Im Bringing Home A Baby..

D-R-A-G-O-N-F-L-Y !

HA gotcha! (sorry terrible trick)

When will Daesha get over her fascination with bugs???? I can't believe how huge this dragonfly is!! I was totally freeked out by it!!!!! I am glad that Daesha knows which bugs are safe and ok to pick up, and doesn't have a fear of them. But I do! Just look at those legs on that sucker! I wanted to SCREAM like a little girl and run away.

And this week I got to see a praying mantis crawl all over Daesha. (I also wanted to run and scream at this too.) Ted thought it was funny that I wouldn't even touch it. I know they can't hurt me but those legs are just icky and I for one don't want them touching me! Am I the only one that feels this way? By the way while Ted was making fun of me and getting it close to me I was yelling, GET IT AWAY, NO! And then Keegan called me a CHICKEN! So it starts young. Boys giving girls a hard time with bugs and worms.

Our Garden

Fall is here and that means the garden is done. I am sad to have this season pass. It was really fun taking care of our very first garden. Promise you won't laugh... This is our 1st attempt at a garden. It's not the prettiest garden in town but we were very surprised that we could get anything to grow in our infested tumble weed yard. The dang things just keep growing back!!

So we had a heck of a time keeping the weeds out of the garden. We pretty much gave up by the end of August. The garden was thriving by then anyway.

We planted WAY TOO MUCH zuccini and squash. We had 3 differnt kinds of squash! Why? I don't know. But this gave me the oppurtunity to search for new recipe's using zuccini and squash. A friend gave me this delicious zuccini recipe. SO GOOD! Click here for the recipe.

Our poor pumpkins didn't make it. They literally died in just one day. And our cabbage got a really gross bug too. But everything else did great!!!

We got 8 wonderful watermelon. Seriously the sweetest I have EVER tasted! And our cantaloupe was to die for! Other things in our garden included lettuce, onion, jalepino, cucumber, carrots, and raspberries. We also have enough string beans and peas to last us the entire winter!

My favorite thing was pulling the carrots out of the mud. It was really fun to do. I had never done that before! Daesha and I loved pulling them up while flinging mud and laughing at the ones that were funny shaped.

dumb thing.. we didn't plant corn or tomatos. Something we won't forget next year.

Acorn squash.. ya, we didn't know what to do with it either...

Our pumpkins the day they died :-(

This is only a 1/4 of the carrots!

Whoops let this grow too big! (the zuccini-not Keegan, although he's too big too)

The zuccini was out of control. We couldn't give them away!

ops.. forgot one very important picture...

Back To Nature

Every September Ted and his friends take a boys weekend and go camping. In the years past the Dads have taken only their sons. But apparently Ted is hoping to take Daesha next year. It would be fun if it wasn't so late in the year. Too cold for me. And they get rain every year. As much fun as Ted has in the mountains he always comes home happy and glad to be home. This year they had about 20 people camping. Ted doesn't get a chance to see most of the guy's until this camping trip. He always is amazed at how much older the kids are.

When planning for this trip a menu is made. They all share in the main meals. They cook a mean breakfast every morning and eat pretty good and eat fish every day. The fishing was really great this year. The lakes were full of brook trout. Ted had a great time catching them as well as playing around with the younger boys. They would throw rocks towards Ted to scare the fish away. And they had fun building sand forts along the banks of the lake.

AMEN!

