Garden Haul

Our garden is doing MUCH better this year. This is due to a lot of different factors, but it's mostly because I'm trying harder. :) I did plant better things this year too; last year half the things I planted never produced! This time around has been great! My peppers are still not producing anything...same as last year, but our green beans have done very well. We've already eaten tons of them and they are still going strong. Our cherry tomatoes are starting to ripen now that our temperatures are staying hot and those have been Emery's favorite. We try to pick the green beans every other day, sometimes every two days if I forget on the weekends. This was our haul yesterday:

But unfortunately all that deliciousness came with a price, and it was at Emery's expense. :( She was helping me pick the tomatoes and they were too far for her to reach so I told her to step in an empty space in the garden. When she did her foot sunk a lot, which I thought was strange, and then 5 seconds later she's crying, "Mommy the ants! The ants!" I look down and her foot is COVERED in fire ants. I felt so awful as I frantically tried to brush them off. They got their revenge for their hill getting smashed, she had probably 20 bites on her little foot and leg. It was bad. She was upset and as we ran inside she just sobbed, "I need to call my daddy!" So we Facetimed Gavin to show him and she felt better once her story was told.

That poor little foot! We put some lavender and Benadryl gel on the bites to help the sting. Once the stinging stopped she was very proud of her pickins' as you can tell in the next picture:

Family Night Fun

Monday nights are a fun night at our house--busy, but fun. Mondays are Family Night, or Family Home Evening as LDS people call it. We are lucky enough to have a few extra kids around for our family night. It makes it crazy, loud, chaotic, and absolutely wonderful. This picture about sums it up:

I love these kids. The bottom two were baptized a little over a year ago. Some family friends and neighbors brought them to church and taught them the gospel and they chose to get baptized. Their mom is an incredible woman who was very supportive of their decision and encourages them to be committed and faithful. The family that introduced them has since moved away and I don't know how we got so lucky but we got to become their "mormon family". The older two come to church with us, all 3 have family night with us, and come along to ward activities with us. They are such great kids--well mannered, respectful, polite--and it's so fun to see them learn and grow in the gospel. It's not easy joining the LDS church, there are a lot of things that we do differently (3 hours of church, no dating until you're 16, keep the Sabbath day holy) and I know sometimes they struggle. But they are faithful and they are trying so hard to do what is right. We love having them as part of our church family!

Emery's song

Emery looooves to sing, especially at the top of her lungs. My favorite is when we are at the store and she is singing as loud as she can. We get lots of funny comments and smiles about it. I've started working with her to not sing quite so loud when we are in public because while I think most people enjoy it and I love that she does it, it's probably good to learn about inside singing voices. But at home or in the car she really gets into it. I've tried so many times to capture the songs she makes up or the ones that she mixes together (I am a child of God eee-i-eee-i-oooo next time won't you sing with meeeee) but every time I get the camera out she stops. I was lucky enough to catch a few snippets of one the other day while driving. The video is terrible because I was at a light and I didn't want Emery to see the phone so you'll just have to listen.

If you can't understand her she is singing, "Please be nice to my baby monster!" And then she sings, "Please be nice to the missionarieeeeees." So cute! I love how she sings with her whole heart and soul. What a little diva!

Love this girl

Bella's field day

Bella  had field day a few weeks ago so Emery and I went to cheer her on. It brought back a lot of good memories for me as I remembered how fun and exciting it was for me as a kid. The weather was actually pretty cool in the morning and didn't heat up too much as the morning wore on. I was so glad. 4 1/2 hours is a long time to be out in the sun!

Bella did great! They don't really compete like they did when I was growing up, they just do races and relays and have a good time. It was fun to watch them. It also gave me some good ideas of things to do this summer!

This one was kind of goofy--they had to run this little obstacle course while holding the octopus on their head. Who thought of that?! The kids loved it.

Emery was such a champ. I was so proud of her. She's started a phase where she runs away from me as fast as she can any time the opportunity presents itself and I was concerned about bringing her with me. But she sat in her stroller for a long time, just watching and cheering Bella on. Then when she got out she would go stand quietly next to Bella or come and stand by me. It was awesome. I think Bella liked playing the big sister role too. She kept carrying Emery around (which is a sight to see because Bella is super tall but so is Emery!) 

And Emery loved all the attention she got from the girls in the class:

At the end of the day all the kids got a popsicle and Emery asked me for one and I told her only the field day kids get one and she didn't throw a fit or get upset at all. I'm so happy she's such a sweet girl. We still have rough days because she's two and a half and that goes with the territory, but I'm so proud of all that she is learning and how hard she [usually] tries. 

Easter eggs

I didn't post about this yet, but we did dye Easter Eggs this year! After seeing other people's eggs masterpieces on facebook I realized we are going to have to seriously step up our game next year! One color is not going to cut it!

Emery liked the green dye and would ONLY put her eggs in the green one. Haha, I don't know why, but that's what she liked so we had lots of green eggs.

Isn't she getting big? 

I didn't get any pictures of our finished product, which is too bad because it will be fun to see how they progress over the years. I was just happy that none of the dye cups spilled. 

We had such a fun Easter. The Texas Family which consists of Gavin's brother and family and two of my cousins and their families all gathered at our house for food and festivities. It was so much fun and the food was amazing! Whitney had fixed a ham in a crock pot a few weeks ago so I tried to do that for Easter. I waaaay over cooked it but it was still delicious. 

Fruit sale!

Something I've really missed since moving to Texas is WINCO! One store for all my grocery needs was so wonderful. They typically had delicious produce, good prices, and an awesome bulk section. They have some good stores here, but none to replace Winco.

Even though I miss Winco, I have found a new love: Sprouts! It's a grocery store, one of the smaller ones with lots of healthier foods and produce. Cheap but delicious produce. They built one really close by about a year ago and I am so happy they did!  I am not good at shopping, I have very little endurance for it. Going to more than one store for grocery shopping used to make me want to curl up in a ball and cry (yes, I'm a wimp, but I seriously don't like it!!!) but the prices and quality at Sprouts makes a second trip soooooo worth it. Plus they have KILLER sales. A few weeks ago they had a one day sale on strawberries for $0.80 per container and Valencia oranges for $0.10 cents per pound!!! Can you believe that?! I bought 18 LBS!!! Do you know how many oranges that is? A LOT. We gorged ourselves on oranges for 2 weeks and it was awesome. And I only paid $1.80 for it. I was worried they would be dry and nasty and we wouldn't be able to eat a lot of them but I was very happy when I cut into the first one and it gushed sweet, delicious juice. The others were the same way. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

Today the sale was on blueberries. They were $1 per container. Once again I bought a HUGE amount. Emery helped me wash and separate them for the freezer. We are going to have strawberry blueberry smoothies, blueberry muffins, and blueberry pancakes for a few weeks. YUM!

Emery is taking a picture of the blueberries too.