Oh what do you do in the summertime?

Oh we sit on our porch eating ice pops and cookies and watch all of our neighbors go by.

Oh we hike up the Cress Creek Nature Trail and have a picnic. ( PS we hiked it on July 3rd, 2 days before the Post Register profiled it.) It is a great little hike outside of Ririe, near Heise. It's only about 1 1/2 miles and has little signs that tell about the topography, plant and animal life.

Here we are enjoying our picnic by the creek. It was a beautiful, cool and shady spot.

Oh, I work in my gardens and pull lots of weeds. My dianthus are blooming a profusion of pinks and whites. My bleeding hearts are still going and the geranium and lobelia are starting to take off. My hostas looked really great but we had a big hailstorm which punched big holes into the leaves.

This is my butterfly/hummingbird garden which unfortunately hasn't had many visitors. My wiegela in the middle suffered some transplant shock and dropped all of its blooms but it seems to be perking back up. I also have purple salvia, magenta Sweet William, Bachelor's Buttons, a peony that didn't bloom but it is it's first year, a pink ( yes I said pink) coneflower that is just getting a good start, bee balm, blue delphiniums and pink yarrow which haven't bloomed yet, and some red hot salvia that will hopefully bloom soon. I also planted parsley at the back to attract the butterflies. Of course I am already dreaming of the additions I can make next year.

And sometimes I even like to lay on my back and watch as the clouds go by. Is that what you do?

Catching up with Leah - 13 months

Our little Leah is growing from a baby to a little girl. She is developing an adorable personality. She likes to be right in the middle of everything. Here she is "helping" me wash dishes. Mostly she just drinks from the cups, eats the bubbles and pours water everywhere. But it keeps her happy and entertained and I can get a few dishes washed. ( This is her signature crazy hair because she always pulls out the hair pretties I put in.) Every morning I set her on the side of the sink while she "brushes" her teeth and I do her hair. And every morning I say "Ooooh pretty" and she will smile and touch her hair. And every day she ends up looking like this, ah well.

Leah adores being outside. She will scoot over to the front or back sliding glass door and bang on it, to be let out. She loves to crawl around in the grass, pull on my plants and play on the trampoline. But she absolutely loves swinging on the swings. Here she is at my mom's just happy as a clam. She will laugh and squeal as the breeze ruffles her hair swinging back and forth. On the bigger swings I have to hold her and we can't swing as long because mommy gets motion sick.

Yes, Leah can climb onto the trampoline by herself. Abi taught her how. However, she cannot climb off - she just scoots over to the edge and looks over so that a frightened parent runs to her and picks her up. Then she will squirm out of our arms into the grass, scoot over to the ladder and climb back up. You can tell she just knows that she is soooooo big. And while she loves to climb ladders, stools, boxes, onto the couch, stairs, you name it - she still isn't walking. It's not that she can't; she just won't. She took her first steps on June 16th. And she will walk well in between 2 people, even 6 -8 feet away from each other. But she won't just take off and walk around by herself. She's a little chicken. :) If I do stand her up and point her off to walk, she says " No," and sits right down and scoots. I guess that scooting is faster.

"No" ( or "Nooo") as Leah says it is her favorite word. Sometimes no means yes though. But I think her favorite use is when she does something she knows that she is not supposed to be doing and she says "Nooo" to herself. Like when she goes over and pulls the leaves off my plants, "Nooo." This afternoon she scooted right over to the strawberries, pulled the netting up and started picking them and stuffing her little mouth. Leah LOVES strawberries. Here she has at least 2 in her mouth and one in her hand. But we have a great crop this year of big, sweet strawberries so I guess there are plenty to share.

Leah is starting to say several words and understand many more. She says "Yes, No, Ball, Baby, Mommy - which means I want something, Dadoo, Abi, Ju - juice, Uh-oh and What." She loves it when I sing this little song about a pet hippo and will sing "Oh yes" at just the right time. Leah loves to dance and clap to music, she just lifts herself up onto one knee and one foot and bounces along to the music. We are down to one nap a day from about 1:00 to 3:00 pm. She is getting much better as sleeping now that most of her teeth are through. She has 14 now and 2 lower eye teeth starting to work through. She can eat just about anything and has a particular talent for sniffing out Abi and Tal's candy stashes. She like to look at books and turn the pages but only for a minute. Mostly, Leah is a girl on the go and looking for adventure.

