Best of Summer (Part 1)

Enjoying the first "fruits" from my garden. :) Yummy yellow grape tomatoes. Delicious.

I am seriously thinking about becoming a farmer. ;) 

Catching Warren with his new (expanded) scriptures in contemplative study on the back lawn. 

Homemade pizza. Nuttin betta than that! YUM. 

Congrats to Benn & Andrea Fronk - UT Med School Graduation! It was so great to be part of your special day! We love you! 

A nest of three baby cardinals hatched in our yard!

A tale tale visit from a Kirby vacuum cleaner salesman! He was smooth... let me tell you. I should have known better than to believe he was going to clean my carpets for free with NO obligation! LIES! 

Houston Summers = lots of rain. Building Forts is always a good way to pass the storm. 

Here a train, there a train, everywhere a train, train....

Swim lessons paid off! The ever confident and stealthy Warren fish demonstrates his sweet skills.

A little spring in our step...

I am still catching up from all the trips and have fallin behind in my posts. So here is a little Spring rewind & recap.....

The Saturday before Easter we hunted eggs at Town Center here in Kingwood. They always have great Easter festivities and it has become a tradition of ours to go each year.

We also attended a charity benefit for a young Kingwood mother name Katy Hayes who contracted a common form of Strep A delivering her last baby. Subsequently, she had to have both her arms and legs amputated. Such a sad story but it was a wonderful event and it was inspiring to see so many in the community come together to rally for her. To learn more about Katy click here:

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Parenting/flesh-eating-bacteria-costs-mom-arms-legs/story?id=10646649

We had our friends Zach and Dulca over for Conference and Easter dinner. Weston has been teaching them with the missionaries for several months. They are great. :)

Here is a little peak of my first garden! I can't say enough how much I am loving it. I did plant one last fall (a little late in the season) and I was hopeful but it froze too early and therefore never amounted to much. I planted this garden in March (from seeds) and it has been doing well so far. My peppers, tomatoes and strawberries have been doing the best. More to come here, later. :)

This is random but I thought I would post it. When I was fifteen years old I got into quilting and I made two patch work quilts. This one was completely crafted, assembled and tied. It just needed binding but I didn't know how to do it and I never took the time to learn. Well, for the past 17 years this quilt has been sitting in a plastic bag in a box. At our last Stake Conference a sister (whom I didn't know before sitting by her at the meeting) introduced herself and randomly asked me afterward if I had any patch work quilts I could display at the Stake Quilt Exhibit & Picnic. Well, hot dang! I had two. I explained the predicament with this one.

Sister Goodman was so sweet. She drove to my house with her quilting book, gave me a little tutorial and wah-lah! 17 years later my 15 year old ambitions were made complete. As I sewed this old quilt, so many memories came flooding back about all that was going on in my life at the time. Long story short- it turned out to be a tender mercy for me to see this quilt be complete. Even if it was 17 years later! Sister Goodman insisted she take my picture with them. So, here you have it! The top one is called an "Around the World" quilt.

Here is the other one.....still wrinkled from being packed in a box for so long. They didn't hold a candle to all the other fancy schmancy ones done by the "professional" quilters but she still wanted them displayed. This one is called a "Log Cabin" quilt. :D

We have been to several Astro's games but they have usually been date nights with Warren or Weston. This time we went as a family. It was also Ben's first Astro's game. He was mezmerized by the lights, the music, the train aka "choo choo!" Here you see him pointing to it.

If you look just below the lights you will see the full size train that drives around the track around Minute Maid stadium. When they hit a home run....the conductor blows the whistle. The boys LOVE it!

All my boys. :D How'd I get so lucky?

Mothers Day. Warren's preschool hosted a "Mothers Day Tea" where all the moms came and our kids pampered us. It was so sweet. He made me the cutest corsage and served me chocolate covered straberries, short bread cookies, cheese, crackers and lemonade. They read us books and also sang us some great mothers day songs. As featured in the video below. :) Thank you to Warren who made my Mother's Day so special. I love you buddy.

We celebrated dad's birthday! His cake was lovingly decorated by Warren with a various assortment of candles, a lolly-pop, a HEB buddy buck 20 point sticker and some Wall-E paraphernalia. :) Of course, dad loved it!

