The kids and I are pretty much always up to something. And I am pretty much always behind on my blog. Oh well. It is what it is.
I love to leave my house. Load up the kids and get out! I try and take the kids to see Joseph's Aunt Betty as often as I can. We usually have some lunch, learn about some birds, then go for a CRAZY ride on her golf cart. I literally cling onto Ben and Sarah for dear life while Maddy and Betty are yelling "WAHOO!!!" at the top of their lungs as we go up and down the hills on the golf course. A few weeks ago she changed it up a bit. Not only did we go on a crazy golf cart ride, we also took a drive to our local Walmart for some bird feeding. (yet another FREE activity to be had at Walmart.) I'm not sure I've blogged about my adventures to Walmart... so I'll sum it up. Who needs a membership to the Aquariam or to the Botanical Gardens when you have the fish in the pet isle and the flowers and shrubs in the garden center?? Kids love it. And so does my wallet :) And now we can add feeding seagulls!
Aunt Betty is talented at many things. Unkown to me until this day was her bird charming ability. I now call her, "the bird whisperer". When we pulled up to the store there were no birds in sight. So we drove to the back. Again, no birds. No swans in the pond. Not even a pigeon. Cue Betty. She starts making a clicking sound and waving bread in the air. Suddenly, one seagull appears. So I decide to open the sliding door to the van so the kids could see. When I turned around around, Betty was surrounded by seagulls. Therefore, she is now the "bird whisperer".
I love this picture! Betty held out a piece of bread and a seagull pulled it from her hand right as I took the picture. You can also see Uncle Dale, watching comfortably from his car.
As we were feeding the seagulls, turtles started to swim over for some bread too! There had to have been at least 7 of them. (way more exciting than the zoo... right?)
It was a fun filled afternoon. The kids had a blast. They love to visit Aunt Betty! AND I didn't spend any money.
Now for a random picture:
It was so nice outside, and I just wanted to feel the breeze, but didn't want the kids outside in our unfenced backyard, seeing that I was not able to supervise them. I tormented them by putting up the baby gate and making them long for the backyard from the doorway.
The kids were invited to go to the Aquarium to celebrate a friends birthday. Its nice to catch up with friends from our old ward. They had a great time. And I may be facing jail time, because I wasn't supposed to take this picture. J/K Well, I wasn't supposed to take it, but he didn't tell me until I had already done it. Oh well.
Having fun on the fish slide!
ONTO MORE RANDOMNESS
Sarah and Ben bonding while watching DIEGO on the computer. We got a laptop thinking we'd get rid of the huge desktop, but the kids love playing on it. So now its just sitting on the floor in the nook. Maddy plays pbskids.org all the time and they watch movies too. Works for me!
We have had the sickies going around our house too. First Ben, then Sarah. And so on...
Here's Ben at his most pitiful state. Poor boy :(
My beautiful roses! We don't really make a big deal of Valentine's Day, but I must say, These roses were amazing! They smelled SO good. I say I don't need flowers on Valentine's, but now that I randomly got some, I think I'm hooked.
Now for the last of my randomness. Joseph and I are officially debt free!! (except for the house) We have hit this point before, but then we needed to buy a van... and weren't in a position to save up for one first. So that whole debt free thing lasted a whole 2 months. Now we've done it again!
Back when we moved, we made a list of things we'd like to have, and numbered them according to what should be purchased first and so on. As money allows, we've been replacing things and adding things to our new home. Slowly we're knocking off stuff and getting to the true wants, and not the needs. (it helped that my dad found a 32" flat screen in the garbarge and traded us for a TV that we were given.) I love our trash TV!! Scratch that off the list! So, with that being said, we bought a patio set for the back yard, and some porch rockers for the front.
I love it! Maybe I should take off the tags... You can see our faded clubhouse climber in the back ground. When we first moved in, we bought the kids a swingset from Walmart. Worst purchase I've ever made. On its 90th day in our backyard, we took it apart and returned it because it was falling apart. We were able to get a great deal on the climber on craigslist, and now I don't have to worry about the rusting parts cutting my kids... and the swings breaking while my kids are swinging!
You can't live in the south and not rock on your porch. That's just not right.
we also planted some flowers and worked on our front yard
That took sooo much longer than I had thought to get all of those planted!!
Last but not least, we are going to try our hand at gardening! Our ward is really encouraging us to start a garden and being so helpful in getting people started. We are going to do two 4x4 raised bed gardens, but we haven't put the other one together. I have to remove the sod, and then mix the perfect soil.... and lets face it, I get distracted easily. So here's to hoping that I actually follow through!! Then there is keeping the plants alive... Maybe I've bitten off more than I can chew?? We'll see!
