Mommy Visit!

At the end of May, my Mommy came to visit!

It was so wonderful!

The day she came, I cleaned up. It looked pretty nice! :)

C loved having Gma around!

Here, he's climbing into his carseat on his own. This kid needs to stop getting so big!!

We went to Firehouse Subs for dinner. I love Firehouse Subs!

Reading with Gma

This is the beginning of our fence being stained. We had it power washed beforehand. It looked amazing just with the power washing.

This is our "before" picture.

C had some milk to finish, so I stuck him in the cart like I used to when he was a baby… He's a bit bigger now!

These are the beginnings of our awesome car quilt.

 J and his siblings had a quilt-just a simple 9-square quilt. They would get it out on Sundays and play cars on it. Their hot wheels would be the people and the 9-squares were the homes, businesses, and fire stations. J loved that memory so much that he wanted to duplicate it but better.

He mapped it out and planned it out and my mom took up the challenge. One of the days my mom was in town, we went to a fabric store with J's mom to pick out the fabric and have lunch together.

This is my boy coloring at Olive Garden where we went out to lunch. It was lovely!

On the way home, he zonked. It was a long day!!

"Chicka chicka BOOM BOOM!" C loves this book and his daddy is happy to oblige!

That weekend (Mom came Tuesday to Tuesday), Sam came over from Rexburg and hung out with us. I recruited my lovely wonderful amazing family to help me stain our fence! ;)

It's a whole new place out there!!

Not quite sure where we were headed back from, but he was tired a lot during this trip. We were busy every day!

This is when we went to Texas Roadhouse. He really wanted to see the moose over the door. Non-stop.

When he couldn't, it was terrible and horrible. how could we deny that?? haha

Gma was patient and sweet and took him outside to play while we finished eating. It was kind of a disaster… but hey, at least you know your child isn't the only one losing it in public about the silliest things, right? 

Some cute pictures

Monday, with the clock ticking, we planted the garden!!! Woohoo!

My mom is a master gardener, so I was so lucky to have her help for it!

We planted zucchini, spaghetti squash, broccoli, tomatoes, peppers, beans, peas, corn, rhubarb, potatoes, and sweet potatoes.

Our "helper" hung out in his pool with his sand boxes

I saw an awesome idea on Pinterest…..

Can you see where this idea is going? ;)

It was putting herbs in mason jars, attaching it to a plank of wood, and it looks cute.

The problem is that the plants need a way to drain the water. They were drowning.

So I had to get them out (break some jars in the process) and plant them in the garden. So I had parsley, cilantro, thyme, basil, and oregano.

I love his tucked-in knees

When we were buying the plants, my mommy got me my first lawn "ornament!" I love hearing it in the breeze!

We also planted some lobelia and marigolds for the border. The marigolds were seeds.

C helped me plant some seeds. It was adorable. I'd go through and poke a hole and then he would put a seed in each one. I loved it!!

Tada!!

After that, we went to Meridian where there is a lovely shopping center and some pretty fountains that were designed by the same guy who did the Bellagio fountains. It's pretty cool. We went to lunch, went shopping, and watched the fountains….twice? 3 times? something like that. So fun!

This is where C and I watch for Daddy, so he made sure that Gma was sitting with us.

My mommy always leaves such sweet notes behind. 

I know I'm not alone in saying I love my mom and she's the best mom I could ask for. She's kind, amazing, helpful, beautiful, sweet, and just plain amazing. I always miss her so much.

The Words of Wordless May

I figure titles of blogs are catchier if they're from a song, right? I love Venus Hum.

Anyway, this is a long post, so hold on, folks!

May was a good month. Several very bright highlights come to mind. I'll get to those later, though.

Here's my cute boy with a bruise on his forehead from a tantrum. :) See post from before.

My boys in the crawlspace. Yucky. Gross. Ew.

We went to Hyrum's 2nd birthday party that first weekend. It is at his gma and gpa's house which has a HUGE back yard. They had food, water balloons, a kiddie pool… it was great! C was running over to me for some cheezits and tripped on the cement stair cutting open his lip and gums and getting a bloody nose. We exiled ourselves to a corner to calm down and eat some of those terrible, mean crackers. Poor kid. 

You can see the torn up gums a little here.

We love going outside. It's a great, free, simple excursion. I get to follow him around, hold his hand across roads, and we sometimes go to see our friends who just had a beautiful baby. :)

This picture makes me smile. What a cute, funny boy.

Chowing down on corn on the cob.

He is starting to imitate us a lot more. He is figuring out our routines and what we do. I love it. Here, he's putting on my shower cap.

My boy is also quite smart. He LOVES reading and numbers and letters. In this picture, he was balancing numbers on me wherever they would stay. :)

A little tired?

 See that white stuff? That's hail! It just came down randomly that day. It was so loud and crazy! And then it was gone. Melted quickly, too.

