fit our picnic table on it.

The sprinklers were already set up to do the garden where the weed pile is, so our thinking is that we will incorporate it into the back landscaping where you can still see some of the weeds along the back edge.

Lauren Lately

Just found some random pictures of Lauren.

Eating  some yummy ice cream after swimming.

"Helping" me make the bed.

Catching up on some reading. She did this completely on her own.

Not sure what to think about this car.

Rocking her baby to sleep.

Dinosaur Park

We went to the Dinosaur Park yesterday with my sister and her kids. It was alot of fun! We had the park practically to ourselves and the perfect temperature.

Lauren thought it was great fun to try and crawl under the fences to actually pet the dinosaurs and collect bones. She also climbed up the the VERY top of the very tall tree slide all by herself and then went down the slide. No fear in her at all.

Looking at the bones in the cave. I couldn't get Lauren out!

Michael riding his baby dinosaur.

Lauren looking out the dinosaur head.

 

 

Thomas riding his "weally fast" dinosaur!

Dallin was there too and had a ball going down the slide with Lauren.
Thanks for the fun day Steph!

Going Ons

I finally made it to institute today. I have been trying to go every Tuesday and Wednesday for the past four weeks. Either something came up or Lauren needed a nap desperately. So today I didn't plan on going, and lo-and-behold! We made it!

Our grass is growing! As in, the grass we planted last week over the entire back yard, is growing! I can just picture how it will all look someday when we get it all done. Landscaping in the back with rocks, brick, trees, fire pit, swing set, shed, dog kennel, fruit trees, and a garden that grows food instead of weeds. For now though, I am happy that we have tiny grass blades instead of weeds.

The weed pile that amassed while we cleared getting ready to plant is taller than I am. We're currently waiting for them to settle down and dry out so we can have a massive bonfire.

I had a great birthday last week. Chase took me out to Firehouse for dinner and then we went to Home Depot. (I see a trend here... every celebration we seem to end up at Home Depot. Could be worse I guess.) He got me an awesome book The Violinist's Thumb, which is all about genetics. It's hard to find a good science novel these days so he did great!

Saturday I went with my mom, sister, aunt and grandma to the General Relief Society broadcast. We went shopping in Farmington beforehand and then rode the Front Runner to Salt Lake. Never done that before so it was a fun experience. The talks were very good and seemed to address things that my family are going through. They gave a lot of comfort and insight.

We just found out that Chase will FINALLY have his annual review at work on Friday. We've been waiting for this for a long time. It was something we were planning on right about the time we closed on the house...and it never happened (Typical Conservice; we should have known better.) So that will make our budget actually look like we planned on when we signed the closing papers. Whew.

We got a library card to the Hyrum library. Lauren loves it and it's fun to see her run in and pick out books. I haven't been too impressed with it yet. All the books I've gone to get are either out or they don't have them at all. The stuffed bear is pretty neat though.

I'm getting recipes together for Thanksgiving. I'm in charge of dinner this year at the Christensen's and I'm really excited about it! What's your favorite way to cook a turkey?

Trying to figure out what to plant in our flower beds. I am not a gardener and am lucky if I can tell between a weed and a flower so Pinterest has been helping me out some. I'm trying to find some more shade perennials or evergreens.

We canned some more tomatoes and spaghetti sauce a few weeks ago. Our house smelled great! I'm trying to find some Macintosh apples (or others) to make applesauce. Does anyone have any connections? Bountiful Baskets usually has them but I haven't seen them yet this year.

Finally cleaned up my sewing room. I haven't been able to see the floor for months. I just let Lauren loose when I'm sewing sometimes, which creates mass amounts of mess in there. Keeps her happy though so I don't mind, she likes to look at all the buttons and pretend to cut things out on my mat.

I'm excited for Halloween this year. We'll actually get Trick-or-Treaters! We usually got one, maybe two in our apartments.

Well, I think that pretty much sums up what we've been up to!

Nursery!

Okay, so she's really not 18 months for a few weeks. But Sister Green was so nice to let her come in early! And she was so excited, she didn't even look back. She has a little boyfriend in there already too. Carter was so excited and started laughing and saying hi to her when he saw her come in.

 I missed her though! It was nice to actually  listen to the lessons but I felt like I was missing something. She was happy to see me though after church and that made me feel good.

Hair Woes

If it was socially and visually acceptable to walk around bald I would shave my head. I have a love/hate relationship with hair; have my whole life except for high school when it straightened out a little and was really thick.

Here's my dilemma now: pregnancy thinned it out a TON and made it really fine. It still has just enough wave to be obnoxious but not enough to have pretty curls. I don't like taking forever to straighten it and I don't like pouring an entire bottle of gel to try and make it curly. I don't like having hair in my eyes or on my face. I don't like taking more than ten minutes to fix it (let's be honest, Lauren doesn't like me to take more than 5).

I like my hair longer, but that in-between, growing-out stage drives me nuts! Which is where I'm at right now.

Should I cut it? Not cut it? How would I cut it? Any ideas or tips out there?

Thursday Thoughts

- It's finally cooling off! haven't turned on the AC for three days now!

- Which means it's almost sweater season-- I own many more sweaters than t-shirts; I'll have something to wear!

- Where are all these nasty flies coming from? I spent a good hour this morning trying to get those buggers totally out of our house this morning. Gross.

- Almost done with Lauren's quilt top. I'm excited to see it all done! I can't decide whether to machine or quilt it by hand.

- Three more weeks 'till nursery. That will be the best birthday present ever.

- Watched the new "Your's, Mine and Ours" movie today. The old classic one is just so much better. Can't beat Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda.

- I think Lauren "wants" to be a butterfly for Halloween.

- Helped my mom and grandma bottle tomatoes and spaghetti sauce yesterday. It was fun! I want to try pears in a few weeks. Never done pears before... are they hard?

- Mustering my strength to pull more 4 foot weeds in our yard on Saturday. The good news is that some of them are starting to turn brown and die!

- Traded our two non-working lawn mowers for a working riding one a week or so ago. Chase has been grinning from ear to ear from our awesome find. Thank goodness we were blessed when we were or our lawn would be a complete disaster by now.

- I wish the company Chase works for didn't take so long to get things done. They drag their feet on everything.