Working on the Yard

Yesterday evening we got started working on our patch of dirt in the front.  It has been unusually warm lately and although it was 6:00 in the evening Tony and I managed to work up quite a sweat.  We cut out the beds and raked out the weeds Tony had sprayed last week.  We threw out some seed and are anxiously waiting for our grass to come up.  Tonight I think we'll need to spread some straw over the top to keep the birds from eating the seed.  I've caught them in the yard already.  We had no intention of getting so much done last night, but it went faster than we had expected.  We might bring in some top soil for the beds and maybe this fall we'll get some good deals on some trees, shrubs, and flowers for the beds.  Needless to say we were exhausted when we fell into bed last night.  The kids and I ended up sleeping in this morning until 8:00!  This was a total shock to me because that never happens.  The kids usually are up around 6:30.  Our family is coming into the busy time of year with scout camp outs, family reunions, end of school activities, and Tony is putting in two sprinkler systems for some families in the ward.  So we're trying to fit in our home projects where we can.  We still have to finish painting all our ceilings white.  Figure out how to finish our back yard since our source for free sod has flaked out on us.  Paint the exterior of our house, and of course all the other "little" projects we have planned for our home.  I know I've said it before; fixing up a home is a lot of work, but it is so gratifying to see the results of your labor.

                           

A Rip Roaring Writer

At the end of each quarter the kids' school does an awards assembly.  This quarter Alaina received an award for writing.  We're proud of our girl.

Soccer Boy

This year Charlie was old enough to do soccer.  He loved it although he mostly just ran around to field and managed to score one goal...for the other team.  But so it is with a four year old.  He had fun and thought it was super cool that he got a trophy from his coach at his last game.

Sewing

Alaina's Easter dress this year turned out super cute!  She picked out everything from the pattern to the material.  I've been trying to trying to do more difficult sewing projects lately to increase my skills.  This dress stretched me a bit.  The yoke (the green top part of the dress) was a bit of a challenge to attach to the rest of the dress.  The rose in the front of the dress also gave me a bit of trouble which I didn't expect.  I added some green tule to the underside of the skirt to help the dress flare out more.  The dress is also completely lined which Alaina likes because then the dress isn't itchy.  My biggest accomplishment with this dress is that I had minimal seam ripping, which mean I didn't have to take stuff apart and redo it.  I started 3 weeks before Easter Sunday to give myself plenty of time to work on the dress and I'm glad I did.  I had planned on sewing myself a dress for Easter too, but that just didn't happen.  I have a retro dress pattern I've had for over a year I really want to sew up for myself.  Last fall I sewed a button up shirt for Lincoln.  I cut down an old men's shirt and reused the buttons.  So no cost for me!  Again that project stretched me a bit and I certainly studied closely other button up shirts as I put it together.  My next planned project is to sew up a pair of jeans for Lincoln from a pair of Carson's where he split the crotch. Again no cost to me!  I've recently started teaching sewing lessons.  I've got two students right now.  A girl from our ward that's Carson's age and an adult friend of ours.  I really enjoy it and it's so fun to see their progress.

Easter

We had my parents come and visit us for Easter weekend this year.  We spent Saturday working in the yard.  With their help we were able to clear the rest of our back yard.  It's all level and ready for for sod.  Hopefully we can manage to keep the weeds out until we can get more sod.  The kids dyed Easter eggs in the afternoon.  That evening my parents treated us to dinner and we in return treated them to ice cream to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary!   On Sunday morning the kids woke up to some candy and a small toy in their baskets.  My parents then came to church with us and we enjoyed a very special sacrament meeting full of meaningful musical numbers and talks on the atonement. We followed church with a special meal of Ham, potatoes, asparagus, rolls, and jello.  We then snuck an egg hunt in for the kids before my parents had to leave for home.  We really enjoyed our time together and loved having them to visit for this special holiday.

Home Improvements

We've been in our house about 6 months and we're slowly making big and little improvements.  First we gave the whole place a good cleaning and replaced some of the carpet.  We've put up blinds in all the windows and got a lot of our pictures hung up.  Recently we've started painting all the ceilings white.  Originally they were the same brown color as the walls throughout the entire house.  We've nicknamed our house the brown house.  Literally everything inside and out was brown, even the lawn.  Painting the ceilings has proven to be a little more labor intensive then we were expecting.  We've had to prime and paint with multiple coats to cover the brown paint.  We've also been working on fixing the brown lawn.  We've rotatilled the back yard and removed all the old sod.  A coworker of Tony's cut up sod from his yard that we laid down in our yard.  Unfortunately we only had enough to cover a little less than half of our back yard.  Hopefully we'll be able to get more sod to at least finish the back yard and we'll seed the front yard if we need to.  We purchased a lawn mower last weekend for our soon to be luscious green yard.  We also replaced the light fixtures in all 3 of our bathrooms this week.  This was an unplanned project but the fixtures were on clearance at Lowe's and we couldn't pass up the good deal.  They look so nice and will be even better after we repair the huge holes left in the wall behind the old light fixtures.  You gotta love contractors.  If you can't see the hole then it's not there, right?  Our next big undertaking will be to paint the exterior of our house.  This is going to be another labor intensive job, but it'll be worth it.  We're hoping to replace the siding above the gable of our garage to a shake siding and paint it and the front door a contrasting color to the rest of the house to give some interest.  We have really been working hard on our home, but we enjoy it.  There is something so gratifying about it all. 

Lincoln's 1st Birthday

We recently celebrated Lincoln's 1st birthday.  We weren't able to celebrate on February 24th because we just had too much going on that night.  A couple of nights later we had some friends over for cake and presents.  Nothing too extravagant, but Lincoln enjoyed himself.  Lincoln got some farm toys from Grandma and Grandpa Foster, a Tractor book from Grandma and Grandpa Elton, and we gave him some bath toys, a big bird stuffed animal and some puzzles.  Lincoln is growing fast and is happy as ever.  At his 1 year check up with the his doctor he weighed in just over 20 lbs and only in the 5th percentile for his length.  The doctor started to express his concerns about how short Lincoln was until I reminded him how tall Tony and I are.  I guess Lincoln taking after his dad.  Lincoln's not walking on his own yet, but still manages to get into everything!  His top two teeth have been trying to cut through for the last couple weeks which will bring his total teeth to four.  We love our little man!