Our Little Garden

This year we were able to have a little garden by our apartment. Growing up, Andrew always had a lot of fresh tomatoes and other produce from the garden of the Wells family home. Last year, he was coveting delicious fresh home grown tomatoes. We like to eat tomatoes, but the ones from the store barely deserve the name tomatoes. They just don't have as much flavor or juiciness. So this year we took advantage of the little garden plots that are available for residents of university student apartments. We planted about 6 tomato plants, pepper plants, a little lettuce, and and some basil and oregano. Andrew grew up gardening, so he sort of knew what he was doing, but it turned out that we planted the tomatoes too close together, and we didn't have baskets for them, so they all grew together into a big bramble.
It turned out that the lettuce grew well for a little while, but soon became wild and bitter, so it was not a huge success, and the oregano did not grow very well either. The basil has been big success, and we were even able to make our own fresh pesto. But the tomatoes have become the real stars. We have we have been able to harvest a lot of small tomatoes from 5 of the tomato plants, but a real success has been gathering huge juicy beefsteak tomatoes from the one beefsteak tomato plant. I estimate that we got over half of our total harvest from just that one plant. With all these tomatoes, we have able to experiment and make a lot of delicious food. We've had some of the best be BLTs I've ever tasted, featuring a cream cheese spread that Ashley found  a recipe for. We've tested out some recipes for homemade spaghetti sauce where you slowly cook the tomatoes down all day long, and it has yielded probably the most delicious pasta sauces that we've ever tasted. We've made some fresh salsa with the peppers, and we even experimented with sun dried tomatoes. But mostly we just enjoy the fresh tomato slices on sandwiches and salads or just plain with a little bit of salt and pepper. It has been so fun to walk down to the garden almost everyday to harvest a couple more tomatoes, or to water, or to cut some basil. The walk is good exercise for us, and its nice for Rose to be able to get out of the house as well. Here are a couple pictures of our wild tomato garden and some of the fruits of our labors.

Lucy's Baby Blessing

This is Andrew, & I am just taking a turn posting on this blog from my new smartphone. I have had so much fun playing with this new phone and I figured I would do a guest post just because I have the technological capability to do so.

We were lucky to be able to have Lucy's baby blessing on the same weekend as Katie's wedding. Because of this timing, we were able to have a lot of family from both sides here for the baby blessing. of course the star of the show was Lucy herself. She was so sweet and smiled all through her blessing. she also looked stunning in a beautiful white dress that her great grandmother Haws made for her.

Ready to be a big sis at 18 months

Rosie is a big girl now and shows it. She's already having serious adult conversations (if you're patient enough to try and figure out what she's saying), loves cleaning up a mess as fast as she can make one, and can't wait to find everyone their shoes so we can all go outside.

Some of her most used words: fish, shoes, Ella (her neighbor friend), mess, ouch, scriptures, please, thank you, Jesus, diaper, mail, doorbell, up, bed, juice, house, eyes, Rose, strawberry, rock, yuck, beam (for sunbeam), and stuck.

She's even beginning to put a couple of words together like "big piece" and as I said before, she will have a conversation with you and tell you a story over and over again until you really really understand. She makes sure of it.

What she likes to eat: spaghetti, beans, goldfish crackers, eggs, baked potatoes, hot dogs, pizza, sausage, mac n cheese, potato chips, tomatoes, yogurt, and garlic toast.

Still not wanting much sweets, or fruits and veggies, but she is more willing to try new things as long as it's "hot."

What she likes to do: read books, go outside, go on Mom & Dad's bed and look out the window, watch as much TV as we let her, color with crayons, go to the library for story time, swing on the playground, check the mail, take a bath, take care of her baby doll, sing with her microphone, push her shopping cart around the house, have all of her binkies in her mouth and hands at all times, climb all over Daddy and sit on his lap, say hi to everyone she sees, play with stickers, roll around in the laundry and climb into the baskets, dig up dirt with a shovel in our garden, play the piano, help Mama stir the juice, throw her balls, and run away when being chased.

Her favorite songs: The Wheels on the Bus, If You're Happy and You Know it, Jesus Wants me for a Sunbeam, ABC's, Popcorn Popping, Dora the Explorer, I am a Child of God, Ring around the Rosie, etc.

It's so fun to watch her try to sing them and how fast she picks up on them. She also loves to dance to them and spin around in circles.

A typical moment for Rose: At about 10:00, after watching her favorite show Bubble Guppies, Rose gets grumpy. She keeps whining and doesn't want to eat or read her books any more. We decide to take her outside. "Do you want to go outside?" we ask. "Oooh! Shoesh, shoesh, shoesh. Bye-bye, bye-bye, bye-bye!" "Can you get Mamma's shoes? Can you get Dadda's shoes?" we ask, then she brings them to us. We put on her shoes and go out. once down the stairs, she squirms until we put her down and she runs through the grass. She sees her friend Ella. "Ewa, Ewa! Push, ouch, push, no no," she says before Ella even does anything. Ella comes over and pushes her down while Rose says "no no." She use to cry at this point, but she has toughened up, and just gets up and runs away, shrieking with delight. She spends most of her time in the sandbox, digging with a shovel and putting the sand in a bucket before dumping it out. She goes over to the little plastic play house by the swing set and says "house, doorbell." She rings the doorbell and opens and shuts the little door. She goes out and finds a stick and says "stick, stick," and then asks to go on the swing. After a while she decides to go over to the slide. On the way, she sees a bug, and points to it for a while. After climbing up and down the stairs, (she rarely goes down the slide any more) she is back to the sandbox until it is time to go inside. Once inside, she drinks some juice takes off her shoes, then tells us a story with a very serious expression on her face: "Dist dai moss Ewa. Ewa. Bye-bye" She points outside and continues. "Babbit dit ow aesip Ewa, Ewa. Push. Thea spa thash. Owch." As long as we keep nodding, she will continue this story for five full hilarious minutes. Then it's time for lunch and nap time.