Warren has been taking swimming lessons and has been learning so fast. He has always loved swimming but stayed true to his cautious Warren self. I am so proud of him. He's so willing to do everything she asks. His biggest hurdle is just feeling confident in the water without hanging onto her/my neck! He is very determined and I think he will be swimming in just a few more lessons!

Doing Bobs!

Last but not least. Our friend Dulca got baptized! She is the sweetest person. I just love the strong spirit at baptisms. It's always amazing to me how it envelops us and confirms the truthfulness of the Gospel. She asked Weston and I to give the talks. He spoke on Baptism and I spoke on the Holy Ghost. We felt honored to be part of their special day!

This Grandmothers Garden...

I know many of you are gardeners and so I thought I would share this link. "Meredehuit" was my YW President when I was a youth. She is such a wonderful lady. I have always admired her ability to manage, uplift and build anything she sets her eyes upon. She has a gift for growing things. Both in her garden and with all those she comes in contact with.

She just sent her last son on a mission and has started a blog to share her love for gardening. She has a wealth of knowledge and enthusiasm. So, if you are looking to catch some gardening fire....... I am pleased to introduce "This Grandmother's Garden".

http://www.thisgrandmothersgarden.com/

Enjoy, my friends!

The DIRT.

I finally planted my very first garden! I have been working my tail off the last week and I finally got it built, installed and planted!!! I really don't know a lot about gardening but I am hoping I will learn soon. Here are some pics from my little garden spot transformation.

The goods: Peas, carrots, green beans, cabbage, cilantro, kale, spinach, lettuce, green onions, cucumbers, orange red & green peppers, tomatoes, squash, basil & rosemary.

I did some research a LONG time ago and had decided to do a "square foot" garden because it claims to be the most successful with the least amount of upkeep and I am all about low maintenance. ;) I built these three 4x4 garden boxes in the garage this week in 95 degree weather & 90% humidity. It seems like it has been raining for 40 days here. It was ugly but I made it through without swearing.

PS Don't mind the crushed utility box that Centerpoint Energy has been promising to replace since last February when one of our oak trees uprooted during a wicked Texas thunderstorm. It is totally messing up the Feng Shui of my garden spot, I know. After they replace it I plan to build something a little more attractive around it to hide its ghastly appearance.

;)

24 Bags of enriched vegetable soil (40 lbs each) & 4 bags of cedar mulch.

I bought some landscaping fabric and layed it down under the boxes (I don't do weeds) and over the area where I wanted my mulch paths.

Warren was just tickled with this project. He told me "I am the LUCKIEST boy EVER to plant a garden!" It was so fun to do together and I was a little amazed how much FUN he had doing it too.

I am growing everything from seeds - except for the tomatoes & peppers. I also planted my small basil & cilantro plants that I already had growing in pots in the Herb box.

All finished! Isn't it beautiful? I can't wait for it to start growing! Gardening tips welcome. :)

The Heckler....

Since we have lived in our new house we have maintained our yard as normal folks do but there have been a few problem areas that we have needed to tackle but haven't yet for various reasons. We have these Sego Palms that are planted between our house and driveway that the previous owners had not taken care of and therefore had become SO overgrown that they really were too big to keep in their current habitat because the palm leaves were scratching the cars as we drove past. We love the palms but they looked horrible and I had no idea what could be done. Weston tried to remedy it his way and cut the leaves hanging over the drive off straight down. It solved the scratching the cars problem but then they looked even worse. I had pretty much accepted that they would have to come out and plant something else but then....the vision came (cue angels) and I went to work.

Meet Curly (before): He was the biggest of the two palms by far and had about 10 times the bugs.

This is moe (before): A bit smaller but equally stubborn and infested with creepies of unusual size.

Meet the Heckler: He came home from the gas station just in time to witness his "beautiful" palms being "hacked and destroyed". Not only did he lack the faith and vision, he set up his observation chairs equipt with palm fanning super heros to back his position and charge. (Cue Nacho Accent) ...Those of little faith....if they shall believe....

....the master gardneress.....will bring you peace.... and groomed Sego Palms....

(tools used: hedge sheerz, pruners, garden hand rake, hoe & pick axe.)

Curly After.

Moe After.

It took most of the day but the good news is Curly and Moe get to stay putt and they look beautimus wouldn't you say? Not too shabby for my first tropical grooming job.... if I do say so myself.