Catching up with Talmage

One of those huge benefits of being a Stay At Home Mom is that I can do fun things like go on my kids' field trips. When I was working I never knew about these things far enough in advance to get myself off. Leah and I accompanied Talmage's Kindergarten class to the Tautphus Park Zoo. Thankfully, I only had to be responsible for him and 2 other kids as we followed our docent about.

Every time we go he has to hop on this tiger and get his cheesy picture taken. "Mom, Take my picture!!!!!" After the zoo they had lunch at the park and then got to play lots of games like kickball. Amazingly it was one of our few hot and sunny days this spring.

Tuesday, May 26th was Talmage's Kindergarten Graduation. It was sooo cute to see the kids all march in to Pomp and Circumstance with their little blue caps on. They regailed us with the school song and a few others of which my favorite was "Wiggle Like a Wiggle Worm." For the Principal's remarks he called a few of the students up and asked them questions. When he called on Talmage my heart sank as you never know what your son is going to come up with when he's in the spotlight. For the most part he was cute and fun, "Yes, he liked school and his teacher." When he asked him what he would do for the summer, Tal said "Sleep In." HaHa. On school days I have to threaten, bribe, and ultimately drag him out of bed for school. But on the weekend or a day off from school he is up with the sun at 6:00 and waking the rest of the house up too.

Tal really liked his teacher. His favorite was when she would read "Skippy John Jones" with all of the different voices.

Tal's last soccer game was rained out so this one ended up being the last. It was fun to see Tal and the rest of the Fireballs improve to where they could pass the ball to each other and try to score goals. The best part was always running through the tunnel at the end and the treats.

Catching up with Abi

Blurb.com is finally supporting Blogger's platform again. Yeah!!!! For me, this means that I can slurp my blog into a book and with a little tweaking I can call it my journal and one day even print it out. For you, dear readers, this means I will strive to be much more consistent in my blogging. And if I'm actually blogging, hopefully I will snag a minute or two to read and comment on all of my friends as well. :)
Abi had waited and waited and not so patiently counted down to this day for years. Getting your ears pierced is a big day in a girl's life. She had to wait until she was eight, if you can be baptized you should be responsible enough to get your ears pierced we reasoned. However she had to wait until after soccer was over so that pushed the big day back until June. My sister Kalene and I took our daughters, Gabby and Abi, together to Claire's ( the same place we had gotten our ears pierced except that we had to be ten.) Abi picked out a cute little pair of emerald studs because they are her birthstone. She was a bit nervous but she hopped right up in the chair after Gabby decided that Abi should be first. She was very brave and even told Gabby that it didn't really hurt, just a little pinch.Here they are modeling their newly pierced ears and dreaming of when 8 weeks are done and they can buy some of these fun, new earrings to wear. Abi already has her heart set on some flip-flop earrings.

Abi's Activity Day Group threw a Parent's Night Out for us, their parents. With their leader's help they went shopping to price different menu options, created a menu, bought the food, made the food and served us dinner. For dinner we had salad, spaghetti, garlic bread, punch and cake for dessert. The girls did a fantastic job and passed off one of their Faith in God goals.

For our evenings enjoyment we got to hear a talent from each of the girls that they had been working on. Abi has been learning to play the piano from me and played "We'll Bring the World His Truth." Congratulations Abi on all of your hard work. Huge shout out to their leader, Sharlene, who is so amazing, creative, exciting and talented.

Activity Days Girl's Day Camp

I was such a lucky mom and got to tag along with Abi to Girl's Day Camp at Krupp Scout Hollow with the Activity Day Girl's. Abi LOVES Activity Days and the friends she has made. She happily chatters along about the activities and her goals and what she wants to teach the other girls next month. It has been really good for her as she is the only girl her age not only in our neighborhood but also in our ward. She has already completed a "Super Goal" of reading her scriptures every night for a month. But back to Day Camp. After several rousing rounds of Capture the Flag against the staff we gathered at the amphitheatre for flag ceremony, some instructions and a few scout skits. I had to giggle because they are still doing the same songs and skits as when Kris was on staff at Treasure Mountain.

