Fabulous Friday and Some Recent Photos

Note: This post WAS typed on Friday. Due to computer retardosity :) it was not posted at that time.

We are actually HOME on Friday!!! It's amazing! This has only happened ONCE in the past month. Hooray for FRIDAY!

1. Today is my wonderful brother, Ben's, birthday. I LOVE YOU BEN!!! I could never have asked for a better older brother than he was and is. I am so thankful for the wonderful friendship that we have. I can remember crying and missing him so much when he first left home for college (even after he used to chase me, seven years his junior, up the stairs to pound me for waking him up in the morning :). I remember him making elaborate obstacle courses in our backyard to entertain us. I remember him taking me to see The Addams Family with him. I remember him taking me for 4-wheeler rides at my grandpa's farm. He is my friend. I love my brother. Happy birthday, Ben! You're the best older brother I could ever ask for.

2. Hazel learned to ride her bike today!!! I am SO PROUD OF HER!!!! Hazel is very cautious and can get really nervous about anything that may incur bodily injury. But we have taken this slow and I haven't pushed her. Today, even with her hesitations, she allowed me to help her "practice" again. I never even needed to hold on to the back. She just took right off. She would start going on her own and then stop and say that she didn't want to do it anymore. It was the funniest (read: kind of frustrating) thing. She could totally do it and would doubt herself as she started to go. But she kept on humoring me and finally just did it. I was BURSTING with pride. She was so proud of herself. WAY TO GO, HAZEL! I'm so proud of her for overcoming her fears. 

She has also lost another tooth! - Which she pulled out all by herself, I might add. She was proud of herself and I've started getting kind of nervous that she's not even in kindergarten yet and already starting to look BIG. This growing up thing is getting hard on me! :(

3. Glasses are fabulous. How thankful I am for optometry. I would be a very different person if corrective lenses didn't exist. My family can attest to this. It has been reiterated the last few days. - Plus, it's REALLY cute to hear Elsie say "gslassies". 

4. Nels. Need I say more? My best friend. My confidante. His a wonderful, selfless provider for our family. He is strong and steady. Talented and patient. One of the constants in my life. I love him. 

5. Home. and a house. But a house is not necessarily a HOME. I am thankful for a mother that taught me how to make a home. I am thankful for the rest that it brings. I've been to three different homes in the past few weeks. The home I was raised in. The home I married into and have been loved into. :) And the home that I've - along with my children and husband - made. I find rest at each of them. Different at each and I definitely have ONE that I prefer (mine), but I'm thankful for them all and the feelings that each of them bring. I'm thankful to be home today. 

The girls had a wonderful time playing in the hose today. Strangely enough, they do NOT really enjoy running THROUGH the sprinkler, just sitting on the sprinkler, playing with the hose, and sitting in the jutter. Odd by still fun. 

What cute girls! Lilie, Kamryn (neighbor), Hazel, and Elsie.

I love that Lilie is inadvertently watering Kamryn's head in this picture! So funny!

Elsie had fun carrying around the animals and playing with them in the water. SO cute. I love those little pudgy hands. - Just about the only thing pudgy on her. 

6. Hazel finished Preschool today! Honestly, I'm happy that we're done for the summer - as we've been so busy for the past 5 weeks or so (Hazel has probably only been to about 6 or 7 of the past 18 days school days). But it's hard for me to think that she'll be starting Kindergarten this fall. I love to have her with me. As crazy as our house is most of the time, I love my kids! I love the ages that they are right now. She's learned a lot of good skills this year. She's ready for school. I think that she gets bored sometimes just being at home, but it's still kind of rough for me. 

This last picture is just a funny picture. The other morning, Lilie woke up with a swollen eye. It was the weirdest thing. I had noticed the day before that her eyelid was a little red, but I just thought it was a bit of a sunburn. This is how she woke up the next morning and it was slightly swollen for the next two days. Maybe she got stung by a bee or something, I don't know and neither did she. It was odd. And she looked funny. :)

Hard Core Kid

As we were heading back from Utah last weekend, the girls were listening to their little iPods. Lilie had hers a bit loud. Like, I could hear it perfectly all the way in the front of the van, kind of loud. I was getting ready to turn around and ask her to turn it down when she turned to Hazel, and yells, 

Hazel! When I get it weally loud,

I can feel it in my bwain!

Nels and I laughed and laughed. Nels was proud of his hard-core daughter. 

