February 2015

Naomi and I both have birthdays in February. It is my favorite month of the year :) Last year, Naomi turned eight and had a strawberry cake. We are so lucky to have her in our family. She is so fun and smart and a delight to be around.

She went to a Daddy Daughter Dance with her dad and got all dolled up.

I was out of town with Heather and Gwen for my birthday. We went to San Fransisco for Codex - a dream of mine. It was a great birthday present. Talk about presents! I bought myself some Cave Paper, some gorgeous paste paper by Madeline Durham and an adorable scroll book by Susan Angebranndt. I was so overwhelmed while we were at the book fair (the words don't do it justice) that I didn't take any pictures, but we did get some at the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park, which was just lovely.

Gwen's Birthday Party

I am still playing catch up with the posts. I think I will have July done by the end of the week.Rachel looked over my shoulder at the pictures I was uploading and asked, "Why are you blogging about that? It happened forever ago!"

Anyway, just because, here is a post from August. Gwen turned twelve!

Happy (belated) Birthday Gwen!!!

Now we have three girls in Young Women, three kids in Primary and one big girl in Relief Society(!).

Gwen invited some friends from school and some from church and we all went to a lovely little botanic garden for games and hiking.

The turtle pond was a favorite with all.

After a while, it was back to the house for cupcakes and presents. It was fun to hang out with such great girls :)

I'm dreaming of...

...lots of pomegranates!



A volunteer pomegranate bush grew from the compost Stan put out by some raspberry vines a couple of years ago and we harvested our first edible fruit last Saturday. Michael and Rachel peeled it for us. It was delicious :)

Big Flowers

We planted sunflowers in the garden

this year

just for fun

and to give the sparrows

something to eat besides chicken food, I guess :)

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They grew REALLY TALL!

Squash Heads & One Cool Dad

Last summer, we grew hubbard squash in our garden (for more info, follow this link and scroll down). Stan cooked one the other night and it was delish, with the added benefit of being so huge, that Rachel was inspired to ask if she could wear part of the rind on her head. Stan is such a cool dad, that he cleaned it up for her and lined it with plastic wrap. He even tried it on after all the girls (who wanted one) had a turn.




More evidence of his greatness as a dad is that when we had concrete poured on the side of the house to park his car on, he had the idea to extend it into the back yard for the kids. Gwen even bought herself a skateboard in honor of the occasion.

Getting Ready for Christmas

Some of the kids started running out of money after buying Christmas gifts for everyone on their lists, so I told them they could earn five cents for each of the oranges they picked off the tree and threw over the back fence. Some explanation - the land back there is ours as well; we weren't tormenting the neighbors (at least not more than usual). And, the oranges never fall off the tree by themselves. We had some of last year's oranges that were ripe in May still on the tree next to this year's which are just turning from green to orange, so it was good to get rid of the old ones while they were still easily distinguished from the new. Rachel made $5 and Heather and Gwen made $2 each.

Sara has been such a huge help while she's been here. One of the things she did was take Rachel to pick up her new glasses so I could work on other stuff at home.

Somehow Stan got a hold of the camera and took a picture of me making my treat plate list and checking it twice.

Michael saw him with it, hollered, "Take picture me!!" and gave his cheesiest smile. And, if you are thinking it looks familiar, yes, that is Michael's Halloween costume, which we let him wear every time it is clean. He loved it so much, we thought, "What the hey," and kept it out for him instead of packing it away.

Sara's big project while she was here was to make a stocking for Michael to match the one Grandma Blanche made for me oh so many years ago and the ones Grandma Buppie and Grandpa Dale made for Stan, Summer, Rachael, Heather, Gwen, and Kelly. The girls wanted to help, so here she is teaching them how to embroider.

Summer and Rachel did the embroidery around the antlers, helped sew on sequins, and sewed the harness onto the stocking.

Heather did the embroidery on the harness and sewed the sequins onto the bells.

They ALMOST finished in time for Santa to come, but the stocking did have to be safety pinned together for the big night.

Scary, Scary, Scary

We had a fun Halloween this year. For FHE Monday night, we started by carving or drawing on (depending on the age of the artist) the pumpkin/zucchini hybrids we grew last summer.

Here are the masterpieces, in order from left to right - Rachel's, Kelly's (in back), Summer's, Michael's, Gwen's and Heather's.

Tuesday night, we headed over to the chapel for the annual Trunk or Treat and got the car set up and decorated.

Here are the kids, anxious for dinner to end and for the festivities to begin. Kelly is a bee and Michael a cow. He charmed everyone with his moos. Rachel is a Greek person (she made the laurel wreath herself) and Gwen is a REAL princess (you'll have to ask Summer or Rachel for an explanation). Heather is a pixie and Summer is a hula girl.

It is a tradition in our house to dump all your candy in a pile on the living room floor and eat as much as you can Halloween night. Michael, even though he was new to it this year, caught on quickly.

And finally, something truly scary - my mom asked to see a picture of my belly to help make my pregnancy more of a reality across the miles. Here I am, right out of bed, ready to racewalk in the backyard the morning after Halloween.