Childrens prayers are pretty much the funniest thing ever! Daesha says some pretty funny things that could be considered inappropriate to say in a prayer. But she is so sincere and is really thankful for Dora bandaids, aqua globes, or that her Mom was nice that day. Right now Keegan just likes to mumble while someone else says the prayer. He will be saying his own soon, which I am sure will be entertaining.
Last Saturday Keegan gave us all something to smile about at our dinner prayer. I am pretty sure I am not the only mother to a little boy who loves food! Just a few months ago we had a difficult time getting Keegan to NOT eat his food before the blessing was said. We started holding his plate aside until the prayer was done but that didn't work very well. He would yell "GIMEE IT" during the whole prayer. And when Daesha said it she would go on extra long just to make her brother yell more. Then he made some improvement and would take a mouth full right as we would begin the prayer and then fold his arms. It's a slow process with him but he is doing better. Some days he pushes his food away and waits. Some days he is too hungry to wait and he just simply refuses to stop. Last night was one of those times. He started scarffing the food down, this was my clue that I wasn't going to force him and so I began the prayer without waiting for him to fold his arms. I said a very quick blessing on the food, since his chewing was a bit distracting. As we all said Amen, Keegan started to cry. His mouth chuck full of chicken strips and french fries. Then came the drool as he said, "Prayer again". I said ok but you can't eat FIRST. Swallow your food and we will pray again. So the 3 of us waited for him to finish his mouth full of food and then fold his arms. And I said the prayer again. It was even word for word. I rolled my eyes at Ted thinking to myself. This is SO not how a prayer is done. Not realizing that my prayer was SO not the way a prayer should be SAID. Ted started to laugh and pointed out my pathetic prayer. Thanks Ted for laughing at my prayer. It's good to have another adult remind me that I don't have to pray like one of the kids.

Loving Memories

21 years ago today my mother passed away from a heart attack. I was 13 years old. That day is so vivid to me. I remember that Sunday morning like it was yesterday. I remember my brother waking me that morning. I also remember running down the stairs to see the paramedics sending her body in the air as they were trying to start her heart up again. I immediately ran out the door to my best friends house. I was crying as I woke her from her sleep. She asked me what was wrong and all I could say was, "I have to get out of here, will you come with me?" So we ran 5 blocks to the elementary school. We went to the swings and all I did was cry. We never said a word. Once I decided it was time to go back home we talked as we walked back. Trisha was my best friend and she was exactly who I needed to talk to that morning. She went home and so did I. By then my sister had gone to the hospital and came back to the house. Once my sister had said that my Mom was gone was the last vivid memory I have. I had slipped into a dream like state of mind. Everything was foggy, that lasted about a week. It was a horrible time in my life. And it was the most special time in my life too. It didn't take long to feel the intense love that surrounded me and my brothers and sister. Having the experience of loosing a Mother at such an age when a girl NEEDS her Mom was well... awesome. I felt strengthened when I should have been at my weakest. My knowledge in God and Jesus Christ seemed to grow too. I am happy with how my life has turned out. Pretty sure I never would have been close to my sister (who took me in) I would have never gone to American Fork High. I never would have met my amazing husband. And on and on.


Anyway, on this day I like to remember my Mom and all the wonderful things she was.

She was born June 1, 1943. In LaPort, Indiana. She has 1 sister. She was married to Joseph Bushnell in 1959. They had my oldest brother Cory and then my Sister Val born to them. Then later divorced. My Mom met and married my Dad in December of 67. My brother David and lastly I joined the family. My Mom and Dad divorced in 1978.

She was good at keeping a journal. She was lonely but I never knew it. She was always hugging me and let me climb on her lap and hold me right up till I was 13 years old. I always held her hand, even in public. We had a little game where she would squeeze my hand twice I would have to squeeze hers back that many times plus one. This would continue till one uf us lost count or got distracted. She was really funny and had a talent in telling me stories about her made up affair with Tom Selleck. I used to watch Mystery Theater with her every night. Man. I hated that show. And she was the best shopping buddy ever. Yup, That's were I get it from. We would spend hours shopping. And most days never buy a thing. I miss her a lot. And can't wait to see her again.

The night before she died she took me for the 1st time to Swiss Days in Midway. We had so much fun. So tomorrow I am going there with my kids.


My Mom hated camera's she was never in front of the lens. This is a picture I have of my Mom and Dad In California before I was born. It was January 1972.

I know it doesn't seem important to you reading this but I decided I wanted to have this in my blog book. It's a letter she wrote to me just months before she passed away. I hope it's readable.