Bubbles Bubbles Bubbles

It surely is surprising what little children consider to be edible...Sarah thinks bubbles are:)

The Fruits of our Labor

We love spending time out in our backyard together in the summer while it is still nice in the evenings. This was one Sunday...the Sunday of Sarah's birthday actually. These are just some fun pictures we took as we enjoyed the outside and enjoyed the yummy fruits and veggies from our garden.

Sarah love to feed mom and dad...here she is trying to feed me a strawberry after of course trying it herself:)

Here is Darrell feeding Emily and Sarah without hands...amazing!

Derek is my best fruit and veggie eater. He goes through at least a dozen apples per week...usually more. He love cut up bell peppers, bananas, raw carrots, and pretty much anything straight from the garden. Although he is not really a fan of cooked vegetables which makes it difficult when I'm the cook because I LOVE cooked veggies and don't really care for raw:)

I think all of us enjoy our stone fruits the best (peaches, apricots, nectarines). We look forward to their arrival each year...unfortunately so do the birds. They get a good portion of them. If we were diligent about netting them it wouldn't be as bad but they are difficult to net. But the kids love sitting outside and chowing down. Dinner on occasion has simply been sitting outside and stuffing ourselves with what is growing in the yard...fun times:) I love having a husband who love to garden...I do to, but it is a lot of work and he is far more diligent than I when it comes to maintaining our trees and garden.

Outtakes

A tradition I started with Derek was to get a picture of our children each month during the first year and then every year thereafter. Well Sarah has been my toughest so far, she does not like to smile for the camera no matter what tricks we try. We finally got one that I like but these are some of the hilarious ones that came before.

Sarah's 1st Birthday

We always have to have the classic...give the baby a piece of cake and watch them make a huge mess...1st birthday celebration, so here it is. I can't believe my little Sarah is already 1!

Then of course the classic candle lighting...with close supervision, because those young little fingers think the bright light looks so fun to touch.

Sarah received a book, ball, shoes and clothes for her birthday. The very young birthdays are so nice because they have no want lists and they care more about the paper than the gifts, although Sarah does enjoy her ball very much and loves rolling it back and forth to the rest of us.

Watermelons or Weeds?

These nice vegetables crowding my kitchen counter are supposed to be summer squash...yellow squash and zucchini...well many grew to the size of watermelons as soon as we turned our backs.


We've given away or sold most of them because you can only eat so much squash in one season. Next year we will plant fewer seeds! I wish I would have taken a picture of the garden bed they are growing in because the plants are humongous.

Splashing Summer Fun

I'm way behind on posts, so the next couple weeks I will add a few per week to catch up, rather than bombard my avid readers ;)

We have a nice little splash park near our house, and these pictures were from our first trip there this summer. It was fun...Derek & Emily ran around like crazy. Sarah was a little shy of the water this time, but she has gone a few times since and is slowly becoming more comfortable.

We went with one of my friends in the ward, Sylvia, and her daughters, Natalie and Kirsten. It was fun, and I'm sure we will hit the splash park a few more times this summer...it's not like it will be over anytime soon.

Some time outside...

These are just some fun pictures from an evening outside. You must click on these two pictures of Emily to see a larger version of her goofy expressions. She is just so silly sometimes. Yes, she has no shorts on...she refused to put them on:)

Here is a picture of our monster squash plants and cucumber and pepper plants. We have gotten so much zucchini and they are growing like weeds. I picked about 7 huge ones 3 days ago, and Darrell went out today and picked another 8 gigantic ones. I know they are supposed to be picked when they are small, but we can't catch them small, they seem to burst to gigantic over night. The picture on the Left is Darrell trying to train our older chickens to leave the two younger ones alone...(yes, in case you have followed our chicken saga, Darrell bought 2 more chickens, not quite as old as the ones we have but not chicks either). The older ones just peck our younger ones incessantly. Yesterday Derek comes in panicked because one of the younger chicks had blood coming from its head where it had been pecked so much. We hope the older ones will calm down soon. Darrell sat out there with a spray bottle, spraying the older ones every time they got near the younger ones.

Lastly my sweet little boy helping Sarah rid the trike and giving a kiss at the same time. I love these days when the nights are still cool enough to enjoy being outside together.