GoodBye Garden

 We're starting to clean out the garden for fall and it's so fun that my fall porch decor came right out of our own backyard!

It's crazy how fast the garden grows. These pictures were taken 2 weeks apart back in July. Then it became a complete jungle.

We didn't check for squash bugs until it was too late, but we still got one pumpkin and more than enough zucchini! Too much zucchini. We made zucchini bread, chocolate zucchini bread, zucchini pasta, freeze dried zucchini, zucchini stir fry and put zucchini in our spaghetti sauce.

This year our watermelon grew too! We got 4 watermelons, but they do have lots of seeds! Next year we'll look into planting seedless watermelon.

We didn't get very many strawberries, but we have lots of carrots, onions and tomatoes. My kids were obsessed with tomato sandwiches until right about the time our garden was producing ripe tomatoes. I asked them all the time if they wanted a tomato sandwich and they weren't interested anymore. We ate some good corn a couple times and then the rest didn't get picked in time and dried out. My favorite is the green peppers though. We used every single one.

Always so much to learn with gardening!

Birthday Week

 We be 33! And the celebrations have been a blast.

We went on a double date to Top Golf Saturday night for Kyle's birthday and had fun playing the Angry Birds game. I feel like an Ogre bending over trying to hit the golf ball, but we made it work!

Even though I keep wearing sweaters in the chilly morning and end up sweating to death by the afternoon. That's September.

Earlier that day my mom took us to lunch for our birthdays at Red Lobster and we all shared a yummy dessert. My favorite kind of warm chocolate gooey something with ice cream.

Kyle had to work on his birthday so we took his birthday cake to him there to visit and go to dinner at a pizza place. Kyle "loved" having the kids come and sing to him and drop pieces of cake all over his desk space! And the kids loved all the police badge stickers they got. We sure love our Ky-lo and Kasen especially loves his "so much sense of humor."

For his birthday I finally got his truck into the shop to fix the infamous scratch.

Saturday morning Tai and Kasen had soccer games that Grandma and Grandpa came to watch. Tai is so cute to watch because she swings her arms so big and runs with such purpose and determination.

To celebrate my birthday, Mom and Dad took us to play Pickleball on Monday. I'd never played before, but we had fun trying to hit the ball back and forth! Then we went back to the house for dinner and cupcakes for dessert.

My birthday was thee BEST day! Kyle took the day off work to take me on a date AND a hike AND to another hot spring AND to dinner at Tucanos! He also bought me those sunglasses I'm wearing.

We hiked up to Fifth Water Hot Springs up Diamond Fork in Spanish Fork Canyon. It was a 2.3 mile hike up and it was beautiful with the fall leaves! 

We were a little surprised at how busy it was on a Tuesday afternoon, the parking lot was full, but everyone was still spread out enough that we had a pool to ourselves and it was still enjoyable. 

We also learned another thing on the list of things you should NEVER say to people (like asking, "When is your baby due?") is telling another hiker, on their way up, that they are almost there! Especially when you haven't even passed the half way mark! Like why would you discourage someone like that? It just makes the hike seem that much longer. So just don't say that to anyone, ever. K?

When we got there a man was telling us that there used to be a big, deep pool at the top, but either the cops or the local Mormons blew it up cause they think bad things happen there. We don't know if it was the cops or the Mormons, but we're guessing that Kyle must have had something to do with it! Bahaha

The whole way down we were laughing every time we passed someone that looked like the Mormons that must have blown up the hot spring. Going back to finish the job.

The blue color of the water up there is amazingly gorgeous.

This is the 7th hot spring I have been to, but I think Meadow is still my favorite because it's so deep you can swim, it's such clear water and it's free!

Also, for the life of me, I cannot figure out how to get water to come out of Kyle's camelback straw. Trying to drink from it makes me feel like I might pass out before I ever get any water. So Kyle ended up taking the mouth piece off and holy cow! I did not expect so much water to come out so fast and about drowned! Kyle was losing it!

When we got back to Kyley and Jordan's to pick up the kids they had a giant cookie with candles all ready to sing Happy Birthday and all the kids made me pictures. I am so lucky to have people in my life that make me feel so special!

Tai is the sweetest and during breakfast remembered, "Mom! Today is your birthday! Happy Birthday!" She then decided to clean the whole house to get ready for my birthday party, which I told her we weren't having. I love that she will just clean though- best present ever! She literally cleaned the entire upstairs, including bedrooms, all by herself. Not only that, but she has a pink birthday bag that she uses to gift people a few of her own toys on their birthdays, with a hand drawn picture. Like I said, she is the sweetest ever. 

