10 tons of dirt

As things are warming up, I'm starting to get things ready to plant my garden. The first order of business was to bring in 10 more tons of topsoil, to finish off my garden space. So I called and had it delievered, and of course they couldn't get it over the fence, so I had to wheelbarrow it around and into the garden area. My friend Heidi helped me, and we took turns dumping dirt for the first 20 loads, then after school I did about 6-7 by myself, then when Travis got home, I helped fill up the wheelbarrow, and he dumped the rest of the loads. Boy was I ever tired, and very sore the next day, but it felt good to get it done!! The next step is the compost, and I'm hoping to get the garden planting sometime next week, during spring break!

Samuel the escape artist!

Well, Samuel is at it again, yesterday Austin was outside coloring with chalk in the backyard, and Samuel ran outside to play too. So the next time I looked outside to check on them, I saw Austin on top of the fence and ran outside to tell her to get down, but she said Samuel was over the fence in our neighbor's yard. I said "what?" he can't get over there, she said she was coloring and looked up and saw samuel just as he dropped to the other side. So I peeked over the fence, which is just a little taller than I am, and saw no samuel, so I asked Austin where he was, and she said

"Samuel show yourself" and sure enough I saw a little movement inside the neighbors little play house outside, so I jumped over grabbed Samuel and took him inside and bolted the door. I don't know how he managed to scale the wall, but here is a picture of what it looked like. My guess he is climbed up the little green chair and somehow used the pool the we had draped over the side to pull himself up and over. Just a few days ago, he had climbed up and over our back gate to get out of the yard, and I had to tie a big piece of cardboard to it to keep him from doing it again.

Travis' candy man

In my last post, I mentioned how at Austin's b-day party, the kids used candy and frosting to make things. Well Travis made this little man out of tootsie rolls, nerds, and other candy, and I found him the next morning when I opened the cupboard to get out a plate. It was a pleasant surprise and made me laugh!

Austin's B-day

Austin in her new dress from Grandma Kirkman

J oseph and Austin in the sack race

Austin and her pinata!

Austin is now 6 years old! She is growing up so fast. She had her birthday party on Saturday, and invited her friends from church and school. She didn't really have much of a theme, other than the fact that she wanted to play lots of games. 7 kids RSVP'd for the party, and 20 kids showed up, so things got a little crazy. We played some games like, three-legged race, and sack races outside. When it was time for the pinata, we lined all the kids up and Austin was up first, and on her first swing she broke the thing and down came the candy. Well with all those kids trying to get to one spot, things got a little brutal, and couple of the boys got hurt from girls jumping on them, and we ran out of candy before half the kids had gotten some, so I ran inside and grabbed more candy, and trailed it around the porch, to split the kids up so they weren't on top of each other. I've never seen kids go that crazy around a pinata before, wow! Anyway the kids took their candy and used frosting as glue, to make things with their candy, played pin the tail on the donkey, and a cake walk (with prizes). I almost ran out of cake and ice cream, I had to cut really small pieces, and we had no leftovers. For her cake I made a rainbow out of M & M's. It was really loud and exhausting, but Austin loved it, and was happy so it was a success.

Boy meets paper

I was at Austin's Ballet class, and as usual was chasing Samuel around, trying to keep him out of stuff. There is a wall with a bunch of flyers stapled up, so Samuel runs over and as quick as lightening(I'm serious this kid is quick) starts grabbing papers, crumpling them up into a tiny ball and throwing them on the floor, by the time I caught up to him, he was already on his 3rd flyer, and I tried grabbing it out of his hand, but he didn't let go, so the flyer ripped, he looked at me and shoved his portion of the flyer in his mouth, and quickly chewed it up and swallowed. I couldn't believe it, my kid actually ate the flyer. I turned around and glanced at the lady at the desk to see if she saw what happened, and sure enough she was staring right at us with a shocked expression on her face. I sheepishing grabbed the crumpled remaining flyers from off the floor and took them over to her, and apologized. I have no idea what came over Samuel, but I made sure he didn't get any where near those flyers for the rest of the time. What I wouldn't give to see what goes on in the brain of a 2-year old.

Joseph's Booger Analagy

I had a very interesting conversation with Joseph on the way to Judo yesterday. We were talking a little bit about going to heaven, and what we have to do to get to the Celestial kingdom to be together forever again, when Joseph was quite for a moment and then said
Joseph: "Mom, Boogers are like sins aren't they?"
mom: "What?" (I had to make sure I heard him correctly)
Joseph: "boogers are like sins, they are sticky and sins stick to you. So you've got to be a nose picker like me, and pick out those sticky sins, or i guess you could blow your nose too, that would be like repentance."
mom: "but Joseph, you like to eat your boogers after you pick them, isn't that like sinning the same sin again, and not truly repenting"
Joseph: "But, they taste so good to me" (ewww gross)
Mom: "Isn't it true that sometimes, sins do momentarily taste good, but in reality you're just putting all that icky stuff back into your body?"
Joseph: "yeah, I geuss so mom, I need to work on that. I guess when you do that you have to repent extra long and hard, so that you don't do it again."
Mom: "That's right joseph"
At this point we arrived at Joseph's Judo class and off he went. I never thought boogers would be a good lesson for the gospel, but hey I guess that's the logic of a 7-year old boy.

Father/Daughter Dance

Girls sure love their daddy

Travis, Austin and Betsy got to go to a Father/Daughter dance at their school on Feb. 12th, they had a wonderful time together, and loved dancing with their Daddy!