The day of the first chocolate cake from scratch

The day of the first vintage hand-me-down

Today, No.3 wore a dress to church that used to be one of my dresses when I was little. I would love to find some pictures of me in it, but haven't been able to find any yet. The dress was so cute on her! I didn't realize until now that the dress was handmade - I need to find out who made it. Quite possibly one of my aunts made it for me thirty-something years ago.

FYI - No.3 had just woken up from her nap in this picture. It's apparent that she wasn't really in the mood for a photo shoot.

Garden Update Week #7 - The day of the first harvest!

We came home from vacation to seven beautiful burpless cucumbers! Look at these beauties, and they taste great! We've been enjoying them - the kids like them peeled, sliced and sprinkled with a little salt. Dad and I like them thinly sliced and marinated. Here's a great marinade recipe that I got from my Aunt Rose:

1/4 c. Rice Vinegar

1/4 c. Sugar

1/4 tsp. Course Salt

1/8 tsp. Fresh Ground Pepper (I added this part)

1 to 2 tsp. Fresh Ground Ginger (I like to go heavy on the ginger)

One hint* - you do have to slice the cucumbers pretty thin to really get enough taste. I use a V-slicer on its thinnest setting. Yum!

The day of the first house painting project...

Dad decided that he didn't want to pay the $1,200 quoted price to have the trim on our house professionally painted. So, as resourceful as he is, he borrowed a hugemongous laddar, bought one $25 (after rebate) gallon of paint, and went to work. It's only taken a few weeks, but I'm proud of him for being just about done. Although, I must say I worried a little about him falling...

The house looks great, so now we want to change out the shutters too (its never ending...). I'll post the completed project once our shudders come in and get hung (we had to special order the right size).

P.S. Before you think we're cool for saving the money, we ended up spending the saved money on Living Scriptures DVDs from some BYU students that came to our door last week. *Sigh*

Garden Update Week #5 - baby veggies!

We have little baby veggies - cucumbers, peppers, and even the tomatoes have decided to do something (I was getting a little worried because they didn't seem to be growing much).

My favorite, though, are the darling little tendrils that stick out like bad hair or cling for dear life to the trellises. Isn't nature fascinating...

The day of the first fish babysitting job...

Toby, our friend's beta fish, has come to stay with us for a week. The kids don't have any pets, so they are pretty excited. I just hope we don't kill it.

Garden Update Week #3 - Cucumbers are blooming!

Both the bush and burpless cucumbers sprouted happy yellow blooms a couple days ago! I'm hoping a lot of bees come around to help cross pollinate them now. Apparently cucumbers are gender specific and the pollen from the little girl cucumber blooms and the little boy cucumber blooms have to get together (California could use some gender lessons from cucumbers). The cucumbers accomplish this with the assistance of the bees. Otherwise, the cucumbers will turn out misshapen. I would do it myself, but I can't tell the difference between the girls and boys.

The carrots are really growing too. They are for thinning, which we'll try and get done this next week.

In fact, the entire yard is starting to bloom. We've lived here for five years, but this is the first year that I've actually cared for the landscaping to at least a minimal degree (i.e. watering, fertilizing, weeding, etc.). It's been fun to see things come together after some work we've put into it. Here are some pics...

Butterfly Bush

Daisies

Daylilies