The theme for our day was Space so each station had a spacey name to go along with the activity. This was "Laser Guns" and although they aren't really laser guns the girls had a great time plunking away at pop cans with the BB's. At each station they also earned a bead that they can work into their bead necklace.

Here the girls are making rockets. They launch a little plastic bottle out of a cardboard tube using the pressure created by mixing an Alka Seltzer and water in the bottle and then corking it. The girls decorated them so cute with paint.

Our last station was "Rocket Cars." The girls had a blast :) racing these little Go Carts down the field and around obstacles. It was our last station because the rain which had been holding off all day came pouring down in sheets. We tried to wait it out in the "Town Hall" while playing "Down By the Banks" and singing "The Princess Pat" but after 20 minutes it was not letting up. So we packed up early and headed home. A quick little stop at Arctic Circle for fudge dipped cones rounded out a great day of fun.

Postscript: The next day I could barely walk from all of the running during Capture the Flag. Hope that doesn't mean I'm getting too old :)

Projects and more Projects

Before the rain started we embarked on a few projects as a family. I just have to brag on my fantastic little painting crew for a minute. We decided to give our deck a facelift. A little paint somehow evolved into a whole new roof, new sections of flooring, lattice work around the outside to keep the neighborhood Tomcat out, and a new coat of paint. Over Memorial Day Weekend Abi, Tal, Leah ( in the backpack), and I painted our fence a lovely muted sageish green while Kris started on the deck in a darker "Shade Tree" green. P.S. Green is one of my favorite colors.


The red was an eyesore before but now our deck is a place we will love to hang out - if it ever stops raining. Kris is my amazing handyman.

Quite the improvement. I love how the green makes it cool and inviting. We enjoyed dinner out on our deck one evening.

Mary, Mary quite contrary, how does your garden grow?

I must say that I can get quite contrary if I don't get enough outside time in. Gardening is my therapy. Just me and my little plants that grow and change providing flowers and fruit, plus they don't talk back, don't make messes, and I can see the changes they make week to week. These are my little square foot gardens. Don't let them fool you, they really produce a lot of food. This year I gave one box, the closest left, to Abi and Tal to plant whatever they wanted. We are growing peas ( snow and sugar snap), beans, radishes ( 2 kinds), lettuce, swiss chard, green onions, carrots, a squash and a cherry tomato. I moved the majority of my tomatoes and peppers to the back of the house hoping that they will get a lot of heat there and hopefully give me a bumper crop.

My little front garden is really filling in this year. I added white bleeding hearts and some daylillies new this spring. I took this pic after the tulips had bloomed and I cut the stems back. I'm hoping to take pics throughout the season so that I can see how it changes. The dianthus are just about to bloom in this pic and then we'll have some more color again. My big project of the spring was my new perennial border along the front of my house. My aunt was digging up her perennial bed and she got me started. I bought a few shrubs but mostly my flowers came from friends and neighbors. It is fun to see your flowers and remember the people that they came from.

Abi's Baptism

Abi had been counting down to this day for over a year. I can't believe that I am old enough to have my baby baptized. I remember the little curly haired, brown eyed, chubby cheeked baby she used to be. She was baptized and confirmed on Saturday, June 6th by her father, Kristopher Meek, at the Kearney Stake Center. We had lots of family attend as well as her school teacher Mrs. Holcomb and her Primary teacher Sister Casper. Sis Nelson and Br. Queen from our ward gave excellent talks on Baptism and the Holy Ghost respectively. Then each of the children got to come up and be introduced by a member of their bishopbric. Br. Jolley was conducting from our ward and added that Abi is a great Wii boxer. Abi was a little nervous but she had practiced with her dad and as soon as she was back in the dressing room she told me "That was so easy!!!"

This is all of Abi's cousins ( minus Sterling who was hiding). Kris gave her a wonderful confirmation blessing and blessed her with many good things to come in her life. She told her dad that it was "too long." Afterward we came back to our home for a little luncheon of breakfast casserole, cinnamon rolls, and fruit that got rained out off our newly painted deck, but we all crowded into our little home and had a wonderful time. As I was putting Abi to bed that night she said " I can already feel the Holy Ghost."