Friday the 13th

To many this is a superstitious day, one when something bad is bound to happen.

For me it is a reminder of my wedding anniversary. Robert and I got married August 13th - a Friday!
Today marks exactly 15 1/2 years of marriage - including day of the week.
I don't have a scanner, so no lovely pictures of us on that day - but one of the Manti Temple where we got married.

Sunshine

After a few cold fronts over the past while, we have been in a warming trend and had a beautiful weekend of near 70 degrees.
This morning, before church, Jake and Logan were playing together outside. Jake, as he rode by on his bike said, "mom, we're having a fun day today."
Natalie and Alyssa spent the morning together on a walk down to the river. After coming back Alyssa said how it has been the best weekend and Natalie went immediately upstairs to write in her journal about her walk with her sister. Alyssa was outside all day yesterday and was almost too tired for the friends we had over for dinner.
What a wonderful thing a little warmth and sunshine is!

Waiting for Rocks

We, meaning Robert, are in the middle of a new project and I thought I would share the progress so far. We had some shrubbery (I don't know what kind) on most of our hill, in the back yard, by our driveway. Some people might think, hey - it's an evergreen, no tending needed, leave it alone. To me, I didn't like it, not one little bit. And after a few, ok - many, "explorations" by the kids and "tennis ball searches" by Izzy, it became spotted with holes and dead branches. And, being in the only spot of the yard that gets sun all day long, it was the perfect spot for a garden. So what do you do? Pull it all out and terrace it!

This is what it looked like.
These two pictures are from when we moved and I'm SO glad we put in sod last year, the grass looks so much better now!

Here we, meaning Robert, have cleared about 2/3 of the hill (although I did help by pulling up and cut the branches into smaller sizes for burning). We had a good burn day and once we got burning Robert just finished clearing the hill.

Here are the stairs along the side, we will fill in the space between the stairs and the house with smaller rocks.

The top terrace is done and the second one is being worked on.
There is still a bunch of work to do.
We, meaning Robert, is now waiting on rocks. This weekend he is hoping to gather some more (thanks to Larry and Casey who don't want a ton of rocks in their yard) and if the kids will cooperate I can help bring up dirt. We have beautiful dirt in the woods where trees have died and their stumps/roots have disintegrated and have left large mounds of rich soil. So other than grunt work, meaning Robert (he wants to make sure I acknowledge his efforts) - this has been a cost free project.

We can start planting in March and I'm totally excited to utilize Georgia's two growing seasons! The kids are excited to pick out what we will plant (I hope they stay as excited to help pull weeds) and Alyssa wants to be in charge of flowers along the bottom.
Once it is completed I'll post pictures again.

What is it?!

I looked out the kitchen window the other day and saw Izzy sitting at the path leading into the woods. Just sitting there and was there for quite a while - at least 20 minutes - not moving.
(that is quite a while for a dog like Izzy to not be moving)

I wonder what she saw, or heard, maybe she thought Robert was down there was waiting for him to come back, or maybe it was that her ball had rolled down just out of reach (she has an electric perimeter with the edge at the start of the path).
Whatever it was, it kept her still for a while and the thought that popped into my head was "The Watcher In The Woods" - a favorite movie from when I was younger and probably the only scary movie I'll watch.

Crazy Boys

Jake:

Last Sunday Jake asked what day it was. His eyes lit up when I told him February 1st. "Mom! It isn't January anymore! Can we go swimming in the river?!" I tried to explain that a mild day might feel nice but the water was still really cold and we would have to wait until the water gets warmer.
In a way I'm glad we had a cold front move through - that is a better reason to wait to go swimming than your mom saying the water is too cold!

Logan:

We had to move Jake into the spare bedroom because Logan has some odd sleeping habits lately.
He has to have both blankets (you can see the green one in the picture, the blue one is underneath him), Pooh Bear, and Horse (he sleeps on top of this pile) . . . lights ON . . . and music playing. If ever I turn the lights off after he is asleep and he wakes up, he starts calling out "lights ON! LIGHTS ON!" I can turn on the lights, sometimes needing to turn the music back on, and he will lay down and go back to sleep without a problem.
I've come to just leaving the lights on all night and, unless he has a bad dream, he will sleep the night. I've gone in sometimes and he has pulled the blankets up over his head.

OK, Jake just got home from school and I have to add this because it made me laugh:
I sign a daily behavior chart for him. He usually tells me what he got when he comes in: an "E", "S+", "S". Today he came in and said, "Mom, I got an S+. You need to tell me all the school rules. I know that no kissing is a school rule." I asked if he got a check kissing someone! He said no, but for not following a school rule. The note on his behavior chart said he got a check for "blowing crumbs across table onto floor at lunch (after repeated warnings)." I don't think I know all the "lunchroom rules." :)
The note continued and said that: other than that, his day was great and other teachers said how wonderfully behaved he was when he was in other classrooms for activities. :)

Cute, but crazy boys!

Who's Hair?

We have had a slew of haircuts going on lately and the picture below is the result of another one. Can you guess who got their hair cut?

A hint - I took off a measurable TWO INCHES!!

I know it is January and Robert says I should leave hair on the boys' heads while it's cold, but Logan doesn't sit still enough for me to do anything but buzz his head - and his hair was really long. Sure, I should have gone with the no. 3 comb instead of the no. 2 comb - but I like my boys with short hair. Not that he wasn't my cute little boy before, but a buzzed head makes him my "cute little boy". That's probably why Robert doesn't want me buzzing Jake's hair anymore! until the summer and he's not in school. I can't wait for the summer when I can have my TWO cute little boys!


OK, on a total side note - my camera is giving me grainy pictures. Anyone out there know why, off the top of your head? or should I just dig my book out (which I should do anyway).

Night Sky

The other night we went to CFES CiCi's Night (Robert was out of town and I wasn't in the mood to cook, so I thought we'd go support the school - a great excuse).

When we came back the moon was just rising with a bright spot above it. I knew it was too bright to be a star and we found out later it is Venus.

Without any close bright city lights we have a beautiful canopy of stars that I never get tired of looking at. Full moons are our outdoor nightlight. Our house in UT was never really dark because of the street lights. It was one of the things I had to get use to when we moved - the nights being SO dark, but beautiful.