Sorry I've not been much of a blogger. Sunshine is a severe deterrent. - So is being sick. We've all had the CRUD the past week or two. Clogged noses and throats. Ick. 

On the bright side, 

I've finished working on my main flower bed! Hooray for me! I spent two days bending over my dirt. I've not been so worn out in a very long time --- and I'm no woosie. But it's much more manageable now. 

This past weekend we had our wonderful friends, the Grafs, come visit. We've known them for coming up on eight years this fall and we still love each other! :) (Really hope that we didn't infect your family, Hannah!)

And I had a GREAT Mother's Day. The only thing I wanted, aside from sleeping in till 9 and Nels feeding everyone breakfast :), was to go for an afternoon drive with my little family. We drove over to Palisades Reservoir in Swan Valley and played at the beach, skipping rocks, mud slinging, chasing pelicans and seagulls, and eating sandwiches. It was so . . . perfect. I have so many wonderful memories of spending time playing in lakes and rivers and being soaked and dirty and fulfilled. It was awesome to build some more of those sweet memories with my own darling children and husband. I loved it. A perfect Mother's Day. 

The final reason I haven't been blogging much is because we are never home. We've gone to Utah twice within the past three weeks (for Nels' work), we're heading to Mnt. Home tomorrow to visit with Nels' parents (for fun), and we'll be driving down to Utah again this coming weekend (for family pictures). Craziness. Serious craziness. Our kids are troopers. AND LOVE their grandparents.

Investment

It was a strange morning. 

I felt the need to get things done - and I couldn't decide what to do. 

I didn't want to do any of the things that needed doin'. Things like - sew dresses, cushion, and curtains. Things like - clean the fish tanks. Things like - finish the laundry. I thought, I REALLY need to get those delphiniums in the ground - they're going to die. But it's windy. And sprinkling. And cloudy. And WINDY. Yick. 

So I researched cell phone services and read blogs - looked outside again - hoping for better news and it still sounded like a train was driving through the trees across the street. Not better. What am I supposed to DO if it doesn't stop?? I asked. I really need to plant my flowers. They've been WAITING! 

Then an image popped into my head. Of my mother. In the rain. With muddy jeans, damp, curly hair, and a red jacket. Gardening. I decided I'm pathetic, changed my pants and shoes, grabbed my shovel, my rake, and my lawn mower and got to work.

As I worked my way, frustrated, through my flower bed, I couldn't help but wish I'd invested my money in some Black Gold last Fall, rather than the Playdoh that I now have to work with. There is seriously some parts of the soil that is so filled with clay that it is entirely worthless to work with. I spent most of the day laboriously mixing in the multiple bags of mulch that I had previously dumped onto the garden. It was NOT the most rewarding day of gardening. Feeling overwhelmed as I dug around and UP flowers that I've been haphazardly placing every-which-where --- I started wondering why on earth this is so hard for me?? From generations of gardeners and farmers (who probably got far too little credit for their horticultural artistry) and I start feeling defeated by a plot of dirt twelve feet long and five feet wide??!!! Gardening is in my blood. It calls to me like a Siren . . . but today . . . 

I felt about as effective as my shovel. :)

I suppose you're only as good as your tools! :)

I once had a beautiful, sturdy, red-handled shovel. My children loved it. It ran away. Apparently. This lovely little number was inherited with the house and obviously didn't fare well against the strength of the sticky soil. I used it backward and forward as it would bend. It was pitiful!

Only about half of this can is rocks that I picked out of the flower bed. The rest are clods of unusable clay. Nice.

Lots of work left for tomorrow.

The girls discovered a piece of moon in the garden today! Awesome. So awesome. It was their treasure for the afternoon.

By the time I called it quits for the day, my back, legs, butt, shoulders, and hands were all shaky and weak. I could barely hold Elsie normally. I'm proud of myself for completing this huge task. Not really looking forward to tomorrow when, rain or shine, I plan on mixing another bag or two of mulch in - but the hardest part is done. Hopefully it was worth it!

Monday night we decided it was high time to plant a tree in our front yard! I'm happy.

The girls had a blast helping daddy dig the hole! :)

Look at that! Real grass. A real tree! Amazing. I thought this day would never come! :)

Updatey

Wow! This has really been quite the bloggin' hiatus I've taken the past few months! It's amazing how much good weather deters me from blabbin'! :) So I'm just going to give you the basic rundown of the past little while. - With maybe a few pics added tomorrow. 

