WELCOME TO THE FAMILY BLOG!

Below are some of the fun things that have been going on in my life recently:

Traditional (started this year) sisters b-day luncheon at Miss Tami's cottage (we were celebrating Renee and my birthday. We celebrated Lori and the twins earlier this year and will change to a different restaurant for next year. It's been such a good excuse for us to force ourselves to get together. Thanks Liz for the idea!

We are in the process of making "Grandpa's" room into a fun sanctuary for Lily and Sophie. They love it and spend hours drawing and coloring at their little table. A curtain and quilts are the next project in here, but Mom is going to have to give me pointers over e-mail since I have never made a quilt before.

I missed the General Relief Society broadcast ( I completely forgot) but when it was mentioned in church the next day I was horrified. I listened to it first thing Monday morning and was inspired by Elder Uchtdorf's talk about creativity and compassion. I have spent this past week making curtains for my home and ripping down dingy, worn out blinds (a thing which I have planned to do for years and always felt too busy to follow through). I realized that "tomorrow" was never going to come so I've been seizing the moment. So far I have only done the living room and dining room, but I won't stop until the whole house is done, which means I must re-paint Jordan's room and my bedroom so I have a color palette to work from. I'm also spending a little bit of time behind the camera, trying to capture memories that I have been very amiss in capturing for the last few years as well.

Dining Room Curtains

Lily and Sophie on one of our many morning walks with Olive.

Fred has spent the summer (once again) building me a fence. We tore down our 4 foot side fence (that did not contain our beloved Olive), put up a 6 foot side fence, and then Fred took all the 4 foot panels and made these 6 foot height sections to replace the back chain link fence that borders the canal. We are hoping that Olive will finally be restrained without a rope. I continue to be amazed that after 3-1/2 years people are still bringing Olive back at least 3 times a week and not once have we met anyone who was anything but kind and understanding (including police officers and animal control). It has been a great testimony to me that the world is full of good people!

This is the children's treasured pumpkin patch. These little sprouts started in our compost pit this spring, and the children, wanting to tend their own plants asked if they could have a "piece of earth" to plant them. None of us even knew what they were, but this ground by Olive's "calf shed" wasn't being used so Mikayla and Eden planted one sprout and Abe planted a sprout and they "turned" into a beautiful pumpkin patch with all kinds of colors and shapes of "fruit", and have turned some ugly, barren ground into a little garden of Eden.