Sunday

We just left at 6:30 am and drove for 14 hours until we got home. Too hot and tired to take pictures. When we were driving through the hills/mountains of eastern Oregan our temperature gage read 111 degrees. The rest of the trip was in the 100's or high 90's. We had a great trip but are so glad to be home.

Our struggling yard

We've had a hard time with some things in our yard this year. We have some beautiful aspen trees in our front yard. At the beginning of June our neighbors cut down their aspens. It turns out the neighbor's tree was the parent tree and when it was cut down our trees started to die. We are sad about that. Then you all remember my previous post about our firepit accident. Well, this dead grass is the product of that. Turns out gas and fire aren't too good for grass. Finally, the other day, Darren was fertilizing the lawn. With good intentions he put some on the garden, as well. The fertilizer also had weed killer in it. It took us a while to figure out why the garden looked so droopy. Fortunately, most of it is coming back but this zucchini plant will probably not survive. So don't put lawn fertilizer with weed killer on your garden. It's great for the lawn, not so great for vegetables. The rest of our yard is beautiful and green.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAKE!

Can you believe my baby is one year old? Where has the year gone? His party started off quietly. I forgot to make him a separate little cake so we just sat him in front of the big one.















He wasn't too interested at first but soon discovered he really liked his birthday cake.

































Here he is after his mess:
















He got a lot of presents and wasn't too interested in those. But his brothers sure were. They were only too happy to help him open them.
















We love you, Jake! Happy Birthday!

A Sunday Treat

When Tracie was helping me decide what to call my blog she suggested "A Sunday Treat" because I usually make a treat on Sunday. When I was growing up it was a tradition at our house to make a dessert on Sundays. So we still do that at our house. It's usually just some type of cookie or brownies. We don't get too fancy. My favorite is oatmeal chocolate chip cookies but I don't make those very often because the rest of my family doesn't like them as well and I end up eating most of them. Today we made ginger snaps. They are Darren and Kevin's favorite kind of cookie. Ethan is my main helper. Kevin has grown out of it. And Jake is an aspiring helper. (He doesn't last very long up on the counter.)

Soccer

Today was Kevin's first soccer game of the season. We sure enjoy watching those games and Kevin has fun playing. He does a great job. This year they even have official goalies. Well, one of the rules of soccer is that you have to wear shinguards. We could only find one of Kevin's shinguards and had looked everywhere we could think of. Darren even went to a bunch of stores to buy some but there are none available on the first day of soccer season. We really wanted him to be able to play his first game of the year. Then my genius husband came up with a plan. Check it out. Can you guess what we used?

Our new firepit

Curtis and Shandy came up this weekend. If you check their blog you'll know they made a firepit in their backyard. So we decided to do the same thing. Jon found us an old tire rim at a tire store and we already had the brick (also previously supplied by Jon - what would we do without him?). Darren hurt his ankle and couldn't walk very well so Curtis ended up doing most of it on his own. Thank you so much, Curtis. I am sure it is something we will enjoy for a long time. I forgot to get a picture of the finished product. But make sure you read the blog right below this to see what happened next.

Using the fire pit for the first time

So this is what happened the first time we built a fire in our fire pit. I wasn't out there at the time. But when I heard people rushing for the hose I decided to see what was going on. I found a large fire on my grass. Unfortunately the camera wasn't ready at the time. The fire was larger. Just so everyone knows for future reference, don't pour gas directly out of the can onto a fire and then let it leak onto the grass. Also, water doesn't put out a gas fire very well. Have a metal garbage can lid handy to get rid of the fire's oxygen.

The Grocery Game

At the beginning of May my friend, Kristi, told me about a website called The Grocery Game that helps you save money on groceries. It sounded interesting to me so I went and checked it out. Since then I have been playing "The Grocery Game" and if you do it right it really does save you money. What it does is this: She takes the major grocery stores that most of the time are more expensive but have great sales on certain foods (Albertsons, Smiths, etc) and also cuts coupons in the Sunday paper. Then she checks the sales each week and compares them with the coupons and lets us know when it's really a good deal. When it's a really good deal you stock up on that item. Since I live in a smaller town the only store for me is Albertsons (and soon Walgreens). But you people that live in bigger places would have more stores to choose from. So check it out and see if that's something that will help you. You can sign up for a months trial for $1.00 at www.thegrocerygame.com. She will also be on the Food Network show "Unwrapped" June 26 at 7:00 pm, 27 at 10 pm, and 29 at 5:30 pm.

