Sunday, November 23, 2008

Halloween Fun!

I know that it is almost Thanksgiving, but I just had to post some pictures from Halloween. Ryan and the kids did pumpkins this year. (They came out of our garden!) Ryan would draw out several different eyes, nose, and mouths for them to pick from and then drew them onto the pumpkins. He then helped the kids cut them out. They all turned out so cute! This year Stephen was Optimus Prime (a Transformer for those of you who don't already know), Jenny was Tinkerbell, Zack was a firefighter, and Alyssa was a very adorable black cat. (None of the pictures seems to do Alyssa's little costume justice. I may have to put it on her and try to get a better picture or her!)

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Mystery Squash

OK, so I know that I was going for one blog a day to get caught up, but I think that maybe I had better just shoot for one a week! I have taken so many pictures lately that the battery on the camera is dead so I will just start by writing the text while I have the time, and then upload the pictures later when I have another chunk of time.

The first blog for now is about our garden. As many of you know I had a garden this year with a friend of mine in our apartment complex. Part of the way through the summer one of the other neighbors who had planted a garden moved, so we took over her garden too. Now, due to circumstances last year at harvest, two of the gardens were just allowed to go grow wild and everything not picked was left to rot. When things started growing this spring, we discovered that we had tomato plants where we didn't plant any and a number of squash plants that were not in the locations were we planted ours this year. (Although we originally left them to grow because we weren't sure if they were coming up in odd places because we had little helpers while doing most of the planting!) By the end of the summer we had an outrageous number of tomato plants and several what we termed mystery squash. You see we didn't realize it until later but many of the vegetables that were left to rot last year had self germinated and ended up cross pollinating with what we did plant! (We planted zucchini, spaghetti squash, and pumpkins, and last year we aren't sure but we think there were at least crook necked squash, and butternut squash.) It is always interesting to see what comes of such a mix. Well here are pictures of the results! (The one in the center was actually a honeydew melon, the other two seemed to be a cross between butternut squash and pumpkin. We also had several that were spaghetti squash or a spaghetti squash, zucchini mix. They looked more like the honeydew melon though more oblong in shape.) I hope that you find the situation almost as funny as we did!

Monday, October 27, 2008

Stephen's Birthday Gift







OK, there are about five different things that I want to blog about and I wanted to do them in order, but I am finding that I keep running out of time to do them all at once, and now I am forgetting what it was I wanted to blog about in the first place. So here is my solution. I will blog about one a day and hopefully as I blog about one thing, I will remember about another for the next day! Today I am starting off with Stephen's birthday. It was a rather quiet affair this year just due to the sheer number of activities going on in a very short amount of time. The best part of it was watching how he reacted to my parents gift. Let me preface what they gave him with an explanation. Stephen has been saving his money for the last 6-8 months to buy a Star Wars Transformer. My parents where impressed when they heard this and decided to help him along toward his goal by giving him a gift card to Walmart in an amount about five dollars shy of what he needed (or at least that was what I thought since I hadn't looked at the price of the Star Wars Transformers since the new movie came out). When Stephen opened his card and found the gift card he started to get excited! He asked me if Walmart had Star Wars Transformers. I told him that I was pretty sure that they did, but that they might be a little bit more than what was on the gift card. At this point he got a little bit sad, but seemed to remember his money that he had saved fairly quickly! He asked if we could go to Walmart and if he could bring his money so that he could get a Star Wars Transformer. I told him that we could, and we were off to Walmart within 30 minutes of him opening his card! (I had foreseen that he would be VERY anxious to go to Walmart and so was prepared to go before I even gave him the card.) When we got to Walmart, we found out that not only was there a MUCH wider selection of the Star Wars Transformers than there had been the last time we looked, but that they were about half the cost of the previous Star Wars Transformers were. (Amazing what happens when a new movie comes out!) Stephen was so excited to realize that he could get TWO Star Wars Transformers! I helped him pull all of the different "guys" and let him decide which ones he wanted. Well, while we were checking to make sure that we had all of the different "guys" to choose from, Stephen discovered that there were also Transformer Animated "guys". To make a process that took about 15-20 minutes shorter, Stephen decided to get one Star Wars Transformer and one Transformer Animated "guy". We then proceeded to the check out where Stephen informed the cashier, after putting the toys up to be scanned, that he would be paying for them. He then asked her "Have you ever had a kid pay by himself before?" I thought that it was soo cute how excited he was to be paying for his toys all by himself. (I did help him come up with the right amount of change.) Mind you he had been telling everyone who was willing to listen what he was doing. It was so cute to watch him! I am so proud of him for saving up his money! I took some pictures of him with his chosen toys that I will post later!

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Alyssa's Blessing

I just realized that there are several of you who would probably like to know, but I have forgotten to call, that we will be blessing Alyssa tomorrow. Our church starts at 9a.m. If anyone sees this in time and wants to come, call me for the address! I'll post pictures of Alyssa in her dress later.

Friday, October 3, 2008

Monday's Weather




Well, it is official! We received 19 inches of Snow at our house on Monday by the name of Alyssa Lynn Snow! She was born at 5:39p.m. weighing 7lbs. We are all very excited to have Alyssa join our family! (Especially Jenny, who is loving having a baby sister.) I will give more details later, but I just wanted to let everyone know and post a couple of pictures. I also wanted to thank everyone who has been such a big help to me and my family over the last couple of weeks! Thanks for all of your love and support!

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Zack's Birthday



Wow, time sure does seem to fly by! I say this because yesterday was Zack's third birthday! I didn't plan him an actual party this year, but he seemed to have fun celebrating anyway. We just invited all of our friends from the apartment complex to join us outside yesterday evening. Earlier Jenny, Zack and I had made ice cream cone cupcakes. They turned out to be really cute, and a big hit! The adults just got to visit while the kids ate the cupcakes and played on the bikes and the other outdoor equipment. I seemed like everyone had a great time!

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Where did the Summer go?

I can hardly believe it! Stephen starts school in just one week! He actually gets to go in tomorrow and meet his teacher and do his reading assessment. I will be very interested in what his teacher has to say about his reading abilities! Jenny is also getting excited. I finally broke down and applied for preschool for her. I am still not quite sure how I feel about her going to preschool. I know that the Head Start program is supposed to be one of the best, but I still have my concerns. (Mostly because I'm worried that she will be bored, I feel like she is as advanced as many of the kindergartners that started last year with Stephen.) I guess I will just have to wait and see if she is accepted into the program and then make my final decision. I am also not sure what I will do with just Zack home for three hours a day until the baby comes! These things (kids growing up) seem to sneak up on you sometimes! (Even when you are expecting them!)

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Finally a start!

Well, it's official. I have started my first blog. I'm still trying to figure out how to best put it all together, so you will just have to bear with me. I think that I'll just start by giving a little bit of information about our family. Ryan is working part time for Home Depot, and looking for another job. I am due October 6th with our fourth child. For those of you who are wondering; no, we are not going to find out what it is. Stephen is now six years old and will be starting 1st grade in August. Jennifer is four and learning her letters and how to write her name. Zachary is two and is getting into everything! Well, I think that will have to do for my first post. I will hopefully get pictures up soon. Thanks!

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