Gardening, Thanksgiving, & More Gardening

My kids love dirt.   . . . And so do I.  I have been having so much fun working in my little garden. And the kids love helping.  I have planned on having my own garden and teaching my kids to garden ever since I was a little kid "helping" my dad with his garden.  So, I guess this is a dream come true.

 

We have one tangerine tree,

 five little lemon trees,

and three large fig trees.

Michael has claimed one of the figs as his "tree house." He spends a large amount of each warm day up here playing, pretending, and day-dreaming. He even has a special branch for Toad.

Of course, with lemon trees come lemons. These make the best lemonade I have ever tasted! This year, I hand-squeezed the whole crop. Next year, (Thank you, Ben!) we will be using a juicer!

Off to the side of the garden, in between the garage, the shed, and the fence, there is a raised bed with nothing in it. Somewhat akin to a sand box, the kids love playing in their "dirt pile"!  One day, I snuck back there to take a picture of them playing and found Sadie half-naked. (Notice the red overalls aptly hanging from the tree branch.) I asked her why she took her pants off, and she replied, rather sensibly, that she didn't want to get them dirty.

Of course, playing with dirt has it's down-sides. Adelaide enjoys eating it, for example.  And we inevitably go through several changes of clothes each day. But I'm willing to put up with a few draw backs.

Just before Thanksgiving, we celebrated Matt's birthday. As always, we celebrated with cake, candles, balloons, and streamers.

Thanksgiving at Grandma's house included good food,

a haircut for Michael (Thanks again, Uncle Ben!),

and more gardening.

The whole family pitched in to help move a huge pile of dirt into some raised beds in the backyard.

It took two long, hard days of work, but the results are beautiful.

Of course, the kids helped too.

Moving & Halloween

October 27th, we packed up all of our worldly possessions and transported them to our soon-to-be new house.  I say "soon-to-be" because, at the time, we had still not closed the deal. But the seller (who not occupying the house full-time) was kind enough to let us move our belongings into the front rooms.  So, we spent a week in limbo.  Matt stayed in a hotel in Houston while I took the kids to my folks. 

It so happened that Halloween was in the meantime, so we had fun celebrating with Nana and Popie.  

(No, this was not part of her costume.)

 Pumpkin carving is always fun --for the kids. They each took two scoops of slimy, gooey seedy mess out of the pumpkin and that was enough for them.  I did the rest of the scooping, cleaning, and carving,

 but boy, were they proud when it was all done!

If you can't tell, Sadie was a princess, Adelaide was a dragonfly, and Michael was a dragon.

 Ahhhh! Candy, candy, candy!!!

In addition to all the Halloween fun, we had a lovely and delicious hot dog roast.

 So while we were at Nana's, Michael came down with an ear infection, and the doctor thought he might have had a touch of strep throat as well. So she put in on amoxycillin and within a few days, he was back to normal.  But after closing on the house and moving in for real the following week, he came down with a freaky, terribly itchy rash over his whole body.  We took him to a new pediatrician here in Spring, and she referred us to the CDC, thinking it might be rheumatic fever.  Naturally, we started freaking out.

The next day at the CDC, the doctor said it was nothing but a severe case of hives, probably a reaction to the penicillin he was taking.  Poor Michael!  It took nearly 2 weeks for it to completely go away.  But he was a trooper and dutifully took his Benadryl every few hours.  No more penicillin for him!

While all this was going on, one of my dear friends from Brigham Young University, Liz Hutchings came to town for a weekend with her husband, James, and baby, Hyrum. Things with Michael were so crazy we were afraid we might not even get to meet up, but thankfully things got resolved in time for them to come over for a short visit and a slap-together dinner.  It was sooo good to see her again. It had been at least eight years.   Funny, BYU still seems like just a few months ago.

Sadie Turns Three

My mother made me a doll-dress birthday cake for my third birthday and I was determined to make one for Sadie too. She loved her "princess cake"!  (Move over Thomas. It's all about princesses now.)

A few days after celebrating Sadie's birthday, we took my good friend Ellen to the Zoo Boo that they have every year.  It's a fun, not-so-scary way to celebrate Halloween.  I totally forgot to take a picture of Ellen :( , but got some cute ones of the kids.

The carousel has become a particular favorite.

 As we were waiting for our turn on the carousel, Sadie really got into the music. This girl's got rhythm!

Adelaide Walking & Other Adventures

Two weeks ago, Ada finally decided to let go of my pants leg and explore the world on her own, unsteady two feet.  Now, she is toddling all over the house, yard, sidewalks, stores, everywhere I dare turn her loose. (The video is from a few weeks ago.)

She has even taken to helping around the house --"sweeping," emptying the trash (ie pull everything out of the trash fling it on the floor), clearing the table (ie climbing on the table and throwing everything off), and cleaning (ie playing in) the potty.  If Michael and Sarah were both handfuls (and they were), this one is a handful and a half!

 Michael and Sadie recently recently learned how to do headstands.

We had a nice visit with Grandma this week. She brought Sadie a beautiful new tutu in celebration of her 3rd birthday next week.  She loves it, especially the way it twirls as she dances.

The Mercer gardens were so beautiful, we decided to go again and had a beautiful time. The fall weather was perfect, and we both got lots of ideas for our own gardens.

After years of dreaming and months of house hunting, we are finally in the process of buying our first house!!!  I can't even describe how excited I am to start decorating my own house and landscaping my own yard.  It needs some fixing-up, but we are soooo excited.  My favorite part is the fruit trees in the backyard!  And it's super close to the temple, right across the street from the church building, right next to the rec. center, walking distance to all three schools, and walking distance to a huge park.  It really is perfect.  Below are a few pics. You can also check out: http://search.har.com/engine/16518-W-Kleinwood-Dr-Spring-TX-77379_HAR88628218.htm

As mentioned, we are in the "process" of buying a house, but have yet to confirm a closing date, despite the fact that we have to move out of our rental house next weekend.  I'm trying not to stress, and I'm sure everything will work out.  I just don't know how it's going to do that right now.  I really wasn't sure what to expect going into the whole house-hunting process, but while I'm stranded somewhere in the middle of it, I have to say that I wish it were as easy as running to Walmart and picking up a new laundry detergent.  Sadly, I have discovered, it is not.

End of Summer

Some fun pictures as we've wrapped up the summer:

There's something magical about playing in a sprinkler, isn't there?

And playing in the rain.

With nothing to do one day, Michael suggested we have a party for dad.  So, we hung streamers, blew up balloons, made a cake, and had a party. Dad was sure surprised!

My parents came to visit a few weeks ago, and we went up to visit the Mercer Botanical Gardens in Spring.  Even at the close of summer it was beautiful.  It was our first time there and I'm so excited that, once we move, we'll be really close and can go whenever we want.