Kohen is too funny with this mermaid head that is his new favorite thing he must have to carry around. And how he makes a "Ttsss" sound, stomps his little feet and reaches out opening and closing his hands whenever he wants something. He also got his first little black eye falling down on a stair at the playground. He's good at going to climb and play all by himself though!

A few weeks ago the kids finally got to shoot the gun they got for Christmas.

Ever since Kasen had his tonsils removed he had been sleep walking way less, but this last week or so he's been back at it. Not sure why or how to help him, but I do enjoy the snuggles when he comes to find me. He will not answer a single question or say anything except when I say, "I love you" then he will respond, "I love you".

We've been told by his teacher that he is quite the chatterbox at school. He's even had his recess taken away so we're working on that. I guess he has a new friend named Brooklyn, who he plans to be his girlfriend when they are 19 and then marry her. He says he loves her and that they will have 3 kids. After school he and Cooper sit on the grass and trade Pokemon cards. He gets so excited to tell us all about his trades! He has a Pokemon coloring book and has to look up all the Pokemon first because he only likes "realistic coloring". He's also made quite a few of his own homemade Pokemon cards. They have the most points so that when he makes us duel with him, he will win.

So thankful for another year of life. Living it is the greatest.

Bye Peeka

 Last night we said goodbye to Peeka. 

She's been with us for almost 5 years and Kyle has joked about getting rid of her the entire time. He finally found a legitimate reason though because while we were camping at Strawberry she bit another boy. A couple years ago she bit one of our neighbor boys when he came to feed her while we were away and I blamed us for not reintroducing Peeka to TJ before he came back into our yard. We said if it ever happened again we'd need to get rid of her. Well when we were at Flaming Gorge this year she tried to nip Will's hand and then at Strawberry she bit a boy's foot. Although none of the incidents drew blood, Kyle says he cannot trust her and would never forgive himself if she ever seriously bit one of our kids or one of their friends.

It's been hard for me because I don't think any of the incidents were bad enough to warrant putting her down, but where they have been random and unpredictable, I don't know how to recreate a situation in order to train it out of her. I have always believed that pets are for life. One of my life goals has been to have a dog for its entire life because out of all the dogs my family has ever had, we have never kept one for its whole life. So I am most definitely judging myself just as harshly as I judge all the other people that get rid of their dogs. We are the worst pet owners ever and don't deserve to have them. Even though I also think pets are super good for kids!

Peeka really has been a pretty good dog. She never learned how to walk on a leash very well, but she always stayed next to us so we didn't even really need one. Kyle had her trained to sit even after we threw her toy, until we told her to get it and then could be called back to us mid chase. She only pooped on one side of the yard. She stayed off the furniture, except sometimes when we went to bed at night and she knew to get in her house or on her bed when we told her to. She has been so great with our kids! She let them climb up, stand and pull on every part of her without ever seeming bothered by it. And they loved playing the blanket game where Kyle would hide with the kids under a blanket while Peeka tried to get them.

If you pet her at all she gets way too excited about it and she still digs massive holes in the yard every so often, but I think we might end up missing her.

She's been donated to my mom's non-profit, 4Gold to see if she can be re-homed somewhere perhaps without kids. So thank you Mom! And good luck Peeka.

And PS Don't watch Homeward Bound the day after you give your kids dog away. It's a real tear jerker.

Baby Shark

My little baby shark!

When I pick him up out of his crib he lays his head on my shoulder, always leans in for kisses and this week when I asked him where his bottle was and told him to go get it, he went and found it and brought it to me!

He loves climbing everywhere now. Up onto our table, on top of our fireplace so that he can touch the TV and all over the couch. He can go up and down stairs pretty well too.

I LOVE how whenever Kohen decides he is done being in the bath he just swings his leg over the side of the tub and starts trying to get out!

Kyle also loves holding him up over his head and telling him to "swim swim" so that he's kick his legs.

The day after I scratched Kyle's truck Kohen woke up with half of his face swollen. It was a good week. We took him to the doctor and they said it could be a virus going around, but that it wasn't hand foot and mouth, or it could be exposure to something new, but there is no way to really know what, or it could be related to his previous milk allergy or it could be separate. So super helpful.

Friday we watched cousin Keslee and both Tai and Kohen and a lot of fun playing with her!

Oh how I love my little squishy boy and how ticklish he is and his cheesey cheeser smile. Hearing him laugh is just the best.