Halloween 2012

Love, love, love Halloween. :-)

 

Silly faces

 

 Rock Star Costume

Cowboy

 

Ninja

 

Monster

At our street party

Playing football 

 

Caught Michael smiling

This little girl followed Jack the whole time - so adorable!

My nice looking husband

Julianna's Birthday Party

We celebrated Julianna's birthday today. It was so much fun!! We had a Halloween theme. It was a lot of work to prepare it, but so worth it.

Oil Ranch

Marco's work had a party at the Oil Ranch. It was so much fun!!

General Conference Oct. 2012

Marco and Michael went to Utah to watch it live. The rest of us are home enjoying homemade cinnamon rolls, conference bingo, watching from a tent like in King Benjamin's time, etc... not as good as watching it live, but very good nonetheless!!

Marco left step-by-step instructions on how to connect the laptop to the tv to watch conference... it worked!! Well, mostly... I had to call him one time to get the sound louder... but I'm so happy it worked after that!!

 

This is tradition! Nothing like homemade cinnamon rolls on Conference day...

Our Trees and Garden

A year after we moved here, Julianna begged us for a tree. We bought her a small Bradford Pear on clearance and I planted it myself in August 2008 with a little help from her. About a month after I planted it, Hurricane Ike happened. During the storm, Julianna was really sick with a 103-4 fever, but all she worried about was her tree. I tried to prepare her for the possible loss of the Bradford Pear, but she told me her tree would be ok because she had said a prayer. The morning after the hurricane, we went outside  and her tree was standing completely undamaged, although most of our well-established shrubs that were planted more than a year before were off the soil... her faith was really amazing!! I wish we had a picture of the tree at the time we planted it. I did find a picture of it from January 2010.

 Here is the tree today... see how the trunk is much thicker... the tree is much taller too, although the first picture was not a really good one since it was winter and the tree was bare...

 

 

Michael also wanted his own tree. We went shopping for one and came home with two!! This one he's holding is a peach tree and the tiny one to the right is a tangerine one. Michael dug the two wholes by himself and both him and I planted the trees... he did most of the work though. Raphael helped a little too...

 

The boys working hard...

 

 

Here is Julianna taking grass off her tree so we can put more mulch on top. Look at Sadie, our faithful dog by her side.

 

We also planted a vegetable garden this year. We are highly unexperienced and our garden was mostly a huge mess... we didn't realize how big plants get and planted a lot of stuff together with no room for them to grow... but they did grow and a lot!! And they grew on top of each other... however, our bell peppers were somewhat successful... they are tiny, but we get lots of them every week and they are delicious. I use them all the time. The red ones start purple, then turn green, and then turn red. The orange ones start white and then turn orange... I have to admit that I didn't figure this out until yesterday... I even told my mother-in-law that I never got a white one until I was pruning yesterday and found a few white ones and a few white turning orange.. then I made the connection...

Here is our lettuce... after our huge cucumber plant died, the lettuce found room to grow... look at the green onions between them... they've been very successful too

 

Here is our broccoli... there are no florets right now as I had just pruned them before the picture... it's a strong plant, but our florest are usually so tiny that they are not worth picking... I usually just let them turn into flowers.

Our Lima beans... Julianna planted them in school and we transplanted them here. It's a very easy plant to grow!! We didn't get many beans though, but the ones we got were yummy.

 

We also planted basil and it's doing really well. I forgot to take a picture of it and it's dark outside right now. I love it a lot since I love cooking with it.

Plants with no success: Tomatoes - I planted two varieties. The plants grew, but we didn't get a single tomato. Cucumbers - the plant grew huge, but it got infested with bugs and died before giving any cucumbers... Spinach- they were growing beautifully until the cucumber plant overtook them... I'll definately try them next year. Carrots - the broccoli took over their place as well and they never grew much. The one I picked after 3 months was only 1-inch tall... I'll try next year again.

Jack Being Two

What can I say... Jack is a real handful. :-) He won't give up on what he wants and will bug you to death until he gets it... I love him for that, but boy, it's hard! Jack is also really funny... he's always making silly faces, imitating our voices, getting something from us and running away with it, etc.

 

Today I decided to take a few pictures that show a little of his personality...

He asks me for lip balm all the time just so he can lick it. 

He takes his shorts off and when I ask him to put it on again, this is how he does it

He loves going in Raphael's room and dumping everything on the floor

I found this thingy at Toys R Us that won't allow Jack to get in anymore... hahahaha Raphael loves it so much that when Jack tries to get in, Raphael laughs and laughs...

 

 

 He loves his little HotWheels at nap time...

Jack started climbing out the crib a few days ago... luckily I had this wonderful gadget in my attic that came in very handy... a crib tent!! I should send a medal to whoever came up with it. 

Jack is finally over a phase when he took all his clothes and diaper off  in bed... it was so annoying... I would come get him in the morning and the crib would be all dirty... I would have to change his sheets twice a day... a friend told me to put his zip up jammies backwards... I tried it and after two days he figured how to take it out... then I started putting his diaper backwards along with the jammies... one more day and he figured that out too... then I just let him do it for another day and decided that my next step would be silver tape... after doing it for another day, he got bored... he figured his crib smelled nicer if he kept his diaper and clothes on... hope he won't change his mind again!!

 

He just started a phase of moving chairs to get things he wants from on high places... I caught him eating a pop tart.. then I caught him with his hand inside the candy jar... and I caught him getting baby food jars... now I've been watching him like a hawk...