Let's get Cooking

I made two of theses great aprons for myself, and helped Hannah make one, and then I just had to make some for Imogene. I sized down the pattern and this is the result:

She loves her apron, she feels all grown up and asks to where it any time she "helps" in teh kitchen.

Xander's Game

Freecycle is just AWESOME! Xander got his own chess set from a fellow freecycler and he has been playing as often as he can get someone to play with him, often he will play both sides himself.

(Now if only Imogene could learn and MiMi wouldn't try to eat the pieces.)

Soldier Hollow

I had some older pictures kicking around that I wanted to get up so here they are:

An evening of tubing of Soldier Hollow with the Tayler family.

I HATE tubing so I didn't get a ticket for me, but the kids had a great time going down with Adam, Josh & Kayce, Nephi & Mercedes, and Hannah.

I know it's dark so you can't really see who is who just trust me when I say that they are family!

Imogene

MiMi

She couldn't go down the hill, but she had a great time being pulled around at the bottom of the hill. The only time she got cold was when she kept wiggling her fingers out of her gloves and her snowsuit.

The Amazing Adventures

Xander has been asking since he set up his blog for it to be public, so with some strict rules, his blog can now be viewed by any of you who would like to see it. He writes about his school projects and anything else he is thinking about, so feel free to check him out. (in the side bar: The Amazing Adventures of Xander

Gardening

We planted most of our garden Saturday, but we started with Adam trimming the apple tree

Here is the before of the garden:

Halfway finished:

The result in the front yard:

(still a lot of work to get done here, and i plan on putting some tomatoes in here as soon as we add some topsoil to fill in the holes)

The garden in the back:

(this brick used to live in the front yard, but we didn't like the shaped garden so we moved the bricks and luckily had the perfect amount to line the back garden)

We have broccoli, chocolate peppers, red peppers, purple potatoes, and two kinds of watermelon.

In the front I will put in Roma tomatoes and Pumpkins.

We also have a few hanging planters (DIY topsy turvy) for tomatoes and peppers.

Way to go Xander!

While Xander was out riding his bike today, he saw that we had mail. So of course he had to bring it in. I knew we had mail, I saw it when I got home from work, but if I don't want to sort it right away I tend to leave it outside. I had also noticed that there was a large envelope stuffed in the mailbox, but didn't think any more about it, until Xander brought in the mail. After a quick glance at my magazine that had arrived, I realized the big envelope was addressed to Xander. He tore it open and found this:

Needless to say we couldn't be prouder of his hard work on this drawing:

(In case you were wondering, it is a ship in a bottle.)

He is so excited and already planning how to spend his money.

If Only

As I finished scraping 3/4 of a sheet cake into the trash, I realized I should have taken a picture so I could prove that if your 3 year old is quiet, she is into something. She had raked her finger through the the icing on the cake, the only part she likes anyway. It's kind of a mixed blessing, I hate to throw food away (it feels so wasteful), but our waistlines sure don't need an entire sheet cake!

The cake is awesome if you are inclined to make a sheet cake, but the best part is the icing. I made the icing before and spread it on a batch of brownies, a full batch of icing on a 1/4 sheet of brownies, yummy! I'll post the recipe in a couple days on Eggs a la Goldenrod.

It's finals week at the U, and we have 17 days until vacation. I'm purposely not packing until it gets closer (but I started making lists in January). We are all getting excited and I can't believe it is already May! I told someone today that imogene would be 4 this summer, then I had to correct myself, this month.

That's all the random thoughts I have right now, so you don't have to suffer anymore. Have a good night, see you in the morning.