Things I've Said I'd Show But Haven't Yet

This is for those who I've told that I'd show you the curtains we put up over the Christmas holidays.

These are the curtains for the front window. This is also the table that we were given at Christmas time by someone at church who didn't need it any more. It's been such a blessing to be able to have elbow room and space for the food on the table.



These are the curtains for the back window. I was so pleased at how it turned out. It's a burgundy sheer over a white lined panel.



The window is over 14 feet wide and it was tricky to figure out how to get it to look like one rod, but we bought 3 sets of the same rod and we were able to take off the ends and connect them together.



Here they are closed.

Birthday Bowling

Joseph had a birthday recently. He wanted a cake with dirt (crushed Oreos) and worms (gummy worms). This was the result.



He liked his cake and his present. It's Petey Piranha from the Mario games. He's wanted it since Christmas, so he was very pleased.





Joseph wanted to go bowling for his birthday and see Miriam bowl, so we went to the BYU Games Center and had fun.

Here is Joseph bowling.



Here is Emma, who got the best score of all of us this time.



Sarah got the hang of rolling it by herself.



Miriam thought it was great every time the pins fell down. We were grateful for the bumpers.



We look forward to going again.

Working in the Yard

When spring and summer come around, it's time to work in the yard. We, meaning mostly Neil, have been working to make the yard beautiful and lower maintenance.

Warning: this post involves many pictures of green, growing things.

Last summer involved trimming hedges,



chopping down a wild rose bush that had grown a bit too much,



making a path to the shed,



and planting and mulching an apple tree and a cherry tree.



This spring, Neil replaced dead rose bushes in the front yard and mulched them.





He trimmed bushes and trees. This is the crab apple tree in the front yard.



While I went to BYU Women's Conference this year, each of our children chose a perennial to put in the lamp post box in the front yard and Neil planted strawberries in the top box. The kids are having a lot of fun seeing the flowers come out.



Last month, Neil planted a raspberry bush, a blackberry bush, and a blueberry bush and mulched it.



The latest project was to plant perennials and move the peony plants from the garden area and mulch the area around the dwarf spruce in the middle of the back yard.





The roses are starting to bloom and it's exciting to see growing things.

A Major Reason Why I Don't Post A Lot Lately

Greetings all you faithful readers! Almost six months have passed since my last post. There are many reasons for this, but I will focus on this one...remodeling.

As you may know, we moved from student housing to a house last spring. Part of our rental agreement includes making improvements to the property, so we have spent much time improving. Our latest room started like this:



and involved some Spackle,



some painting and carpet removal,



some sweeping up old carpet pad to reveal beautiful wood floor underneath,



a wonderful tool that made pulling up carpet tacks much easier than the last room we worked on,



to a room we could move into so we could work on the next bedroom.