The Stork is Circling the Neighborhood

38 weeks today! I can't believe it's almost baby time. Unlike last pregnancy with Rosie, I am totally fine with this little girl taking her sweet time. As uncomfortable as I am, I now know that this is the easy part compared to taking care of a newborn. So there's no rush. I am anxious to meet this little one though. What will she be like? Will she be similar to Rose or will I have to learn everything over again with a completely different baby? Obviously we just pray she will be healthy and that all will go well with the delivery.

This pregnancy has actually been easier than I remember with Rose. Maybe it's because I'm not trying to finish up school, or maybe Rose has been keeping me active and distracted. Either way, it hasn't been too bad. In fact, right now I'm in major nesting mode. I don't feel tired much because I'm so excited about finishing this project, or cleaning this closet. Andrew is always saying, "don't you want to go to bed?" or "don't you want to take a nap?" and most of the time I don't. Part of it is because Andrew has been in between jobs, so I've wanted to take advantage of his help. Now that he's working again though, my goal is to redirect my nesting mode from cleaning to blogging. It's been so long and I feel like I have a million things to document before our life gets crazy. So hopefully I'll be able to catch up in the next couple weeks.
Stay tuned!

Summer Festivals

Last summer Andrew and I decided to try and go to as many festivals as we could that were put on by different cities in Utah County. We were able to go to the summer festivals for Orem, Payson, Springville, Provo, and Pleasant Grove.

Orem Summer Fest

We touched a helicopter in the park

Orem's Summerfest had a dog pen next to the library

Rose likes the money so well, she is not sure if  we should spend it  or eat it

We finally got Rosie to give up the money and traded that dollar for a wooden Rose for her

Springville Art City Days

Fair-skinned Rose tries on Grandpa's hat to protect her from the sun

A little too little for the Merry-Go-Round, but it makes for a good picture!

Are we sunburned yet?

Pleasant Grove Strawberry Days

Rose is looking berry cute

Watching the parade with Daddy

Rose gets a better view

Our home-made homage to Strawberry Days

Provo Freedom Fest

Up before sunrise, we see the little balloons, but we are  waiting for the big balloons

Here is a big one!

The pig balloon is one of our favorites, especially because it is sponsored by our bank

Check out Smokey the Bear's head

We met some of the original freedom fighters at the  historic part of the  Freedom Festival

Andrew was thrown into the stocks...

...but then he got to try on John Smith's armor 

Payson Scottish Festival

Real men wear kilts!

There was a beautiful stream and pond in Payson's park. 

There are competitions for everything, including little girl highland fling. Andrew has dreamed of living in Payson some day, and if we do, Rose will have to compete in this dance-off

Here is Andrew's attempt at a highland fling

There were a lot of strange feats of strength in the highland games

13 months

All grown up and sporting pigtails

Rosie has been making some huge changes these last couple of weeks, and I can hardly keep up with it. It is so exciting! She's gone from standing with support, to walking while pushing her cart, to standing up without any help, to taking her first steps. The cutest thing is that she's so pleased with herself afterwards. She knows she's turning into a big girl.

I missed her first steps, but it was only fair since Andrew missed her first crawl.

She's also turning into quite the talker. She's advanced her vocabulary from "ball" to "hi", "bye, bye", "baby", and "this" all in a few days time. We've noticed her starting to parrot some words as well. I just can't believe how fast she's growing up.

Bear Lake: Activities

While we were at Bear Lake, we planned lots of fun activities that turned out great. Our reunion theme was the London Summer Olympics which were just finishing up at the start of our trip. We had a great time making food and planning activities that incorporated this theme.

Here are some pictures from craft time for the kids where they painted the Olympic rings.

We had a special Family Home Evening where my Dad taught the grandkids the Haws family tradition of the Ich Bin Guten Doctor song. Then we learned about keeping family records and made a time capsule that will be opened in 2031 at my parent's 50th wedding anniversary.

Enjoying learning the song

Then my sister Katie planned a London-style Harry Potter movie night for the kids complete with Butter Beer, licorice wands and Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans.

One of the most intense activities was an adult sports competition planned by my brother Jordan which included a basketball shoot out, ping pong, pool, and an insane race through the house's complex slide system. I proudly took the ping pong title after years of losing to my brother and my dad. But it was my brother-in-law Jeremy who was the overall champion.

The kids also had fun decorating Olympic cupcakes with Grandma.

I was in charge of the treasure hunt where I made signs for each room and made clues to go with them. At the end the kids found reunion T-shirts for everyone.

We also put on a mini Olympics for the kids where they picked countries and got their faces painted with the flag and then had some track and field events. Everyone got a gold medal at the end and it turned out great.