First off, I'm now officially in my LATE twenties! Scary, huh?? Just kidding. I had a WONDERFUL birthday last week! All my lovely flowers decided to pop up and bloom just for me and the weather was beautiful! 

Nels and I have been able to clean up our yard and get part of it ready for sod to be laid in the backyard. Our neighbor decided to finally put up the six foot wooden fence between our yards and we "HAD" :) to tear down the chain link. So sad, huh!? :) Therefore, we are finally going to get a couple of my dad's beautiful gates to contain our children! :) I'm excited. I've spent many an hour standing in front of my house staring at my garden and new fence, deciding on exactly what I want to do with it. I'm looking forward to lots of playing around in the yard this Spring and Summer!

Hooray for separation!!! I love it! I will love it more with a gate! :)

We got Nels' birthday hammock hung up in our backyard!!! Hooray! I'm --- Oops! I mean, WE are REALLY looking forward to getting good use out of it this summer!

Easter was wonderful! We made our way down to Utah to spend the weekend with my family and attend the blessing of my brother's beautiful baby girl. We stayed with said brother and his wife, Ben and Kelly, for the weekend and had such a wonderful time! I love them all so much and it was great to be with them! Ben and I got to go fish browsing one evening together and then the following Monday we went to the zoo with my sisters, Wendie, Melissa, and Kelly (yes, Kelly, I consider you my sister!) and their kids. The girls LOVE the zoo and love even more to spend time with their cousins. Elsie loved all the animals! Especially the monkeys - Hoo Hoo Ha Ha! (That's what she calls them!)

Easter is one of my favorite holidays. I love the joy and triumph - the rebirth and victory - that I feel that sweet morning. I don't really do the whole Easter Basket tradition - as I feel that I want the focus of Easter to be on the Savior - but I was hoping to have the dresses finished . . . . Alas, I did NOT finish the girls Easter dresses on time, and am still slowly working on them. I really hope to have them finished this week, as I have many other projects that I'd like to start on, but can't justify until I finish these beautiful dresses! Pictures are to be forthcoming!

For my birthday on Wednesday, I got many, many warm hippity happy birthday wishes and planned to spend the sunniness (yes. sunny-ness IS a word - as it didn't come up on spell check!) - okay, spend the sunniness doing two of my most favorite things; browsing Home Depot for paint and then meandering through the Nursery for flowers. 

What girl with a family history of skin cancer wouldn't want one of these!?

We made it out to Target to buy my desired floppy gardening hat before we got a call from Nels asking if I would mind making an impromptu trip down to Utah. Hmm? Eat Angel Food Cake with my family OR go to H.D. and the Nursery??? It was a hard choice, but we decided to rush home and get ready to go. Apparently Nels needed to head to Utah for work the next day. Down we went and one day turned into FOUR days! Darn me for learning how to stop overpacking!!! Two sets of clothes and a skimpy supply of diapers make it hard to stretch your stay!

Aside from the uncertainty of our plans from one day (or hour) to the next, we had a GREAT time spending time with my parents and siblings and even COUSINS! :) AND even though I had to skip my trip to the nursery, it turned out the my mom's house is a much more affordable nursery! :) She generously shared several of her overgrown perennials with me and I'm really looking forward to finding new homes for them around my yard!! Thank you MOM!!! You are so wonderful! Thank you Wendie, Genny, Melissa, Kelly, and Alyssa for entertaining me and my girls while we were "winging" it! I love you all so much! What a blessing to have such incredible sisters!!!

Nels was the unsung hero of the weekend, even though we didn't see too much of him! He spent Thursday afternoon with Elsie while I hung out with Wendie and Genny. - And then Friday he went down to Salt Lake to work little brains out. :) (Nels, you have little brains! LOL! That's funny!) I dropped him off at Metropolis (a great production company) downtown at 11 o'clock on Friday and he worked STRAIGHT until 3:30 the Saturday afternoon! After a 28 hour work day, he made it back to my parents' house to sleep for the next 17 hours! :) I love you, dear! Thank you for being the kind of person that is willing to do so much to provide for our family!!

Nels is calling me to play "Rock Band" with him - so I'll end this verbose post!

So easy to see why I first fell in love with Nels! Look how he ROCKS!!! :) When Nels and I were first dating (and various times since) he was in a rockin' band - playing the bass. I loved it and whiled away many an evening watching Nels in his cutoff Wranglers, black t-shirt, green Scout socks, and velcro shoes - with Mike blowing fire balls . . . man, those were the days!

Yep, she's adorable!