Festival of Trees--Happy Birthday Mom!

For the past few years I have been able to go to the Festival of Trees in Utah with my mom and sisters. I love going and I think I will always try to go down for it. The Festival is always the first Tuesday after Thanksgiving and my Mom's birthday is the 2nd of December. This year they happen to both be on the same day. It is so nice to be with the girls!! Here are a few pictures:

We went to Texas Roadhouse and since it was my mom's birthday she got to ride the bull.

Yoga Baby

We finally caught Meg doing her Yoga exercises.

She was downward dog all over the place when we were in Utah for thanksgiving. But every time I tried to capture it on film she would stop and look at me.

This is Meg doing upward dog.

Kids Pics by Jacki

My sister is a great photographer and took some real quick photos of my kids for me. I got there late so we were running out of daylight, but she still managed to get at least one good shot of each of my kids. The one of them together was a bust because my little Elijah was crying in every shot.

GABE

ISAAC

EMMA

ELIJAH

MEG

OUR KIDDOS

Jacki made this photocard for me on photoshop...She is so talented and creative! Thanks again Jacki!! I love it! I was trying to get one photo of all the kids and just get a photocard from a store or something, but since the group shots didn't turn out (because of one child that shall remain nameless) I asked Jacki if she could throw something together.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Thanksgiving

While Eric was gallivanting halfway around the world I visited my family in Utah. It was so much fun. The kids missed a week of school, and I had to drive all 5 kids by myself, but it was so nice to stay and see everyone and relax. I was a little worried because I got a taste of what the drive could potentially be like when we decided to take the kids down to Chuck E Cheeses for Veterans day on Nov. 11th. The drive is just over an hour and Meg screamed the whole way down and the whole way back. I was dreading the drive after that but it went really smoothly. Meg was fine, and the road were great there and back so it was perfect.

Here are some pictures of our time in Utah:

My Mom had a cute little activity for the grandkids to do. They filled ice cream cones with candy to make them look like cornucopias.



Here is Meg getting to know her little cousin Cannon She was really after those shiney overall buttons!!

Elijah was a little slow to warm up, but Grandma eventually found the way to his heart...Cars.

I took alot of picture of my little Yoga baby. She was always standing on her head and toes in a big upside down V shape also known as "downward dog" in Yoga. but all got was the "upward dog" Yoga pose.

Eric's "little" project

Eric was really feeling the need for more gardening space and so he decided to transform our side yard into his gardening haven. Here is the beginning of his labor of love. After he cleared everything away we had to have the sprinkling system in that area changed a little bit and then Eric got to work on the garden boxes. After lots of research and price comparisons of different options, and a few trips to Home Depot he got to work.

Step 1: Finish building the garden boxes (Nov. 7th)

After all the boxes were built and lined up (if you click on the picture you can see the string he used to make sure everything was straight), he spread bark in between the boxes.

Step 2: Spread bark in between the boxes (Nov. 8th)

Step 3: Have a dumptruck deliver a load of top soil (Nov. 8th)

Step 4: Move Soil from driveway to boxes (Nov. 8th...it was a long day)

It was fun to watch the pile of dirt shrink, but it took all day and I was getting worried that they wouldn't finish. We were also expecting rain which would have washed the soil away.

Step 5: Plant bulbs, rake dirt to smooth it out (Nov. 8th..a very long day)

This was Gabe's Job mostly and he did GREAT! He worked so hard and was Eric's right-hand man until the job was done. They were out there until 9:00 at night and all the other kids were in bed...except poor Gabe he was such a trooper!

Here is Gabe still plugging away the sun has gone down but not our Gabe. He told Eric toward the end of the day that he was feeling "flat", Eric thought that was a very good description. Later on he said that his legs felt wobbly. Poor kid...maybe there were some child labor laws violated here??

Step 6: Add some "fertilizer"

Eric thought this would be a good way to get rid of the pumpkins on our porch from Halloween...who knows maybe we will end up with a accidental pumpkin patch.

So here is the pile slowly shrinking away. The last load was definately worth documenting!

The Final Wheelbarrel

Good job Guys. What a day. Eric started out the day by asking Gabe if he wanted to earn $6. But it was such a long day and Gabe did such an awesome job that Eric gave him $20.

These guys never took a break...I brought out lunch and dinner, and lots of gatorade.

Looks good!!!

Before----------Mid-project-----------After

Before------------------------------After

Before----------Mid-project------------After

Mid-project------------------------After

Eric was finally finished but even with all this done he still felt we were missing something so just over a week later he decided to add...

Step 7: Make a compost bin (Nov. 16th)