Balancing blocks and practicing numbers while also identifying animals by sound. :)

So dang cute.

My boys on Mother's Day. They're both so amazing and sweet. I am one lucky girl.

My Mother's Day photo

Gigi came to play one day, so C was sweet and pushed her around on his car. It was quite cute.

See? I told you he liked books!

In May, we put in a garden out back!!!

So first, I got to sand and stain 16 foot pieces of wood.

I was nearing the end of sanding and staining when I got a MASSIVE sliver.

See????

Oh my word, it hurt so bad!!! It was huge, I was home with C taking a nap, and I was shaking and crying, so I couldn't see through my tears or hold still enough to pull it out. Thankfully, my sweet neighbor was just pulling in from the store and she was able to pull this sucker out!

It was terrible.

I did a good job staining, though!

 About a week or so later, we had Eric and John and Linda come help set up the garden. 

Eric brought Gigi.

They dug a trench into the grass so the boards could be level and in the dirt.

Then 4x4 posts were put in at each corner.

That was tough work. Hammering, digging, hammering, hammering, hammering.

C and Gigi were so willing to help.

The next morning (?), we finished putting posts in and nailing everything together for the frame. (There are posts int he middle of the big 16 foot boards also.)

Then we had some friends come over to help put the dirt in. We laid down cardboard to block some of the grass. (I sprayed some roundup underneath the cardboard, so hopefully not much grass will find its way to sunlight.

The Davis' and Aja's were the ones to come help and Amanda was on picture duty, so she got one of her little one swinging. :)

Miriam and Amanda were mostly on kid duty while the rest of us put in the dirt and mixed it around (We did 2 kinds of dirt)

Andrew and J took off their shoes and walked around in the dirt to mix it and stamp it down a little.

Kinda nasty.

The garden looked beautiful! I was so thrilled!!

C liked playing in the dirt, too. :)

Moving back to earlier in the month (we skipped around to follow the progress of the garden… )

I love that C is comfortable laying on top of his toys while he reads a book. 

Love this kid

 I just thought this was adorable. He put Christopher Robin in the back of his car, just like you're supposed to! Smart little boy! (Sorry, most of the pictures I have will induce sappy 'I love this boy' statements. Feel free to skip them.)

After being 97th in line for this one copy the entire Treasure Valley Library system has, I got to read Allegiant!

It took some getting used to with switching character perspective, but overall, it was a good read.

This was funny. My boy loves baths. Probably because it's warm…

I filled up the kiddie pool on a very hot day and he FREAKED out. This was him getting mad at me because 

a) I put his pool toys in there and they were going to drown, 

b) I was taking pictures, and 

c) I was laughing while I took said pictures. Poor kid.

After a lot of tears and saving his pool toys from sure destruction, he was finally willing to touch the water and stand in it. Definitely not splash or sit in. :)

Along with identifying numbers, he's been learning how to count to 10. It's been cute.

Playing with this awesome toy during my oil change.

Perfect sand boxes. No need for covers, no need to worry about dumb cats… I love them! 

Flower pot and sand. Done. We also have a canning ring that we put in there and then the other person has to find it.

I planted a new rose bush (last one was diseased) and the roses were beautiful! 

Ha! This picture makes me laugh. C really likes coloring. He knows that you're supposed to color the one item instead of just scribble randomly. He also has an obsession with eyes. And in a Dora coloring book, it's kinda creepy.

One of C's favorite stuffed animals is my Abu from when I was 5. Love having my treasures treasured again!

Ah, a not-so-sappy-cute picture! I'm pretty sure he was mad at me for trying to take off or put on his pants. Either way, it was funny.

I got a pretty new motorcycle helmet. I love it! Floral design in gray on the sides, drop down visor which I can switch between sunglasses or clear. I like it.

In my family, we sneeze in the sun. Ever noticed that with you?

In my family, we actually sneeze more than most people. Every generation, it seems to get less and less, but it's still there. When I sneeze because of going outside into the bright sun, I can hear my dad saying "Good girl." :)

My boy definitely has it, too. Poor kid is very sensitive to light with his pale eyes. So we got some $5 walmart How to Train Your Dragon sunglasses. I love it. When he puts them on himself, he does it upside down.

Gpa reading to him before bed.

Coloring on the floor.

This was when we got to meet baby Carma for the first time. Our friends down the road and in our ward have 3 boys and now this one girl. C loves babies, so we jumped at the opportunity to go see her. She's adorable. Man oh man!

C likes wearing my ring when I take it off to lotion him up, so we put on Daddy's ring, too.

concentrating on his game

hehehehehehehehehehe love it

After he woke up, all he wanted was to play in his room, so I put him down. When I came back in later, he was surrounded by all his friends happily playing. Makes me wonder what he thinks and how he plays. Do they have personalities yet? Or are they just pretty toys to play with? So fun. I love all the learning he is doing!!!

Coming up: Mom's visit and a special announcement!