The haircut

Today I came in from watering the lawn and found Darren in the bathroom getting ready to use his father's day present -- new hair clippers. Carrie, you don't need to worry about those hair products anymore.

For Carrie

Here you go, Carrie. They sure look tiny in the pictures but they look pretty in the yard. I've decided it's expensive to plant too many annuals. But it looks better if you plant a lot. Anyway, I'm grateful for flowers, plants, trees, grass. I love being in my backyard in the summer. Now I need a nice comfortable place to sit back there.

My Friday night

Darren went to Jackson with his photo buddies and Tracie was out with her friends so the boys and I decided to plant some flowers. Our yard was looking very green but not a lot of other colors. Half of them got planted tonight. The rest can wait until tomorrow.

Poor Jacob

I know the last two posts have been about Jacob but I couldn't resist this one. To use Carrie's words "I couldn't stop laughing". He crawled under my chair when I was eating breakfast and then sat up creating a little prison for himself. As you can see, he didn't like it very much.

Jake's next milestone

This morning when Kevin and I went to get Jacob out of his crib he was sitting up. He has never sat up from a laying down position by himself. Then after dinner we were all busy doing different things when we noticed Jacob was standing up against the chair. No one claims to have stood him up, so unless someone is pulling my chain, he did it himself. Two milestones in one day. I guess we had better put every thing up higher.

More mischief

Jake getting into trouble again. I also threw in a picture of Tracie exercising because I liked it. She's keeping Ethan out of mischief.

Our father's day

This was what our family did for father's day. Tracie grilled chicken (check out the hot grilling outfit. Most people would just wear an apron if they didn't want to get their white shirt dirty. But not Tracie. She has to make a fashion statement with her house dress.) Darren read the newspaper while waiting for his dinner to be cooked. He's usually the griller but not today. Ethan is showing you the sour candy he is eating (even though you can't see it) and Kevin is just hanging out with his dad. Kevin and Ethan picked out the presents they gave Darren. Kevin chose Twix candy bars because he knew Darren would share and Ethan chose sour candy straws for the same reason. Luckily for them Darren is nice and does share.

Braces

Today was the day I got my braces. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be but it is a mouthful to get used to. I haven't attempted chewing yet but I think I'm going to be hungry enough to try by dinner time. Liquids just don't do the trick sometimes.

5K

I know that Tracie has already posted about the 5K. But that was the biggest thing that happened in my week so I'm posting it, too. It was fun. I'm sure all the experienced runners out there would not be too impressed with our time but we beat our own time so we feel pretty good about it. Our goals were to beat our own time and not to come in last. We were in the middle of everyone else so we beat both of our goals. The City of Rexburg does an excellent job organizing this event. They have a 5K, 10K, half marathon, marathon, relay marathon and family fun run. For more information and to see our times posted (not sure if they're there yet) go to www.dammarathon.com. Next year 10K! (Credit goes to Darren Clark for taking the action shot. He was right at the finish line with his camera.)

Beautiful hair

Yesterday Tracie said she was going to get her hair cut and asked her if I wanted to get mine cut, too. So I said yes and this is the before and after pictures. (They got mixed up. The first one is actually the after.)

My Little Raccoon

I think I have a picture of all of my babies similar to this one. For some reason they always find the garbage. Jake is no exception. I had just taken it out of the cupboard to change the bag. Then I got interupted for some reason and this is the result.

Braces

I have decided to get braces on my teeth. In order to do that, I had to have four teeth pulled this morning. That was not a fun experience. But it was quick and they are gone now. The worst part was being numb for four hours after. In order to take four teeth out they have to really numb you up. Now I am not numb anymore but I can only eat soft foods for 48 hours. So while everyone else ate grilled chicken, mashed potatoes and carrots for dinner, I had mashed potatoes and refried beans. I have also eaten Jell-O, pudding and Carnation Instant Breakfast. Any other good ideas? Anyway, this picture is a before picture. I'll send more along the way. (But not of my mouth at this current time.)